Scenario 1:
You are at work and you have a 'great' proposal for the other members of your team of 5 people. You have some seniority in your team and you could probably get your way even if the others choose not to consent. Though you strongly believe in your proposal, the other members of your team do not share your enthusiasm and they want to scrap the idea. How do you respond?
Scenario 2:
You are a business person who is interviewing a highly qualified executive to head a major department in your organization. You are both very knowledgeable about your industry and the economy in general. Unfortunately, you have divergent views on what direction should be taken to improve the standing of the company. As the business person/interviewer, how would you respond? If you were the executive how would you handle this?
Your response in the scenarios above will depend on your default ‘conflict mode’. You will note that none of the scenarios above necessarily include the normal definition of ‘conflict’. What we are seeing is just typical issues regarding differing viewpoints that naturally occur in the workplace or in business generally. Our response tend to differ based on whether we are more assertive, cooperative or both.
Using assertiveness and cooperation as the two main factors, the 5 basic conflict modes (competing, avoiding, accommodating, compromising and collaborating) can be outlined based on the chart below.
THE CONFLICT MODES
As you can see, people who are less cooperative are those that have either avoiding or competitive modes. For those that practice avoidance all they want to do is sidestep the issue. They don’t care if things are left unresolved; all they want to do is withdraw.
On the other hand, competitive people are those that are in the “my way or the highway” crowd. They love to argue/debate and they don’t mind using rank or influence to get what they want.
Individuals who are highly cooperative tend to collaborate or accommodate. Accommodating individuals put the needs of others above their own… they are selfless and they always put their desires last.
Collaborators, however, practice active listening. They want to hear everyone’s ideas/concerns and they use impassive analysis in making decisions.
With these four conflict modes, you will note that those that want to withdraw from the issues, avoiding and accommodating personalities are low in assertiveness. And, those that want to tackle the situation head on, collaborators and competitive individuals, are highly assertive.
Finally we come to the compromiser. This type of person is equally assertive and cooperative. They don’t mind doing a give and take. They love negotiating and assessing value but in the end it usually comes down to quickly splitting everything in half.
Your default mode will differ from others based on your personality. It is important to note, however, that you do not have to be locked into this automatic way of doing things. You can decide what mode to use depending on the situation you are facing. For example, if time is a factor, being a compromiser is probably a really good option. If you want to build trust and respect among your teammates, then being a collaborator is your best bet. If you feel as if you are not fully prepared to deal with an issue, then it is good to avoid it until you are in a much stronger position. And, if you genuinely believe the alternatives available are superior to your own, then accommodating is the way to go.
As you can see these 5 different modes are integral to successfully communicating and building relationships in the workplace and in business. Depending on your goals, you should be able to switch back and forth between all 5.
To get that process started, you should get o general idea of your own default conflict mode. (You can find the test here). Then, take the time learn the pro’s and con’s of using the various conflict modes in different situations. Examples of these can be found here.
Now that you are more prepared, how would you respond in scenarios above?
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