To be a successful engineer, you must work and play well with others. This course focuses on developing the skills you will need to build and sustain professional relationships and networks. Learn to coach and mentor others, manage conflict and build power and influence in the workplace.
Conflict Management Styles
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From the course by Rice University
Relationship Management
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From the lesson
Managing Conflict
Meet the Instructors
David Van KleeckProfessor in the Practice of Engineering Leadership
Rice Center for Engineering Leadership
Each of us develops our own approach to managing conflict.
This would be called our personal conflict management style.
It's how we deal with negotiations.
And it's formed early in life and is grounded not only in our personality, but
in our experiences that we develop over time as we learn more and
more from dealing with conflicts that arise.
Because we tend to rely on a preferred conflict management style,
that can be a strength because we have experience with it.
But it can also create a vulnerability when we
don't use the appropriate conflict management style for the situation.
There's no best way to deal with conflict.
And I think you'll find as a leader that you're going to have to find what works in
certain situations.
This really is the art part of being an effective leader.
As we think about the different conflict management styles,
we can put these on an assertiveness versus cooperativeness scale.
Let's start with the avoiding conflict style.
In this particular case,
the parties to the conflict may just choose to not engage.
In that case, low assertive, low cooperativeness, doesn't require
the active participation of either party, and that would be the avoiding style.
To borrow the language from Steven Covey, this would be the equivalent
of the lose-lose solution to resolving the conflict.
As we move up the assertiveness scale we come to the forcing style.
Here, the person with the greater power will enforce
a decision on others around him to resolve the conflict.
You should recognize, in this particular style,
the connections to communication, and to power and influence.
This would be a closed communication style.
And would be probably a retribution style of power and influence.
In the Steven Covey language, this would be the win-lose solution.
As we approach the accommodating style,
this would be low assertiveness, high cooperativeness.
This literally is giving into a decision maker in resolving the conflict.
This, in the Steven Covey language, would be the lose-win solution.
As we think about compromise, here each party to the conflict
gets something out of it, but not fully satisfied.
In this particular context, I like to call this, the half win, half win solution.
As we think of being high on the assertive scale,
high on the cooperative scale, these are situations where both parties
are intensely interested in coming up with a solution that's acceptable to both.
In the Steven Covey language this would be the win-win solution.
With these conflict management styles in mind,
let's take a look at some of the consideration that go into selecting
the appropriate conflict management style for the situation.
The first of these might be the level of importance of the issue at hand,
is it important, is it not?
We might choose
a style based on preserving the relationship between the parties.
If the relationship importance is high,
then we might choose one style over another.
What's the relative power?
Is the decision maker high or
low in power compared to other parties involved in the negotiation?
And how urgent is resolving the situation?
If it's very urgent, we might choose one style over another.
So let's begin by examining each of the conflict resolution styles.
We start with forcing.
In this particular case,
this might be used in situations where the issue is extremely important.
The maintaining the relationship concern is not important right now, but
might be later.
The relative power is high, and
there are time constraints, significant time constraints.
What this begins to look like, is a style that might be used in a crisis situation,
where the leader has to be directive in nature to get conflict resolved.
As I said before, this, in the Covey language would be, the win-lose solution.
So there are potential consequences if this is used frequently
over a long period of time, as it may damage relationships.
Let's now move on to the accommodating style.
This would be used in circumstances where the issue's importance is relatively low.
Where it's important to preserve harmony in the relationship.
Where the relative power differences are low.
And we're not overly constrained by the amount of time available.
This might be used in a circumstance where one party concedes to the other.
And is typically referred to in the Covey language as a lose-win solution.
Now we move on to the compromising style of conflict resolution.
This might be used in circumstances where the relative importance of
the issue is medium.
Medium importance of maintaining a relationship,
equal power differences and low time constraints.
So, in this particular solution,
it's important that both parties come out of the negotiation with something, and
therefore, is referred to as the half win, half win solution.
Compromise is going to be an important one, in many circumstances,
where each of the parties feels like they got something out of the negotiation.
As we move on to the collaborating style, this is would be a style that is most
appropriate when the issue is extremely high importance to both parties.
Where managing a relationship in such a way that it is not damaged and
is preserved is extremely important.
There may or may not be a power difference involved.
And as a result, this is going to look a lot like supportive communication.
And where you have ample time to resolve differences.
This takes a great deal of negotiating skill, and will take time to implement.
So, may not be appropriate in a crisis situation.
We finally come to the avoiding style.
Here, typically the issue may be low importance.
The parties just choose not to fight over something that's not important.
Where the relationship difference,
or preserving the relationship isn't particularly important.
Where the power differences might be equal, and moderate time constraints.
Sometimes we just choose not to engage in conflict
over an issue that is of low importance, and that's typical of the avoiding style.
However, this can be a severe problem
if the issue actually is of greater importance.
And over the long term, results in building of tension and
frustration that can show up later on in dysfunctional ways.
So, when preserving relationships is extremely important,
it ought to be obvious by now, that the collaborating style is going to be
the preferred method of resolving conflict.
We'll devote some attention to that in the next lesson.
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