When parties get entrenched in conflict, a dysfunctional approach to conflict resolution is typically to blame. With a better understanding of common conflict styles, we can start to move toward more productive and collaborative ways of engaging with each other. After considering the various types of conflict styles, we’ll explore how they can manifest in conflicts between groups—and how groups might use this knowledge to move toward collaboration.
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The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument
In 1974, Kenneth W. Thomas and Dr. Ralph H. Kilmann presented a questionnaire that aimed to measure people’s conflict styles, called the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Based on people’s responses to pairs of statements, the instrument categorizes respondents into the following five conflict styles:
- Competing. People with a competing conflict style tend to view conflict resolution as a game to be won or lost. Rather than recognizing opportunities for value creation and collaboration, they try to claim as much as they can for themselves. Although value claiming is a critical in negotiation, a rigidly competitive style sacrifices overall value and perpetuates conflict.
- Avoiding. Engaging with conflict directly can be quite uncomfortable, and many of us prefer to avoid it. Of course, when we avoid conflict, our problems often fester. Though an avoidant conflict style might at first appear to be the opposite of a competitive style, it can be similarly detrimental to conflict resolution.
- Accommodating. Negotiators who adopt an accommodating style tend to defer to others’ wishes. That leads them to appear agreeable and easygoing. However, people who put others’ needs first often find that their resentment grows over time. As such, they are likely to benefit from learning to express their needs and concerns.
- Compromising. In the midst of a protracted conflict, we sometimes throw up our hands and propose a seemingly clear-cut compromise—such as the halfway point between two extreme positions or a significant concession—just to move forward. Although a compromising conflict style can shake things up, the resolution is often short-lived because it doesn’t account for the root issues at stake.
- Collaborating. Those who adopt a collaborative approach to conflict resolution attempt to understand the deeper needs behind their counterparts’ demands and try to express their own needs and interests fully. They see value in discussing and working through strong emotions, and they propose trade-offs across issues that will give each side more of what they want.
A collaborative negotiation style tends to be the most productive means of managing conflict and fostering productive long-term relationships. However, the other conflict-management styles can be effectively applied to different phases and types of conflict in management. For example, if you sense that dwelling on a particular issue is making your counterpart uncomfortable, you might choose an avoiding style and let it drop, at least for the time being. When you’ve made headway on other issues and established some degree of trust, you might be able to address the hot-button issue more productively.
Similarly, you might choose to be accommodating on certain topics with the goal of winning concessions on issues that matter more to you. Competing can be an effective strategy when you’ve jointly created value and it’s time to divide up resources, and compromising can be an appropriate way of wrapping up a relatively insignificant issue.
Moving Past Avoidance
When a conflict becomes particularly entrenched, parties often settle into the “avoiding” model identified in the Thomas-Kilmann instrument. Animosity, suspicion, and a belief that mutual understanding is impossible keep parties from even trying to engage with each other.
Such was the case in 2008, when a group of Israeli and Syrian activists, frustrated by failed efforts to resolve the ongoing conflict between their nations, “decided to attempt their own online conflict resolution,” write researchers Camille Otrakji and colleagues in a recent article.
The two sides were prohibited by their governments from meeting directly, but they came up with a novel way of engaging indirectly online with each other with the hope of moving toward greater understanding.
Over a period of months, two groups, one with about 10 Israeli experts and one with about 10 Syrian experts, developed an online list of their side’s objections to or reservations about reaching a peace agreement. Each group wrote and negotiated its own list internally before sharing it with the other side. The two sides then exchanged lists and wrote with counterarguments to the other side’s objections. The lists were then integrated into a final report published online. The process they used was called SACRE, short for Symmetric Asynchronous Conflict Resolution Environment.
In a follow-up experiment, 85% of U.S. and Canadian college students presented with the objections and counterarguments developed by the activists reported gaining a better understanding of the Israeli-Syrian conflict, and about 20% of the students shifted toward more neutral views of the conflict.
According to Otrakji and colleagues, by facilitating asynchronous, digital exchanges, the SACRE process could prove to be a useful means of helping parties in an entrenched conflict move beyond avoidance toward collaboration. Such a process would not eliminate the need for negotiation or mediation in conflict resolution but might move parties closer to being open to interacting with each other directly—though the researchers did not test this.
The Thomas-Kilmann instrument is typically used to help people diagnose their own personal conflict styles. The SACRE process described here suggests that it can be applied to help generate new approaches to political and other conflicts.
How has your understanding of your or others’ conflict styles affected your negotiation and conflict resolution outcomes?
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