Unit One- Personal Choices

7. Lesson Seven: Conflict Resolution

• conflict is a part of life
• strategies for resolving conflict with other people
• how to recognize unhealthy conflict patterns and how to correct these patterns

It is unlikely to expect to live a life free of conflicts. Problems are bound to arise any time two people get together for more than a short while. Some of these problems will be serious enough to threaten the relationship unless they are handled well.

Unfortunately there are no magic tricks to resolve all the conflicts in your life. On the other hand, there are ways to manage these conflicts constructively. If you follow these methods in this lesson, you will find that your relationships are actually stronger and more satisfying than before.

 

Conflict is Natural

Every relationship of any depth at all has conflict. No matter how close, how understanding, how compatible you are, there will be times when your ideas or actions or needs or goals won't match those of others around you. You like rock music, but your companion prefers Beethoven; you want to date other people, but your partner wants to keep the relationship exclusive; you think a paper you've done is fine, but your instructor wants it changed; you like to sleep late on Sunday mornings, but your housemate likes to play the stereo – loudly!

There's no end to the number and kinds of disagreements possible.
And just as conflict is a fact of life, so are the feelings that go along with it – hurt, anger, frustration, resentment,
disappointment. Because these feelings are usually unpleasant, there is a temptation to avoid them or pretend they don't exist. But as sure as conflicts are bound to arise, so are the emotions that go with them.
 

At first this might seem depressing. If problems are inevitable in even the best relationships, does this mean that you're doomed to relive the same arguments, the same hurt feelings, over and over? Fortunately, the answer is to this question is a definite no. Even though conflict is a part of a meaningful relationship, you can change the way you deal with it.

Conflict Can Be Beneficial
Most of us fear conflict because we have seen that serious disagreements can damage relationships. In truth,
this sort of damage is preventable. In fact, effective handling of conflicts can actually keep good relationships
strong. Research has demonstrated that people who use the constructive skills described in this lesson are more
satisfied with their relationships and with the outcomes of their conflicts.

One nine year study illustrated the value of constructive conflict resolution by revealing that happily married couples handled their disputes quite differently from unhappy ones. The unhappy couples argued in ways that can be described as destructive. They were more concerned with defending themselves than with being problem oriented; they failed to listen carefully to one another, had little or no empathy for their partners, used evaluative
"you" language, and ignored one another's nonverbal relational messages.

There are four ways in which people can act when their needs aren’t being met. Each approach
has very different characteristics, as we can show, by describing a common problem. At one time
or another almost everyone has been bothered by a neighbour's barking dog. You know the story:
Every passing car, distant siren, pedestrian, and falling leaf seem to set off a fit of barking that
makes you unable to sleep, socialize, or study. In a description of the possible ways of handling
this kind of situation, the difference between nonassertive, directly aggressive, indirectly aggressive, and assertive behaviour should become clear.

1)   Non-assertive Behaviour

Non-assertion is the inability to express one’s thoughts or feelings when necessary because of a
lack of confidence or skill or both. There are two ways in which non-asserters manage a conflict.
Sometimes they ignore their needs. Faced with the dog, for instance, a nonassertive person
would try harder to forget the barking by closing the windows and trying to concentrate even harder on something else. Another form of denial would be to claim that no problem exists that a little barking never bothered anyone. To the degree that it’s possible to make problems disappear
by ignoring them, such an approach is probably advisable. In many cases, however, it simply isn’t realistic to claim that nothing is wrong. For instance, if your health is being jeopardized by the cigarette smoke from someone nearby, you are clearly punishing yourself by remaining silent. If
you need more information from a supervisor before taking a project, you reduce the quality of your work by pretending to understand it all.

A second nonassertive course of action is to acknowledge that your needs are not being met but simply to accept the situation, hoping that it might clear up without any action on your part. You could, for instance, wait for the neighbour who owns the barking dog to move. You could wait for the dog to be run over by a passing car or to die of old age. You could hope that your neighbour will realize how noisy the dog is and do something to keep it quiet. Each of these occurrences is a possibility, of course, but it would be unrealistic to count on one of them to solve your problem. And even if by chance you were lucky enough for this to be solved without taking action, you couldn’t expect to be so fortunate in other parts of your life.

In addition, while waiting for one of these eventualities, you would undoubtedly grow more and more angry at your neighbour, making a friendly relationship between the two of you impossible. You would also lose a degree of self-respect,
for you would see yourself as the kind of person who can’t cope with even a common everyday irritation.

2) Direct Aggression

In contrast to non-assertion, direct aggression occurs when a person overreacts. The usual consequences of aggressive behaviours are anger and defensiveness or hurt.
You could handle the dog problem with direct aggression by abusively confronting your neighbours, calling them names and threatening to call the dogcatcher the next time you saw their hound running loose. If the town in which you live has a leash law, you would be within your legal rights to do so and thus you would gain your goal by bringing peace and quiet to the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, your direct aggression would have other, less productive consequences. Your neighbours and you would probably cease to be on speaking terms, and you could expect a complaint from them the first time you violated even the most inconsequential of city ordinances.

3) Indirect Aggression

As its name suggests, indirect aggression occurs when a communicator expresses hostility in an obscure way. I several of his works, psychologist George Bach describes behaviour that heterms “crazymaking.”

Crazymaking occurs when people have feelings or resentment, anger, or rage that they are unable or unwilling to express directly. Instead of keeping these feelings to
themselves, the crazy makers send these aggressive messages I subtle, indirect ways, thus maintaining the front of kindness. You could respond to your neighbours and their dog in several crazy making, indirectly aggressive
ways. 

One strategy would be to complain anonymously to the city pound and then, after the dog has been hauled away, express your sympathy. Or you could complain to everyone else in the
neighbourhood, hoping that their hostility would force the offending neighbours to quiet the dog or face being a social outcast. A third possibility would be to strike up a friendly conversation with one of the owners and casually remark about the terrible neighbourhood you had just left, in which
noisy dogs roamed the streets, uncontrolled by their thoughtless owners.

There are a number of shortcomings to such approaches as these, each of which illustrate the risks of indirect aggression. 

• First, there is the chance that the crazy making won’t work: The neighbour might simply miss the point of your veiled attacks and continue to ignore the barking. Even when indirect aggression proves successful in the short run, a second shortcoming lied in its consequences over the longer range. 
• You might manage to intimidate you neighbours into shutting up their mutt, for instance, but in winning that battle you could lose what would become a war. As a means of revenge, they could wage their own campaign of crazy making by such tactics as badmouthing things like your sloppy gardening to other neighbours or by phoning in false complaints about your allegedly loud parties.
• A third shortcoming of indirect aggression is that it denies the people involved a chance of building any kind of honest relationship with each other. To the degree that you try to manipulate friends, they won’t know the real you. The fewer of your needs you reveal directly to your coworkers, the less chance you have of becoming true friends and colleagues. 

The same principle holds for those people you hop to meet in the future. Indirect aggression denies closeness.

4) Assertion

Assertion occurs when a message expresses the speaker’s needs, thoughts, and feelings clearly and directly but without judging or dictating to others. This style of communicating maintains the self-respect of both you and those with whom you interact. 

People involved in an assertive exchange usually feel good about themselves and others afterward,  quite a change from the outcomes of non-assertiveness and aggression.

An assertive course of action in the case of the baring dog would be to wait a few days to make sure the noise is not just a fluke. If the barking continues, you could introduce yourself to your neighbours and explain your problem. You could tell them that although they might not notice it, the dog often plays in the street and keeps barking at passing cars. You could tell them why this behavior bothers you. It keeps you awake at night and makes it hard for you to do your work.

You could point out that you don’t want to be a grouch and call the pound. Rather than behaving in these ways, you could tell them that you’ve come to see what kind of solution you can find that will satisfy both of you. This approach may not work, and you might then have to decide whether
it is more important to avoid bad feelings or to have peace and quiet. But the chances for a happy ending are best with this assertive approach.

And no matter what happens, you can keep self-respect
by behaving directly and honestly.

"A quarrel between friends, when made up, adds a new tie to friendship, as experience shows that the callosity formed round a broken bone makes it stronger than before."

-St. Francis De Sales

Win-win problem solving is clearly superior to the win-lose and lose-lose approaches. Why, then, is it so rarely used? There are three reasons:

The first is lack of awareness. Some people are so used to competition that they mistakenly think winning requires them to defeat their “opponent.” Even when they know better, another reason prevents many people from seeking win-win solutions. 

Conflicts are often emotional affairs, in which people react combatively without stopping to think of better alternatives. Because this kind of emotional reflex prevents constructive solutions, it’s often necessary to stop yourself from speaking out aggressively in a conflict and starting an escalating spiral of defensiveness. The time-honored advice of “counting to ten” applies here. Once you’ve thought about the matter, you’ll be able to act constructively instead of reacting in a way that’s likely to produce a lose-lose outcome.

A third reason win-win solutions are rare is that they require the other person’s cooperation. It’s difficult to negotiate constructively with someone who insists on trying to defeat you. When faced with this sort of person, you’ll need to use your best persuasive skills to explain that by working together you can find a solution that satisfies both of you.

In spite of these challenges, it is definitely possible to become better at resolving conflicts. In the following pages we will outline a method to increase your chances of being able to handle your conflicts in a win-win manner, so that both you and others meet your needs. 

As you learn to use this approach, you should find that more and more of your conflicts wind up with win-win solutions. And even when total satisfaction isn’t possible, this method can help by showing you how to solve problems in the most satisfying way possible and also by preventing individual conflict from spoiling your future interactions with the person involved.

Before introducing this method, there are a few ideas you should keep in mind. This technique is highly structured. Although you’re learning how to use it, it’s important that you follow all the stages carefully. Each step is essential to the success of your encounter, and skipping one or more can lead to misunderstandings that might threaten your meeting and even cause a “dirty fight.” After you’ve practiced the method a number of times and are familiar with it, this style of conflict will become almost second nature to you. You’ll then be able to approach your conflicts without having to follow the step-by-step approach. But for the time being try to be patient, and trust the value of the following pattern.

As you read the following steps, try to imagine yourself applying them to a problem that’s bothering you now.

Step 1—Identify Your Problem and Unmet Needs. 

Before you speak out, it’s important to realize that the problem that is causing conflict is yours. Whether you want to return an unsatisfactory piece of merchandise, complain to a noisy neighbor because your sleep is being disturbed, or request a change in working conditions from your employer, the problem is yours. Why? Because in each case you are the person who is dissatisfied. You are the one who has paid for the defective article; the merchant who sold it to you has the use of your good money. You are the one who is losing sleep as a result of your neighbours’ activities; they are content to go on as before.

 You are the one who is unhappy with your working conditions, not your boss. (Of course, others involved in the conflict may have problems of their own. For instance, the shopkeeper, the noisy neighbor, and your boss may all be bothered by your requests. But the fact still remains that the reason you are speaking up about these matters is because you are dissatisfied. Thus, the problem is at least initially yours).

Realizing that the problem is yours will make a big difference when the time comes to approach your partner. Instead of feeling and acting in an evaluative way, you’ll be more likely to state your problem in a descriptive way, which will not only be more accurate but also reduce the chance of a defensive reaction.

Once you realize that the problem is yours, the next step is to identify the unmet needs that make you dissatisfied. For instance, in the barking dog incident, your need may be to get some sleep or to study without interruptions. In the case of a friend who teases you in public, your need would probably be to avoid embarrassment.

Sometimes the task of identifying your needs isn’t as simple as it first seems. Behind the apparent content of an issue is often a relational need. Consider these examples:

• A friend hasn’t returned some money you loaned long ago. Your apparent need in this situation might be to get the cash back. But a little thought will probably show that this isn’t the only, or even the main, thing you want. Even if you were rolling in money, you’d probably want the loan repaid because of your most important need: to avoid feeling victimized by your friend’s taking advantage of you.
• Someone you care about who lives in a distant city has failed to respond to several letters. Your apparent need may be to get answers to the questions you’ve written about, but it’s likely that there’s another, more fundamental need: the reassurance that you’re still important enough to deserve a response.
As you’ll soon see, the ability to identify your real needs plays a key role in solving interpersonal problems. For now, the point to remember is that before you voice your problem to your partner, you ought to be clear about which of your needs aren’t being met.

 

Step 2—Make a Date.

Destructive fights often start because the initiator confronts a partner who isn’t ready. There are many times when a person isn’t in the right frame of mind to face a conflict, perhaps owing to fatigue, being in too much of a hurry to take the necessary time, being upset over another problem, or not feeling well. At times like these it’s unfair to “lump” a person without notice and expect to get full attention for your problem. If you do persist, you’ll probably have an ugly fight on your hands.

After you have a clear idea of the problem, approach your partner with a request to try to solve it, for example, “Something’s been bothering me. Can we talk about it?” If the answer is yes, you’re ready to go further. If it isn’t the right time to confront your partner, find a time that’s agreeable to both of you.

 

Step 3—Describe Your Problem and Needs. 

Your partner can’t possibly meet your needs without knowing why you’re upset and what you want. Therefore, it’s up to you to describe your problem as specifically as possible. The best way to deliver a complete, accurate message is to use the assertive sense-interpret-feel-consequence-intend format.

Notice how well this approach works in the following examples:

• Example 1 “I have a problem. It’s about your leaving dirty clothes around the house after I’ve told you how much it bothers me [sense]. It’s a problem because I have to run around like crazy and pick things up whenever guests come, which is no fun at all [consequence]. I’m starting to think that either you’re not paying attention to my requests or you’re trying to drive me crazy [thoughts], and either way I’m getting more and more resentful [feeling]. I’d like to find some way to have a neat place without my having to be a maid or a nag.”

• Example 2 “I have a problem. When you drop by without calling ahead and I’m studying [sense], I don’t know whether to visit or ask you to leave [thought]. Either way, I get uncomfortable [feeling], and it seems like whatever I do, I lose. Either I have to put you off or get behind in my work [consequences]. I’d like to find a way to get my studying done and still socialize with you [intension].

• Example 3 “Something is bothering me. When you tell me you love me and yet spend almost all your free time with your other friends [sense], I wonder whether you mean it [thought]. I get insecure [feeling, and then I start acting moody [consequence]. I need some way of finding out for sure how you feel about me [intension].
By expressing yourself in this way, you’re opening up yourself to your partner, explaining just what’s going on inside you and how important it is to you. It’s surprising how often people argue without ever telling each other the extent of their feelings and thoughts.

One of the most important parts of this step is to describe your needs clearly in the intention phase of your message. The biggest danger here is to confuse your true needs, which we can call ends, with one or more means that might satisfy these ends. This distinction requires some definitions.

Ends are the goals you are seeking, and not having them met is what leads you to feel that a problem exists in the first place. In the examples you just read the desired ends were as follows:
Example 1: A house free of dirty clothes. No need to nag or do more than your own share of housekeeping.
Example 2: The chance to study without sending away friends who drop by.
Example 3: A definite reassurance of love (or a definite statement of nonlove).

Means are ways of achieving ends. For instance, if your goal were to become rich, some possible means might include investing in the stock market, robbing banks, gambling for high stakes, or marrying a wealthy person with a short time to live.

We can go back to our previous examples and see that there are many possible means that could achieve the ends we identified.

Example 1

End: House free of dirty clothes. No need to nag or do more than own share of housework.

Means: a. Partner agrees to clean up without being reminded.
b. Hire a housekeeper.
c. You pick up clothes in exchange for partner’s doing a share of your work.

Example 2

End: A chance to study without sending away friends who drop by.

Means: a. You do all your studying at school.
b. Study at home when friends aren’t likely to drop by (for example, late at night).
c. Ask friends to phone before dropping by.

Example 3

End: A definite reassurance of love (or definite statement of nonlove).

Means: a. Companion regularly schedules time to see you.
b. You learn to accept loving messages, which your partner has been sending already.
c. You ask friend for reassurance whenever feeling insecure.

You might have found some of these means personally unacceptable, and you probably could think of others to add to the list. That’s fine! For now, the important point to remember is that you should approach your partner in conflict by describing your ends rather than focusing on one or more means. When people mistakenly identify means as ends, they usually increase the level of hostility and resistance. Insisting on specific means is a perfect example of defense—arousing controlling behavior; and concentrating on working with your partner to achieve a mutually satisfactory end constitutes the more supportive attitude of problem orientation.

Step 4—Confirm Your Partner’s Understanding.

 After you’ve stated your problem and described what you need, it’s important to make sure your partner has understood what you’ve said. As you can remember from our discussion of listening in Chapter Seven, there’s a good chance—especially in a stressful conflict—that your words will be misinterpreted.
It’s usually unrealistic to insist that your partner paraphrase your statement, and fortunately there are more tactful and subtle ways to make sure you’ve been understood. For instance, you might try saying, “I’m not sure I expressed myself very well just now—maybe you should tell what you heard me say so I can be sure I got it right.” In any case, be absolutely sure that your partner understands your whole message before going any further. Legitimate agreements are tough enough, but there’s no point in getting upset about a conflict that doesn’t even exist.

 

Step 5—Solicit Your Partner’s Needs.

 Now that you’ve made your position clear, it’s time to find out what your partner needs to feel satisfied about this issue. There are two reasons why it’s important to discover your partner’s needs. First, it’s fair. The other person has just as much right as you to feel satisfied, and if you expect help in meeting your needs, it’s reasonable that you behave in the same way. But in addition to decency, there’s another, practical reason for concerning yourself with
what the other person wants. Just as an unhappy partner will make it hard for you to become satisfied, a happy one will be more likely to cooperate in letting you reach your goals. Thus, it’s in your own self-interest to discover and meet your partner’s needs.
You can learn about your partner’s needs simply by asking about them: “Now I’ve told you what I want and why. Tell me what you need to feel OK about this.” Once your partner begins to talk, your job is to use the listening skills discussed earlier in this book to make sure you understand.
Not having studied interpersonal communication, your partner might state intentions in terms of means rather than ends, for instance, saying things like “I want you to be around when I call” instead of “I need to know where you are when I need you.” In such cases, it’s a good idea to rephrase the statements in terms of ends, thus making it clear to both yourself and your partner what he or she really needs to feel satisfied.

Step 6—Check Your Understanding of Partner’s Needs. Reverse the procedure in step 4 by paraphrasing your partner’s needs until you’re certain you understand them. The surest way to accomplish this step is to use the active listening skills you learned in Chapter Seven.

Step 7—Negotiate a Solution. Now that you and your partner understand each other’s needs, the goal becomes finding a way to meet them. This is done by trying to develop as many potential solutions as possible and then evaluating them to decide which one best meets everyone’s needs. Perhaps you can best appreciate how the win-win method works by looking at one example.

Some time ago Ron and his wife, Sherri, used the win-win approach to solve a problem that had been causing friction between them. To understand the problem, you have to know that Ron is basically a tightwad, whereas Sherri isn’t nearly as concerned with finances and doesn’t worry as much as Ron does about budgets, savings accounts, or balanced checkbooks. This difference led to their problem: Every month Sherri would come home from shopping expeditions with antiques, new clothes, and other goodies. It wasn’t that these things were very expensive, but it bothered Ron that Sherri seemed to think there was something wrong with coming home empty-handed.
It got so that Ron dreaded the times Sherri would walk into the house carrying a shopping bag, and of course, Ron’s constant worrying about money bothered Sherri too. After what seemed like an endless number of “discussions” about the problem, they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. This was one area in which their needs came into conflict.

Eventually, both Ron and Sherri realized that they had to find a solution that both could live with. So one evening they sat down and wrote all the alternatives they could think of:

1. Ron learns not to worry about money.
2. Sherri stops being a compulsive shopper.
3. Sherri and Ron discuss each purchase before it’s made.
4. Sherri waits a day after first seeing something before buying it.

None of these ideas seemed workable. Since neither Ron nor Sherri could change their personalities overnight, solutions 1 and 2 were out. They had tried 3 once or twice before and found it caused just as many disagreements as the original
problem. The fourth alternative made sense, but it didn’t sound like much fun, nor would it always be practical. Fortunately after some more brainstorming they came up with another alternative:

5. Each month they would set aside a certain amount of money for Sherri to spend any way she wanted.
This sounded good to both Ron and Sherri, and after figuring the best amount for this “discretionary fund,” things worked well. Now Sherri can buy most of the things she wants, and Ron can enjoy Sherri’s shopping sprees without worrying about the budget.
Probably the best description of the win-win approach has been written by Thomas Gordon in his book Parent Effectiveness Training. The following steps are a modification of this approach.

A. Identify and define the conflict. We’ve discussed identifying and defining the conflict in the preceding pages. It consists of discovering each person’s problem and needs, setting the stage for meeting all of them.
B. Generate a number of possible solutions. In step B, the partners work together to think of as many means as possible to reach their stated ends. The key word here is quantity: It’s important to generate as many ideas as you can think of without worrying about which ones are good or bad. Write down every thought that comes up, no matter how unworkable: Sometimes a farfetched idea will lead to a more workable one.
C. Evaluate the alternative solutions. This is the time to talk about which solu tions will work and which ones won’t. It’s important for everyone to be honest about their willingness to accept an idea. If a solution is going to work, everyone involved has to support it.
D. Decide on the best solution. Now that you’ve looked at all the alternatives, pick the one that looks best to everyone. It’s important to be sure everybody understands the solution and is willing to try it out. Remember that your decision doesn’t have to be final, but it should look potentially successful.

Step 8—Follow up the Solution. 

You can’t be sure the solution will work until you try it. After you’ve tested it for a while, it’s a good idea to set aside some time to talk over its progress. You may find that you need to make some changes or even rethink the whole problem. The idea is to keep on top of the problem, to a keep using creativity to solve it.
Win-win solutions aren’t always possible. There will be times when even the best intentioned people simply won’t be able to find a way of meeting all their needs. In cases like this, the process of negotiation has to include some compromises. But even then the preceding steps haven’t been wasted. The genuine desire to learn what the other person wants and to try to satisfy those desires will build a climate of goodwill that can help you find the best solution to the present problem and also improve your relationship in the future.