Dear Clients, Colleagues, and Friends,

When people hear the word ‘conflict’, many get anxious, shift in their seats and think about horrible fights, wars, tantrums and past memories of painful disagreements.

These people are picturing conflict as an open or obvious disagreement, quarrel or clash between two or more people. However, there is a subtler type of conflict that is more widespread and has greater implication in the workplace. This conflict we can define as:

Conflict [noun]: A situation in which there isn’t a mutually understood and agreed upon division of power and/or responsibilities.

There are 3 reasons to pay attention to this type of conflict:

1. It is most likely to challenge you at the peer level—potentially hindering your ability to create high performing teams and achieve optimal results

2. Today’s matrixed and fast-changing workplaces are breeding grounds for this conflict, and

3. Research shows your perceived promotability is linked to how well you can manage this and other types of conflict.

This newsletter is therefore focused on helping you to effectively manage workplace conflict.

Let’s get started! Your partner in success,

Charmaine McClarie

President, McClarie Group

Developing Your Conflict Competence to Propel Your Career Forward

According to a study by Eckerd College Leadership Institute in conjunction with the Center for Creative Leadership of over 300 executives of Fortune 1000 companies, your organization’s perception of your ability to effectively manage conflict is directly linked to your promotability.  Whether you’ve been hovering in the same position and can’t seem to get promoted or have recently been promoted and want to keep on the upward track, the bottom line is simple: being conflict competent can help ensure your promotability.

In this article, we help you build this competence by first outlining the 5 most common ways we deal with conflict. We then pose a few questions to help you understand your own attitude toward conflict and outline eight simple and yet powerful strategies for managing conflict more effectively.

5 Ways we Deal with Conflict

Research by psychologist Ralph Kilman and Kenneth Thomas suggests that we instinctively deal with conflict in one of five ways:

1. Avoidance – the unassertive and uncooperative response. We tell ourselves the problem will go away and send “Just leave me alone” signals.

2. Accommodation – the unassertive and cooperative  response. We give in and give a, “Whatever you want” response.

3. Compromise - the moderately assertive, moderately cooperative response. We split the winnings down the middle and each agree to tackle our half.

4. Collaboration – the assertive and cooperative response. We find a way of working out our differences so that both of us are satisfied with the result. This requires time and discussion, and interestingly, women tend to be more effective at negotiating collaborative outcomes.

5. Competition – the assertive and sometimes aggressive or uncooperative response. There is a winner and a loser.  We do whatever it takes within ethical boundaries (hopefully) to win. American business is built on the premise of competition.

There are pluses and minuses with each of these ways of dealing with conflict. For example, accommodation can be an appropriate response if the relationship is more important to you than the issue at hand. What you have to be careful of, though, is that this response doesn’t become continual or habitual and thereby detrimental at a later time, i.e. when a great visible assignment presents itself and you aren’t selected because you are viewed as a push-over.

The greatest challenge is that most of us react to conflict without consciously thinking through how to manage it well. Effectively managing conflict is about choice and skill: choosing an effective approach to handle the conflict and having the tools to use this approach effectively.

The Choice: Your Own Approach to Conflict

We are inculcated from childhood about what is the ‘appropriate’ response to conflict, learned from parents and/or other authority figures in our lives and reinforced by those we surround ourselves with as we mature. To increase your self-awareness of your approach to conflict and make an informed choice of how you want resolve future conflict, take a few minutes to really think through the answers to the following questions:

• Does your organization have a recognized process for resolving conflict?

• What are some of the unwritten rules you have learned about conflict?

• What are the rewards for following these rules?

• What are the consequences of not following them?

• Which of the above approaches (be honest) best describes your natural reaction to conflict?

The Skills: 8 Proven Strategies to More Effectively Resolve Conflict

At nearly every second in a conflict-filled conversation, we are at a choice point: escalate the conflict by reacting to the conversation or diffuse it by masterfully addressing the issue behind the conflict. Use the following eight simple but effective strategies to help you more effectively resolve conflict:

About this newsletter. McClarie Group sends occasional newsletters to clients, colleagues and friends of McClarie Group with tips for turning your potential into power. If you'd prefer not to receive this information, click the link below.

McClarie Group

1930 N. Main St. Los Angeles, CA 90031
Tel. (323) 224-6820 - Fax (323) 224-6758
www.mcclariegroup.com / charmaine@mcclariegroup.com