How do you resolve conflicts with another person? Do you become aggressive? Do you present an attitude of “my way or the highway”? Are you intent on only getting your own way or are you looking for common ground and compromise? Â
The ability to resolve conflict is a skill that will reduce anger in your relationships, your workplace and in your family. Unfortunately, few people even realize that resolving conflicts is a SKILL that can be learned, just like learning to play tennis or learning to play the piano. Even fewer people possess the conflict-resolution skill set, even if they realize that there is such a skill set and that it can and must be learned as well as practiced.
But, learning how to do it and do it well is important in many areas of life. For instance, research shows that married persons who are skillful at negotiating conflicts with each other seem to have better marriages than other people, even if they have issues. Couples can have many issues and still get along if they are able to successfully deal with conflicts around those issues.
The place to start is with your attitude and willingness to solve problems in a win-win way that satisfies both parties to some extent. In other words, you have to want to solve the conflict before conflict resolution will work. Having a flexible, problem-solving orientation instead of a blaming, fault-finding, or rigid approach will go a long way toward solving your conflicts.
In future blog entries, we will discuss more specific conflict resolution skills and tools which you will be ablke to apply in many areas of your life. If you have your own ideas of what has worked for you, please leave a comment below or email me at drtony@18.191.66.198Š
