Conflict Resolution Strategies for Personal Relationship and the Workplace

Did you know that most relationship troubles stem from unresolved conflicts? While conflicts are common, it is how you handle them that truly matters. What this means is that how you handle conflicts can make or break a relationship.

Interpersonal relationships are central to your well-being and can contribute to the overall quality of life. This is why learning to manage conflict effectively is so important. It enables you to navigate challenges with greater understanding, minimize misunderstandings, and protect the relationships that matter to you the most.

Conflicts can give rise to strong emotions, specifically negative emotions. When conflicts are not resolved in a healthy manner, they can break relationships and lead to resentment. However, when you effectively resolve conflicts, you can strengthen relationships by building trust and understanding.

Conflict resolution is where two or more parties get together and resolve the conflict in a way that is good for all. While conflicts are common, allowing them to fester leads to deeper wounds. Denying or avoiding conflicts is not always possible. Therefore, conflict resolution is an essential skill for you to learn and develop to stop conflicts from impacting your life and relationships adversely.

Conflicts can occur in different settings, from personal and professional to even virtual settings. Therefore, effective conflict resolution skills enable you to resolve and get past conflicts, no matter what the setting is. While conflict resolution’s meaning can differ from one setting to another, the crux of it is communication, empathy, understanding, mediation, and negotiation.

When you have effective conflict resolution skills, you can foster healthy relationships in your life and contribute to a positive environment wherever you go. For instance, in your personal life, you can use your conflict resolution skills to reduce the effects of conflicts on your interpersonal relationships. Meanwhile, in your professional life, you can build teamwork and create a positive company environment where conflicts are minimal and every employee feels respected.

Moreover, conflict resolution in itself can open up a myriad of career paths like mediation, arbitration, litigation, human resources, counseling, and social work.

There are five common conflict resolution strategies that you can apply in different settings, which are as follows:

Remaining Calm:

Conflict flares tempers like little else, and it is easy to let your emotions get the better of you. This is why it is crucial for you to remain calm and level-headed in the face of conflict. Take deep breaths, count to ten in your mind, drink a glass of water, or even go out for a brisk walk to collect your thoughts. Give yourself and the others some time before you can resolve the conflict and resume.

Communication:

Effective communication is central to conflict resolution. Both verbal and non-verbal communication skills allow you to articulate, collaborate, and persuade. Communication does not just resolve the conflict at hand; it also prevents similar conflicts from developing in the future.

Active Listening:

Conflicts can become a war of words within no time, where everybody is speaking and nobody is listening. However, listening is a very important skill for you to develop as it can restrict conflicts from devolving further. When you focus on what the other person is saying without interrupting, you understand where the other person is coming from and how they feel about things.

When you listen with the intention to understand and not reply, it goes a long way in reaching an understanding.

No Blaming:

When conflicts develop, there is a lot of blame to go around. It is always easy to lay the blame at someone else’s feet rather than to take the responsibility ourselves. However, conflicts hardly ever develop because of a single person or entity. Therefore, when you choose not to blame anyone, it lays a healthy foundation for conflict resolution.

Apologizing:

Conflict resolution comes with accepting responsibility. Sorry is a very simple word but very hard to come by. Yet, apologizing indicates accountability and honesty, which goes a long way in successfully resolving conflicts.

When you address a conflict, there are different strategies you can depend on. Typically, these are used in the court of law, but to a certain extent, you can use them in your life as well (depending on the circumstances):

Negotiation:

Negotiation is when you and the others involved collaborate and come to a conclusion. When you negotiate, you can find common ground and build better, stronger relationships.

Meditation:

Mediation is when you act as the third party, a neutral person who does not have any vested interests. When you are a mediator, you need to be unbiased and empathetic in getting the parties involved to work together and come to a common understanding.

Arbitration:

Arbitration is when a neutral party acts as a judge and makes the final decision to end the conflict. When you are acting as an arbitrator, you listen to both sides and make a decision based on the evidence presented to you. While nobody can dispute the decision you have made, you need to leave some wiggle room for negotiation.

Here are a few steps to help you effectively resolve conflicts and turn challenges into opportunities for growth:

Planning:

While conflicts can arise at any given point in time, staying ahead of them is the key. Conflict resolution needs you to focus on the little things that matter, like choosing the right time and place. You need to plan in advance to make it effective, as it can have a counterproductive effect otherwise.

Direct and Clear Communication:

Being direct and clear in communication is effective for conflict resolution. It is especially useful when it is done one-on-one or face-to-face. However, this can vary from one case to another, especially if there is a threat of violence or something similar.

Listen:

Communication is two-way, so it is not just about speaking. It also requires listening. Listening to what the other person or party has to say can help you understand where they are coming from.

Talking It Through:

Do not leave any stone unturned when it comes to discussing conflicts. Ensure you have open and detailed conversations, where it becomes clear what each party is feeling, where they are coming from, and what can be the most effective way of resolving the conflict.

Brainstorming Solutions:

Conflict resolution needs teamwork so that you can collaborate and brainstorm solutions that are beneficial to all. It is like finding a middle path, which is neither too soft or too extreme for any party.

Following Through:

Once you identify a solution or a path forward, the final step will be to follow through. Not following through with the solution and checking with the others along the way can throw away all the efforts you and the others have put in thus far.

As we told you before, the meaning of conflict resolution varies from context to context. The skills you need for personal relationships may be different from what you need in a professional environment. So, you will have to plan and prepare accordingly.

Here are the specific conflict resolution skills for personal relationships:

Emotional Regulation:

Personal conflicts can lead to emotional extremes. So, the key is to manage your emotions and reflect upon the conflict in a collected manner. Emotional intelligence and anger management are some of the other skills you can develop and foster for better emotional regulation.

Active Listening:

Listening to the other person, focusing on what they are saying, and posing open-ended questions to understand them allows you to realize where the other person is coming from. This increases understanding.

Communication:

Communication is key in personal conflicts. It needs to be clear and direct, but at the same time, it must be open, empathetic, and sincere. Use more “I” statements to make communication personal; it indicates responsibility and avoids blame games.

Assertiveness:

Assertiveness is often mistaken for bluntness or rudeness. However, when communicated properly, it indicates self-control, self-respect, and fairness while also keeping the door open for other perspectives and opinions.

Apology:

Personal conflicts are rarely a single person’s responsibility. So, knowing when to apologize leads to successful conflict resolution.

Conflict resolution in workplace settings requires a different set of skills than in personal settings. Having good conflict resolution skills can make you an asset in your workplace, as a smooth mediator and negotiator can create a positive company environment and boost productivity.

Identify the Root of a Conflict:

Take a deeper look into the conflict so as to identify the roots of the said conflict, which will not be readily evident. For instance, if conflicts arise from a mistake, the mistake in itself can be the consequence of unclear job roles. So, identifying the root of a conflict is very important.

Investigate:

Once you identify the root of the conflict, investigate further to identify what is negotiable and non-negotiable. This helps you to formulate effective solutions.

Identifying Solutions:

Conflict resolution requires teamwork. So, you collaborate with the other parties involved and brainstorm solutions that can effectively resolve the conflict. Give everybody an equal chance to speak up and share and find a path forward that is beneficial for all.

Finding Common Ground:

Conflict resolution is about finding a common ground that is agreeable to all parties involved. So, when you arrive at a solution, ensure it is the best possible solution that is not too lenient or too hard on anyone.

Being Open to Negotiation:

Ideally, conflict resolution will lead to a win-win solution. However, this does not happen every time, so you need to make room for negotiation.

Even within workplace settings, conflict resolution within a team context requires a different approach. In a team environment, conflict resolution’s meaning expands to leadership and a collaborative approach to ensure everyone’s voice is heard and respected.

Open and Clear Communication:

Communication between the leader and the team members must be direct and, whenever possible, face-to-face.

Hear Everyone Out:

Listening to all team members is important so that everybody feels listened to and can feel safe in the knowledge that their inputs mean something.

Problem-Focused:

Conflict resolution within teams must focus on the problem and not on the members. This helps stay objective and prevents blaming or shaming.

Agreements and Disagreements:

Even within teams, finding common ground becomes important. This will depend on what everybody can agree upon and disagree with. Ideally, this will lead to satisfaction all around.

Planning:

Conflict resolution requires developing a plan that is based on common goals. This makes it goal-driven and action-oriented.

Decisiveness:

Leaders and team members must show decisiveness when it comes to following through with the developed plan. This can also help find loopholes and rectify them.