Whether a conflict erupts at work or at home, we frequently fall back on the tendency to try to correct the other person or group’s perceptions, lecturing them about why we’re right—and they’re wrong. Deep down, we know that this conflict management approach usually fails to resolve the conflict and often only makes it worse.
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When you download the New Conflict Management: Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies to Avoid Litigation you will learn how wise negotiators extract unexpected value using an indirect approach to conflict management.
dealing with conflict
What is Dealing with Conflict in Negotiation?
In dealing with conflict, you can and should draw on the same principles of collaborative negotiation that you use in dealmaking.
Whether dealing with conflict at work or at home, we frequently fall back on the tendency to try to correct the other person or group’s perceptions, lecturing them about why we’re right—and they’re wrong. Deep down, we know that this conflict resolution approach usually fails to resolve the conflict and often only makes it worse.
Instead, we may try to tamp down our negative emotions, hoping that our feelings will dissipate with time. In fact, conflict tends to become more entrenched, and parties have a greater need for conflict resolution when they avoid dealing with their strong emotions.
For example, conflict in the workplace often arises when resentment, anger, and other negative emotions are left to fester. An accidental slight can lead to a full-blown dispute if the parties involved fail to address it explicitly.
Unfortunately, when dealing with conflict in the workplace, employees usually make matters worse. Because our perceptions are based on self-interest, we’re likely to have difficulty finding solutions that both sides consider to be fair. In addition, people tend to escalate their commitment to conflict, leading to deeper and deeper animosity.
If you experience conflict in the workplace, whether due to a personality issue or a disagreement over a work matter, enlist the help of a manager—someone you trust to handle the conflict confidentially and effectively.
When you download the New Conflict Management: Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies to Avoid Litigation you will learn how wise negotiators extract unexpected value using an indirect approach to conflict management.
We will send you a download link to your copy of this free report and notify you by email when we post new information on our website about how to handle conflict management.
The following items are tagged dealing with conflict:
Ask A Negotiation Expert: Dealing With Conflict? Bring High-Level Values to the Table
Melvin Shakun is a management consultant, professor emeritus at New York University, and founding editor of the international journal Group Decision and Negotiation. He spoke with Negotiation Briefings about dealing with conflict, and how negotiators can break through impasse by appealing to common values.
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Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Training: Mediation Curriculum
In 2009, we collected many types of curriculum materials from teachers and trainers who attended the Mediation Pedagogy Conference. We received general materials about classes on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as well as highly specific and idiosyncratic units like Conflict Resolution through Literature: Romeo and Juliet and a negotiating training package for female managers … Read
How to Manage Conflict at Work
Sooner or later, almost all of us will find ourselves trying to cope with how to manage conflict at work. At the office, we may struggle to work through high-pressure situations with people with whom we have little in common. We need a special set of strategies to calm tempers, restore order, and meet each … Read
What is Conflict Resolution, and How Does It Work?
If you work with others, sooner or later you will almost inevitably face the need for conflict resolution. You may need to mediate a dispute between two members of your department. Or you may find yourself angered by something a colleague reportedly said about you in a meeting. Or you may need to engage in … Read
Conflict-Management Styles: Pitfalls and Best Practices
People approach conflict differently, depending on their innate tendencies, their life experiences, and the demands of the moment. Negotiation and conflict-management research reveals how our differing conflict-management styles mesh with best practices in conflict resolution.
A Model of Conflict-Management Styles
In 1974, Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann introduced a questionnaire, the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, … Read
Negotiation Team Dynamics: The Divide-and-Conquer Strategy
In an interesting example of negotiation team dynamics, during a 2018 New Year’s Day address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un proposed opening talks with South Korea to discuss the North’s possible participation in the Winter Olympics, to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the following month. Hoping to avoid disruption by the North, South Korean … Read
Four Ways to Manage Conflict in the Workplace
Samantha was livid. While making a presentation during a meeting that both attended, Brad, a newcomer in her department, had shared some slides during a presentation that were clearly based on ideas for a project she’d shared with him privately—without giving her credit. Samantha angrily confronted Brad in his office after the meeting; he became … Read
Win Win Negotiation: Different Cultures, Shared Meals
From movie moguls hammering out film deals in Los Angeles to publishers and agents assessing each other’s tastes in New York, the “power lunch” has become a familiar institution. Across the globe, negotiators often do business over shared meals, whether out of convenience or as part of a concerted effort to get to know one … Read
Conflict and Conflict Resolution at Work
In the workplace, negotiations with coworkers over issues such as project assignments, departmental funding, and vacation requests can sometimes flare into conflicts. When they do, the experience can be stressful, and the organizational outcomes sometimes suffers as a result.
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Seeking a Win-Win Negotiation? Pass the Chips and Salsa
From movie moguls hammering out film deals in Los Angeles to publishers and agents assessing each other’s tastes in New York, the “power lunch” has become a familiar institution. Across the globe, negotiators often do business over shared meals, whether out of convenience or as part of a concerted effort to get to know one … Read
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- Business Negotiations
- Conflict Resolution
- Crisis Negotiations
- Dealing with Difficult People
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- When Dealing with Difficult People, Try a Complementary Approach
- Examples of Difficult Situations at Work: Consensus and Negotiated Agreements
- Dealing with Difficult People and Negotiation: When Should You Give Up the Fight?
- Dispute Resolution: Building Momentum through Small Wins
- Dealmaking
- Dear Negotiation Coach: Will Your First Offer Be in the Right Ballpark?
- Dear Negotiation Coach: Negotiating a Win Win Relationship with Friends
- Business Negotiation Skills: How to Enhance Your Negotiated Agreement
- Dear Negotiation Coach: Managing Expectations of Our Own
- Negotiating Skills: Learn How to Build Trust at the Negotiation Table
- Dispute Resolution
- Using Principled Negotiation to Resolve Disagreements
- How to Write a Contract That Doesn’t Leave Room for Interpretation
- Repairing Relationships Using Negotiation Skills
- Patience is a Winning Negotiation Skill for Getting What You Want at the Negotiation Table
- Choose the Right Dispute Resolution Process
- International Negotiation
- Leadership Skills
- For Women Negotiating Salary, “Do It Yourself” Sends the Wrong Message
- How to Negotiate in Cross-Cultural Situations
- What Is Facilitative Leadership?
- Leadership Styles in Negotiation: The Case of Ebay and Paypal
- Leadership Skills in Negotiation: How to Negotiate Equity Incentives with Senior Management
- Mediation
- Negotiation Skills
- Negotiation Training
- Salary Negotiations
- Teaching Negotiation
- Planning Your Syllabus for Next Semester? Check Out the Brief Course Outlines from the TNRC
- The Best New Simulations
- Teach Your Students to Take Their Mediation Skills to the Next Level
- Teaching with Multi-Round Simulations: Balancing Internal and External Negotiations
- Camp Lemonnier: Negotiating a Lease Agreement for a Key Military Base in Africa
- Win-Win Negotiations