DISCUSSION ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS Post your statement of your problem with background information from the Conflict Resolution ???Problem Description will require you to

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Manager Know Thyself: The Skills and Behaviors of Great Conflict Managers

Learning Objectives

· Identify and describe the five most common reactions to conflict.

· Analyze the costs and benefits of your own habits when responding to conflict.

· Apply your knowledge of conflict styles to better communicate at work with those whose conflict styles differ from yours.

· Demonstrate active listening skills and evaluate the results of your listening experience on the speaker.

· Identify your strengths and challenges related to emotional intelligence, then set goals for your growth in one or more areas.

· Analyze your common work (or home) tasks and create a list of repetitive duties that can be successfully delegated to others.

RESPONDING TO CONFLICT AT THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION

John Smith is not happy with his administrative assistant, Maria. On the days when John needs her most, she calls in “sick.” Today, John is scheduled to begin holding one-one-one meetings required for staff performance reviews. This week, he is supposed to meet with each of his twenty employees to share his ratings of their performances over the past year, while still getting his other work done. Any deficiencies in performance must be discussed, and, unfortunately, there are plenty of deficiencies to discuss. Although John has not administered performance reviews at this agency before, he knows that everyone dreads this experience. Because Maria is not here, John will have to find all the files himself, answer calls during the meetings with staff members, and try to keep on schedule without the benefit of his assistant who should strategically “buzz” him to let him know when his next appointment has arrived. Maria left a message on John’s answering machine saying that she feels that helping him manage the review process is “above her pay grade.” She said that she is happy to work on other tasks but won’t participate in the review-management process. John is wondering what he should do about this problem, and then it hits him: he will send out an email to his staff, including Maria, telling them that the performance reviews are being postponed until Maria is feeling better. Sending out this email will buy him at least another day or two to get his own work done (e.g., creating schedules, ordering supplies, and publishing ads for new positions) before getting sidetracked with the drama that will likely result from the performance reviews and from dealing with Maria. Hopefully she will take the hint and “get over herself.”

RESPONDING TO CONFLICT: FIVE COMMON APPROACHES

Conflict isn’t positive or negative. It is our reaction to conflict that determines whether the consequence will be constructive or destructive. Conflict presents an opportunity for positive change, deepening relationships, and problem solving. How you treat the other party or parties in conflict is highly predictive of the strength and duration of the relationship in the future (Gottman, 2014). In fact, the way in which two people communicate with each other when problem solving can predict whether or not they are able to work together productively with over 90 percent accuracy (Gottman, 2014). Therefore, it is not conflict that hurts our relationships—it is the way we approach it, manage it, and communicate it. As Mary Parker Follett wrote nearly 100 years ago, “All polishing is done through friction.” Tjosvold’s (2008) work shows that organizations that encourage constructive debate and the open expression of disagreement among team members can greatly improve their effectiveness, creativity, and efficiency. Nevertheless, when most people use the term “conflict,” there is an implied negative connotation. Is your reaction to conflict generally constructive or destructive? How do you feel after you address a problem with employees, your boss, or your clients? The post-conflict feeling can tell us a lot. Does conflict make you want to “fight” or “take flight”?

Before reading further, please read and complete the conflict styles inventory in boxes 1.1 and 1.2. This test uses a “forced-choice” methodology. This means you are forced to choose between response A or B for each question. There may be some questions where you wish you could answer “none of the above,” but please select the answer that best corresponds to your preferred methods for addressing conflict, either A or B.

The conflict styles inventory (CSI) is a questionnaire used to assess an individual’s habits in response to conflict. As the CSI indicates, there are five primary responses to conflict: avoidance, accommodation, collaboration, compromising, and competing. Each of these responses is appropriate in some circumstances and inappropriate or ineffective in others. You might have assumed that the collaboration style is the best of the five conflict styles since this is a book on the subject of collaboration. Surprisingly, that is not the case at all. Instead of pushing you toward the use of one of these conflict styles over the others, this text argues that competent conflict managers are adept at analyzing problems and consciously choosing the style most likely to produce the desired results. Sometimes accommodation is called for, while other situations call for compromise, and so on. Each conflict presents an opportunity for the parties to consciously articulate their goals in the interaction and identify the best conflict-style response to achieve those goals. Sometimes preserving or enhancing the relationship is the ultimate goal, while in other cases your goal may be to avoid a no-win situation or to make a quick and fair decision. Matching the conflict style to the particular dispute or decision-making opportunity is an important skill both at work and in our civic and personal lives.

It can be problematic that most of us predominantly utilize only one or two of these conflict styles as we unconsciously respond to problems as opposed to analyzing situations and choosing the style that best matches the problem at hand. The best conflict management works something like good health care. When health problems are avoidable, they should be avoided through preventive measures such as good eating habits. When health problems arise in spite of our preventive efforts, they must be diagnosed and treated based on that diagnosis. Conflict should be diagnosed and treated in a similar fashion. However, even the most stressful conflict provides you with an opportunity to showcase your conflict management skills and communicate the importance you place on treating others fairly and respectfully, even when you disagree with the outcome of a dispute.

THE FIVE CONFLICT STYLES

There are five predominant styles for dealing with conflict. Most people habitually use only one or two of these styles. Your choice of preferred styles likely depends on the culture in which you were raised and the way your family of origin dealt with conflict. Knowing your own habits will help you improve your response to conflict, while deepening your understanding of others—especially if their preferred style is different. Rather than vilifying those who seem to “fight every fight” or those who behave with passive aggression, you will come to understand why others exhibit different responses to conflict and how to work successfully with those who do not share your preferred approach.

Conflict Avoidance

Clearly, avoidance is the approach used by both John and Maria in the scenario at the beginning of this chapter. Consistent with the avoiding style, John is avoiding dealing with performance reviews and addressing the absenteeism problem with Maria. He has rationalized his avoidance with the thought that he is new to the position and that maybe Maria’s performance over the long term will improve. Avoidance becomes the preferred conflict-management style for individuals with negative past experiences of failed conflict engagement. If avoidance is your preferred approach, then you probably view conflict as a win-lose situation, with you likely to be on the losing end. Conflict avoiders tend to be people in low-power positions, from cultures that prioritize “social harmony,” traumatized by childhood conflict, introverts, and/or people with lower verbal and social skills. Remember—conflict avoiders rarely rise to upper management because leaders must manage conflict every day. While it is important to avoid “no win situations,” by improving your skills or helping others to improve theirs, you can improve the ability to choose among all five styles rather than defaulting to avoidance.

John is not in a low-power position, so why did he use avoidance? In this case, he may perceive he can’t influence Maria’s behavior. As any psychologist will tell you, we can only control what we think, say, and do, but we cannot control what others think, say or do. If Maria wants to use her sick leave, the organization’s policies allow her to do so. The fact that she uses it at the worst times doesn’t change the policy. However, John does have some tools at his disposal, and, so far, avoidance hasn’t solved this recurring problem. Later in this chapter we will read more about the changes he decides to make in his response to conflict.

Conflict avoidance is not always a bad or irrational response when faced with a daunting problem. In fact, avoidance is the right approach if a problem is small and likely to go away on its own. When we fight every fight, we expend energy that might be better used to address the most important problems. It is important to pick your battles. If you scored low on this style (3 or below), then you might want to be more judicious at picking your battles so that you can save your energy for problems that are more central to the mission of your work unit or to your career goals. If you scored high on this style (7 or above), then you might want to work on your framing and problem-solving skills (covered in chapter 4) so you feel confident in your ability to proactively address problems.

For many problems, avoidance works temporarily but makes matters worse in the long run. Avoiders tend to repeatedly let things go until something snaps and they explode—sometimes over a relatively small infraction. In other words, “the volcano effect” occurs (see below for more information on volcanoes at work). Large organizations are better at conflict avoidance than smaller organizations. In large organizations, if one person procrastinates about addressing a problem, then maybe someone else will take charge and deal with the issue. In smaller organizations, there are fewer people onto whom we can push our problems.

Do not confuse conflict prevention with conflict avoidance. Conflict prevention occurs when an individual or group examines the sources of predictable and recurring problems, and then takes reasonable steps to address the root causes so they do not occur or recur. Examples of conflict prevention within organizations may include changing overlapping job descriptions so as to have greater role clarity and accountability. On the other hand, conflict avoidance or the avoiding style occurs when an individual or group has evidence that a problem currently exists or will soon exist, but no steps are taken to address the problem. Conflict avoiders refuse to acknowledge the problem exists, hoping it will just go away. This may work for small, nonrecurring problems, or when you lack the authority or power to bring change. However, do not underestimate your power to bring organizational change (see chapter 6). Avoidance is unlikely to work for systemic, recurring, or large problems.

There is a clear connection between some conflict-avoidance behaviors and the psychological phenomenon of denial. Like avoidance, denial occurs when an individual or group refuses to acknowledge a reality that is highly unpleasant. Denial is a protective mechanism that comes into force when a reality is so overwhelming that to acknowledge its truth could result in a psychological or physical breakdown. One example is when an organization announces it is “downsizing” and your unit will be entirely eliminated, yet you refuse to look for other work until the doors officially close because you keep hoping some miracle will occur and the decision to close will be reversed. Denial protects the individual from the shock that the reality poses to his psyche.

If you are conflict avoidant, how did this pattern develop? Perhaps you had traumatic experiences with conflict in your family or in your work environment. Perhaps you feel a sense of hopelessness or powerlessness to positively impact decisions and fix problems. Perhaps you have a shy personality and prefer not to engage in the long conversations often needed to solve problems productively. The first step to becoming a more proactive and successful conflict manager is to understand why you tend to prefer avoiding conflict. The next step is to work on your conflict management skills so you can feel confident in your ability to proactively impact conflicts and solve problems. The third step is to develop a plan and timeline for improving your ability to proactively address problems as they arise (see the Goal Setting section at the end of this chapter).

As you push yourself away from the default style of conflict avoidance, you may fear that you are being too confrontational with others or taking on too many problems. This is rarely the case with someone who scored high on avoidance (or, coincidentally, on accommodating). So long as you are not acting out of anger when you address problems with other people, and you use tactful and constructive language, then you are much more likely to see positive results and be viewed as a problem solver.

Accommodation

Accommodation occurs when an individual has a preferred outcome but is willing to sacrifice his preference so the other negotiator can realize his own conflicting preference, thereby ensuring no harm enters the relationship. Those who use the accommodating style care deeply about the feelings of others and seek to maintain harmony in their relationships and work environments. If you scored high on this style (7 or higher), then you may believe it is often necessary to place your own wishes as secondary to others’ in order to maintain positive relationships. While this belief is certainly true in some situations, a high score here indicates you are probably “too nice.” You may seem too indecisive when difficult decisions need to be made at the managerial level. Your desire to please others and to be liked by those you manage may mean that some people take you for granted or take advantage of you, with suggestions like, “Ask Barbara to work late, she never says no.” Another example would be, “Try to get Jose to work that holiday since you have plans. He’s such a nice guy.” While everyone needs to “take one for the team” now and then, accommodating people tend to sacrifice more than their fair share. But why not, since it does not seem to bother them? Constant accommodation does bother them, yet, they have learned to keep their opinions to themselves. Accommodators sometimes experience negative health or psychological effects from holding in their frustration and bottling up their emotions.

Conflict accommodators struggle with openly sharing their ideas, feedback, and concerns so as not to offend others. As a result, the team often misses out on the full contribution these team members could make, and so their ideas do not surface. Accommodators have difficulty delegating work to subordinates because they worry it will upset others. Inability to delegate is a recipe for disaster in a manager’s career. The ability to delegate reasonable tasks to others by using clear direction and adequate oversight is crucial for maintaining efficient workflow and for reserving the manager’s time for truly management-level decisions.

In contrast, if you scored low on this measure (3 or lower), then you may want to consider being a bit more flexible, accommodating, and occasionally making concessions to others so that you are viewed as more of a team player. This shows you care about others and are willing to engage in the give-and-take necessary for healthy teamwork. Those who seldom act in an accommodating manner are viewed as pushy, selfish, and not team players.

Accommodation can be the best approach to conflict when an individual is in a low-power position, with little hope of achieving the preferred outcome; when an issue is of relatively little importance to you but of higher importance to others; when you seek to demonstrate you are reasonable and build goodwill. However, if you find yourself repeatedly accommodating others, and it is becoming frustrating, then you may not be adequately communicating or asserting your own needs. When accommodators learn how to identify situations calling for a more collaborative, competitive, or compromising approach, they can then use their assertion skills to frame their comments in a way that allows them to share their concerns or ideas without alienating or angering others (framing skills will be covered in greater depth in chapter 2).

Collaboration

A high score in the collaboration category indicates a preference to work together with others to achieve outcomes that meet the needs of all. Collaboration occurs when two or more individuals work together to share information and make joint decisions. If you scored low on this measure (3 or lower), then you may have trouble delegating and/or sharing decision-making authority with others, even when their buy-in is crucial to the implementation of decisions. If you scored high on the collaborative style (7 or higher), you likely view conflict as an opportunity to solve problems by working positively with others. Some have called this the “win-win” viewpoint, meaning that for one person to win in a negotiation or conflict, the other person’s needs must also be met (meaning they must also win). You are not willing to win at the cost of the relationship, but you believe that by putting your heads together, you can generally find mutually acceptable solutions to the problems at hand.

Collaboration is important in workplace teams. Workplace teams with cooperative approaches to conflict management, as opposed to competitive approaches, exhibited higher levels of trust between team members (Hempel, Zhang, & Tjosvold, 2009). Chan, Huang, and Ng (2008) found that managers with a cooperative style showed more concern for their employees as people, and this concern fostered more trust. The deeper levels of trust between cooperative managers and their employees leads to greater deference to those same managers when difficult decisions have to be made or when the manager intervened to resolve conflict.

So why isn’t collaboration the “best” style of conflict management? Not all problems call for collaboration. Imagine the following scenario. The captain of the Titanic realizes there is an iceberg off the starboard bow. He quickly assembles all the officers on the bridge of the ship and asks each one, “What is the best response to this problem?” Just then, the ship hits the iceberg, and the rest is history. There are times when a quick decision by our leaders is called for, and times when it is not. Collaboration takes time. When time is short, leaders must act swiftly and decisively. In other situations, the decision is not important enough to justify bringing together everyone to jointly reach a decision. If you have laid the groundwork by building strong relationships with others in your organization, then they will typically trust your judgment when decisions must be made quickly or do not warrant the time it takes to engage in collaborative decision making.

The larger the group, the harder it will be to obtain 100 percent consensus on any issue. Imagine trying to get 100 people to agree on whether to order Chinese or Mexican food for lunch. This would not be a good use of time, may create conflict, and a competent leader could make an executive decision on this matter without much pushback. While an open and collaborative discussion of issues is often warranted, sometimes it is necessary to adopt a decision rule that allows for something less than 100 percent consensus, especially in large groups. Requiring 100 percent consensus gives extraordinary power to potential “spoilers” who enter into a process with the intention of derailing any agreement or stalling as long as possible. If the decision is made to use a collaborative style, it will be helpful to clarify the decision-making parameters at the outset. For example, will the manager seek input and brainstorming from the group, but then retain final decision-making authority, or will the manager defer to the expressed preferences of the group? If the latter route is adopted, decisions will require 100 percent consensus or something less, such as a simple majority vote, a supermajority vote, or consensus minus one or two. Voting is a process that matches the competitive style of decision making, yet it can be combined with participant input, dialogue, and collaboration to create a process deemed fair, participatory, and efficient.

As a manager, you cannot seek consensus on every decision. Employees do not want to be bothered for their input on issues they view as noncritical or decisions they feel should be reserved for managers. The more they trust their managers, the less they feel their input is needed on small decisions. The tricky part is for managers to have a good understanding of where these lines are drawn. Sometimes, a collaborative manager should seek input from one or more employees by asking whether this is a decision in which they wish to be involved. Sometimes they will say, “No thanks. I trust your judgment on this one.” In that case, your inquiry has signaled that you value their feelings and that you understand the decision will likely impact them and their work. Reserve the use of collaborative decision making for the following instances: when others have the information needed to make a good decision; when buy-in will be needed in order to effectively implement the decision; when there is likely to be push-back if input is not sought; when there is adequate time for input and discussion; and when you seek to build or repair relationships with others.

Compromise

The compromising style indicates a preference for “splitting the difference” between the negotiators’ positions. Compromise can be a quick, efficient way to reach a solution. For example, in hiring negotiations an employer offers the prospective employee a salary of $60,000 and she counters with a request for $70,000. The two quickly decide the most efficient and fair outcome would be to settle at $65,000. Both got part of what they wanted and left the negotiation feeling that the process was fair. The negotiation was relatively short and painless. The compromising style is appropriate when a decision is not highly important, the time for negotiation and discussion is relatively short, and the process needs to be viewed as fair to all parties. One risk of using compromise is that value might be left “on the table,” so to speak. For example, what if the employee offered to take on additional duties that would have otherwise required the hiring of a part-time employee in exchange for the previously requested $70,000 salary? By engaging in discussions to learn more about each negotiator’s needs, it may be possible to reach a solution that is better for everyone. Compromise often misses these opportunities.

One of the most widely known stories of compromise comes to us from the biblical, Judaic, and Qur’anical traditions: the story of wise King Solomon. In the story, a mother had accidentally rolled over on her own baby and killed it as they both slept. In her grief, she stole another woman’s baby and claimed it as her own. The two women came before King Solomon, asking him to determine the true mother of the infant. In his wisdom, Solomon stated that he intended to use a sword to cut the baby in half, so that each mother could lay claim to half the child (the compromising style). One of the mothers cried out that she would give up her claim to the baby and allow the other mother to have the child (the accommodating style). King Solomon knew this was the baby’s true mother and awarded the baby