An easy way to expand your conflict resolution ability is to begin using the two step discussion process. This is so simple that you might say, "Isn't it obvious?"  Well, no.  It certainly wasn't to me for many years.  So here's a personal story that shows its power. 

In a large institution where I worked, people rolled their eyes about the facilities manager.  Kathy had been there for ages and people said she was an inflexible nitpicker.  Everyone had a story - we all had to go through her to arrange space and technical support for our meetings and workshops.

Soon after I arrived, I too had my moment with Kathy.  I needed access to meeting rooms at unusual hours.  This required a special key - which she tightly controlled.   I also needed her permission to bring in special equipment.

These are scary times, and it's not just COVID19.  Polarization is rooted now in ways not experienced in living memory.  Groups live in separate worlds, with their own news, networks, rhetoric, and influencers.  Violence, threats of violence, and disregard for democratic processes are commonplace.  It is not exaggerating to say that  the rule of law and democracy seem to be in danger.  

What can we do about it?  The causes are many; there will be no single solution.  High on the list of essential responses, I believe,  must be strategies to improve skills in resolving conflicts and building consensus.   But how?

Our methods of making decisions and resolving conflict are out-dated.

Author and former CIA analyst Martin Gurri points out that public institutions today are an inheritance of the 20th century, "the heyday of the top-down, I-talk-you-listen model of organizing humanity. They are too ponderous and too distant from ordinary people. Legitimacy depended on control over information: failure and scandal could be dealt with discreetly. Once the digital tsunami swept away the possibility of control, the system lapsed into crisis." (see his dialogue with Yuval Levin here)

Like it or not, there's no going back to the old ways of leading and managing.  We must expand the skill set of leaders at all levels. 

Does your behavior in conflict change sharply when you get upset?  Do you turn suddenly aggressive when surprised or angered?  Or, when conflict heats up, does your assertiveness quickly fade, replaced by avoidance or accommodation?

What is a Storm Shift?

Such patterns may reflect a strong Storm Shift in conflict, a marked change in behavior as stress rises.  Stress, anger, or fear trigger a shift in brain functioning, away from rational "upper brain" management, towards control by the instinct-guided "lower brain".   This can bring drastic changes in response to conflict.

A Storm Shift is not necessarily bad; it can in fact be good if your automatic responses are skillful and appropriate for the situation triggering them.  You want the surgeon who operates on you to react instantly, for example, if your blood pressure drops.  You want a quick shift to a different modality, an instant command of the situation, with clear orders to the medical team.  No negotiating, no pussyfooting around!

The passing this week of Archbishop Desmond Tutu brings a flood of memories of an amazing man and a remarkable chapter in history.  I was in South Africa from 1989 to 1995 and witnessed him in action on many occasions.   

For anyone committed to leading peaceful change in organizations, communities, or nations, there's much to learn from Tutu's life about how to be effective in human transformation.

In the framework of conflict styles, Tutu was strong in multiple styles.  He was often pushy - the Directing style. 

• choose among several options available for the format and method right for you and your setting;
• design and lead a conflict styles workshop corresponding to your existing skills; 
• equip yourself with resources for effective presentation of concepts

• interpreting scores
• use of movement to raise energy and engagement in workshops
• cross-cultural issues in conflict styles training and how to address them with Style Matters
• creating assignments and other followup activities to expand the window of learning

Trainers considering Style Matters as a conflict style inventory should be aware of two other options as well, the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and the Hammer Intercultural Conflict Style Inventory.   Style Matters has been optimized for the majority of conflict resolution trainers.  But a percentage of trainers might benefit from a specialized tool.

The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

Optimized for psychometrics. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, also known as the TKI, was developed in the 1970s with a priority on psychometric validation.

The Thomas-Kilmann is noted for its commitment to psychometrics, reflected in its commitment to the use of a question format that forces users to choose between only two possible options in responding. Although some users find this format annoying, authors Thomas and Kilmann retain it because it results, they say, in more accurate data.   For a description of my own experience with the TKI, see my blog post on it.

If psychometrics is your over-riding concern, and issues such as user friendliness, cultural flexibility, and cost have little bearing for you, the Thomas-Kilmann is probably the right choice.

Cost is $19.50 per user.   A trainer's guide is available for $250.  

If you're interested in leading conflict styles training, download my 2019 trainers' guides with a single click below.   To get notice future updates and my blog posts for conflict styles trainers, sign up on the lower right to the trainers list.  I post only a few times per year and I won't share your email address!

Comprehensive Guide.  My comprehensive Trainers Guide to Successful Conflict Styles Workshops is now in its 4th edition.  The 2019 update  is the same as previous editions, now newly edited for clarity and ease of use.  The 40 page guide provides detailed guidance for training with Style Matters (or the Thomas Kilmann or other inventories based on a similar five styles framework) and many suggestions for presenting information and leading discussion.  Download the Trainers Guide in PDF free here.

Guide to Online Version. We've also just released a 10 page companion piece, Trainers Guide to Style Matters Online. Whereas the above guide provides detailed guidance on all aspects of conflict styles training,  this short guide focuses narrowly on work with the online version of Style Matters.  If refers often to the full guide, so you should have both. Download the online training guide here.

Here's  what you need to design and implement an effective learning experience with Style Matters Online:

• Download Trainers Big Guide to Successful Conflict Styles Training.   This free 45 page guide to conflict styles training explains the five styles of conflict, the concepts of Calm and Storm, how to work with the cross-cultural aspects of Style Matters, and provides step-by-step guidance through a workshop.   In addition you need...

• Download Trainers Small Guide to Style Matters Online.   This free 10 page supplement builds on concepts in the big guide above and applies them to training with the online version.   If you’re just facilitating a conversation, you can get by with just this supplement to design your discussion.  If you’re feeling ambitious and expecting to give inputs as an active trainer role,  you should have both.   

• View Intro to Conflict Styles slide show, available in either traditional Powerpoint format or dynamic Prezi format.    This short slide show, free for online viewing and available for purchase offline, introduces core concepts of the five styles of conflict and serves as a great prelude to discussion of score reports.

• Videos.  There are several short videos to help users interpret their scores on our site.   You might want to encourage your users to review one or several of them before a workshop.  You'll find them useful to you as a trainer as well, for their present key concepts concisely.  

Sometimes when there's a conflict, the best thing to do is say nothing and just drift away.  Or say firmly, "Let's not take that on right now. "  If you're good at selective conflict avoidance, you will have a greater sense of order and control in your life, and you will have more time and patience for the issues most important to you.

This post is the first in a series to help  you expand your skill with the five styles of conflict interpersonally or in leadership.  In each post I'll show you several transition phrases for one particular style - in this post for Avoiding. Each of the five styles of conflict in Style Matters - which are similar to those found in the venerable if now out-dated Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument - will feature in posts that follow.

Not everyone needs this post!  It's especially for people who find conflict Avoiding difficult or scored low in Avoiding in their score report.  If you scored high, other posts in the series will be more useful to you. 

The Cooperating Style of conflict management is about actively seeking ways for both sides to win everything they want.  I assert myself clearly and confidently.  You do the same.  We work together to find solutions that allow us to both get what we want.  I win and so do you - how wonderful! 

Or maybe, how ridiculous.   A magical conflict style that makes everyone happy?  Ha, haa, haaa.   We could be forgiven for starting a review of Cooperating with a big laugh. Real life isn't that easy and we all have stories to prove it.

You can't do conflict resolution without doing anger management.

Anger is an emotion that everyone needs.  Don’t wish it away.  It provides resources essential to self-protection and survival.  It helps us respond quickly, with high energy, to dangerous or unpleasant situations.

But that doesn't mean it's fine to rant when you're pissed.

Talk About Anger in a Non-Angry Way

Researchers in several fields find that expressing anger in an angry way feeds the problem.

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I spent much of the last month writing new text for the score report of Style Matters. That’s the 10 page personalized report from the online version of my conflict style inventory, whose numbers, with my reflections thereon, go out to users after taking the inventory.

Commanders in military establishments, janitors in neighborhood associations, freshmen at Bible colleges, and pretty much everybody in between read (and I like to think, ponder) this thing; according to logs on our server, nearly 365 days a year.

As usual in our multi-religious family, I did both Pesach and Easter celebrations. Sort of. But mostly, while others congregated for holidays, I wrestled epiphanies in text on my laptop.

And got new hope and vision as I remembered why conflict resolution continues to grip me. Here my traditionalist and my modernist, my believing and my agnostic, my monastic and my populist selves meet. Conflict, or at least reflecting on human responses to it, remains holy ground to this once Mennonite farmer, now aging peace process facilitator.

Trainers often ask: how much time to budget for a conflict styles workshop?   It depends!

Traditional Pencil and Paper Format

In traditional pencil and paper training format, you might calculate

• Handout booklets and give quick instructions - 5 minutes
• Taking inventory - 10-15 minutes
• Tally numbers - 5 minutes (each person tallying their own)
• Explaining core concepts and interpreting numbers - 10-30 minutes
• Small group and large group discussion - 20-60 minutes

That would be enough to cover the basics of conflict styles in 80-120 minutes.  You could easily do a lot more, of course, if you have another hour or several more.   See my Trainers Guide, available as a free download, for ideas.   

Conflict Styles Training with Digital Support

Can you lead in times of emergency?  Don’t think that's for someone else.  Life exempts none from this call.  

Unless you're a hermit, a time will come when you too must act and lead in the face of danger, no matter your rank or station.

And now is the time to prepare.

Directing Stars in Emergencies

In times of grave threat, tough decisions must be made and actions quickly taken.  What protective measures to take?  Must you flee?  What to carry with you? Who gets priority for assistance?  What about those who won't budge?  Where to shelter and how to get there?

Professional emergency responders such as police, fire, medical, and transportation structure decision-making and action in tight chain-of-command hierarchies.   Superiors decide and give orders; subordinates obey.  

If you expect to do conflict styles training with Style Matters online, take a minute to scan our new infographics.  They show two different options for getting users pre-paid to the inventory and tracking who has taken it.  



Both get users to the inventory with minimal effort for you or them.  Coupon Access requires no setup time for the trainer.  The Dashboard has more tools for user management but takes 30-60 seconds per user to setup and manage.

Coupon Code Access

Dashboard

Choose Coupons if your priority is minimal setup.   You just send out an email with instructions and the access code to your users, and they show up in your workshop with score report in hand.   It has one function in addition to getting users to the inventory quickly and easily: You can monitor who has taken the inventory with the Coupon Manager.  Your only time requirement as trainer is editing the suggested text we send you to forward to your users and emailing it to them. 

       Order Coupon Access for $6.95 per user.

       Login to Coupon Manager.

Choose Dashboard if your priority is ability to manage user experience.    You can see all your users on the dashboard and delay delivery of the score report to users, view score reports, print, and email them;  monitor who has taken and not taken the inventory, send reminder notes with a single click, create aggregated score reports for a group, etc.

The Pyramid of Conflict Resolution Skills

What is the connection between interpersonal conflict resolution tools like my Style Matters conflict style inventory or the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and big conflicts of our world, like ethnic and religious violence or threat of nuclear war?

There is in fact a connection between what happens between human beings at the smallest level every day and what happens between nations.   We can't build a peaceful world until parents, teachers, and leaders see this connection.  We must all act on it and teach others about it.

Below is a Pyramid of Competency to show the many layers of competence - and how they relate to each other - that are required for humans to live together peacefully.   I use it at the beginning of training on almost any conflict resolution topic to locate it on a map of "the big picture" of peace skills.  I also use it with individuals eager to pursue conflict resolution skill development to chart a pathway for learning. 

If you took my Style Matters conflict styles inventory or the Thomas Kilmann, you've already given some attention to the second level, "Interpersonal negotiation and conflict resolution".

Ponder this pyramid and you get some clues about why, despite all the progress humans have made, and all the institutions we've created, we're still barely out of  the Dark Ages with conflict resolution.

Isolation and polarization are big threats today.    We can't take collegiality and community for granted.  We have to work steadily at renewing them.

Part of the requirement of leaders now is to recognize that times have changed.   We must strategically work to create these essentials that in times past seemed to come naturally.

So here's a marvelous collection of blog posts on team building on Human Resources Today.  I particularly like this group of teambuilding exercises.

We're pleased to announce that, thanks to many requests for it, the Style Matters conflict style inventory is now released in a Spanish translation.  A direct translation of the English version, the Spanish conflict styles edition is now available in PDF format.  In the coming months we will bring it out in the online version as well.

In contrast to the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and other conflict style inventories currently available, Style Matters is designed to be suitable to users of diverse cultural backgrounds.  The inventory offers users a choice of instruction sets for users, one worded for people from Low Context Cultures and the other for users from High Context cultures.  

Click here to purchase the Spanish PDF for $9.95, a one-time purchase.  To train with it, trainers then buy user rights, one per user, at a price of $3.95 each, in order to photocopy and use the inventory.    Click here for Style Matters in French.

As a social enterprise, Riverhouse seeks to make our products available regardless to cost.   If $3.95 per user is simply not realistic for your circumstances, contact us.