Effectively Resolving Disagreements

SUMMARY

Are you uncomfortable with conflict and try and avoid it at all costs? Or are you able to handle difficult situations with these?

Stick with me because this week and throughout this entire month, I will help you understand and manage conflict.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker And Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer. Today, we're going to embark on another journey throughout the competency areas of Relationship Management by learning how to resolve disagreements effectively.

To do that and get started, what I want to do this week is unpack with you five key principles that you need to take hold of around this whole area of conflict so that you can then step into the other weeks and be empowered with these strategies.

Number one is conflict is inevitable.

Number two is relationships are the priority.

Number three is to focus on the issues.

Number four is seek to understand.

Number five is go for the triple win.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue this conversation around Conflict Management by helping you understand the different conflict resolution styles and help you understand what is your go-to style and how you can use other styles to get a different result.

I'll see you then.

TRANSCRIPT

Are you uncomfortable with conflict and try and avoid it at all costs? Or are you able to handle difficult situations with these?

Stick with me because this week and throughout this entire month, I will help you understand and manage conflict.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker And Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer. Today, we're going to embark on another journey throughout the competency areas of Relationship Management by learning how to resolve disagreements effectively.

There is so much conflict in the world right now: in your own home, social media, and between countries — everywhere you look, there’s conflict. It's been that way for many years now. This is because we have a pandemic going on and have military interventions escalating and becoming a culture now where people are getting more into conflicts.

Conversations (even on social media) manifest conflicts. I notice that there are lots of people who do not let others have an opinion. Therefore, their internal uncertainties create uncomfortable situations. An example of this is people having arguments and, in some cases, escalating and pointless ones. This happened to me yesterday; I had a heated conversation with someone, and I could not understand why it escalated because we were actually trying to say the same thing.

Understanding how to navigate conflict, manage conversations, and resolve situations are crucial skills that everybody needs to work on.

So, what is this thing called conflict management?

You know what conflict is — it is all about disagreeing and being in an uncomfortable situation.

Therefore, conflict management is effectively negotiating and resolving disagreements. One of the biggest challenges I see (I used to see these a lot in my own life as well) is that not only is there a lot of conflicts, but there are a lot of conflicts that have never been resolved.

Unresolved conflict can start with your own internal conflict where you’re conflicted with yourself.

Since we're looking in the competency area of relationship management, you will see how all this unresolved conflict is damaging relationships.

What I want to do this month is give you some things to think about and some practical skills that you can apply so that you can feel more comfortable when conflict arises.

To do that and get started, what I want to do this week is unpack with you five key principles that you need to take hold of around this whole area of conflict so that you can then step into the other weeks and be empowered with these strategies.

Number one is conflict is inevitable.

Sometimes, you look at the world and what you’re doing, and you think how fantastic it would be if there wasn’t any conflict.

But here's the thing:

People are emotional beings; therefore, there will be disagreements all the time. There will be exaggerated and over-emotional responses to things that happen. Therefore, conflict is inevitable. There will always be a butting of heads, like antelopes fighting over their territory. And this is going to happen in the world.

The first thing you need to understand is that it's not about eliminating conflict (because that's a quest that will lead to tears), but it's about learning how to roll and navigate with it because it will be there.

Sometimes, I used to put my head in the sand and think: “When I pop up, all the conflict will be gone, and things will be great.” And you might have probably done that too. But, it does not work. What tends to happen is it festers and escalates. Therefore, you need to manage it and recognise that it is there.

Conflict is actually a good thing. Because if everyone just agreed on everything, then we're not going to move too far forward.

When you learn to embrace conflict healthily and navigate through it, you will be able to remove this old thinking around conflict where you fear it and do not want anything to do with it.

Number two is relationships are the priority.

In this series of videos, you are now in the Relationship Management quadrant of Social and Emotional Intelligence. In this quadrant, I am teaching you how you can effectively manage yourself, and your relationships in a mutually beneficial way and (where possible) is at the best level that the relationship can be with what's going on around it at that particular time.

So, when you’re looking at the topic of conflict, the first thing you need to do is elevate the relationship up where it needs to be and realise that the relationship is the most important thing you want to keep.

A lot of times, most people just want it to be right. So the conflict was all about them getting their point across and proving that the other person was wrong.

However, when you shift that and go: “No, what's most important here is the relationship.”

You shift to healthy behaviour and use your Emotional Intelligence to create an environment that is healthy for your relationship and conducive to conflict resolution.

So, look at conflict as something necessary in a relationship. However, the relationship should be above it all. Therefore, you need to do what you can to protect that relationship at all costs.

Number three is to focus on the issues.

I remember being taught about this saying years ago: To resolve a conflict, you want to take the person out of it.

So, you want to focus on the issue and not the person.

I used to think: “Yes, but it's the person that's right in front of me right now. It is the person that is saying things that I disagree with.”

However, having learned what I've learned around Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, I understand this way better.

When you focus on the issue, you are taking away that personal attack and that relationship-killing situation where the other person feels attacked— that your conflict is with them.

However, your issue is usually not with the person. It is often with a behaviour, an outcome, or a situation.

So, focusing on the issue means looking at the issue through your logical brain, regulating your responses, and focusing on solving the issue, not on what the person has said, done, or how they have wronged you.

Now, I'm the first to let you know that I'm a work in progress in this every single time. Why? Because as I said before, we are all emotional beings, including me.

Just because I’m the Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and a subject matter expert in this area doesn't make me perfect. I am far from it, and it is never the goal. I am still a work in progress.

So, this is in the fourth quadrant because you need to be able to go back through and develop your Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness competencies. Most importantly, you also need to develop Empathy before you get into these wrongly called “soft skills” so that you have the skills and strategies to focus on the issue without the emotion stealing that opportunity from you.

Number four is seek to understand.

Instead of seeking to be understood, the first thing you want to do is seek to understand. This is where you need to use those skills of empathy so you can walk a mile in the other person's moccasins and see things through their lens.

By seeking to understand logically, you’re collecting the information you need so you can then resolve the conflict effectively.

In the coming weeks, I’m going to teach you a practical strategy for having a conversation that helps you stay in the logical brain and resolve the conflict.

In this article, though, I just want you to understand that this is all about seeing things from all perspectives and not just from your own.

Number five is go for the triple win.

Oftentimes, when you’re in a conflict, you just want to win. You want to be right and validated.

Then we go to the next level of having a double win where it’s a win for you and the other person. However, the triple win takes this to a higher level. A triple win is a win for you, the other person, and the greater good.

Conflict has collateral damage —the people in the conflict are not the only ones hurt.

So, when you seek to resolve the conflict to help yourself, the other person involved, and those around you, you can effectively resolve the disagreement.

It is possible to effectively resolve disagreements without damaging the relationships to the point of not returning. To do that, there are certain skills that you need to have and new strategies that you need to learn.

So, on top of our Emotional Intelligence, you have a process to go through so that you can get that triple win. Over the next month, we’re going to pull apart conflict management and look at it in incremental steps to give you the skills you need to be able to do this.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue this conversation around Conflict Management by helping you understand the different conflict resolution styles and help you understand what is your go-to style and how you can use other styles to get a different result.

I'll see you then.