Video Transcript: Conflict Resolution

The most common way of dealing with conflict is to avoid it. Some people walk away. Others get really upset, wind themselves up and attack, and others just get sick or go on stress leave. In fact, it's amazing what people will do in order to avoid conflict and the emotional stress that comes with it.

There is a very clever saying that goes like this, de-nial is not a river in Egypt. Denial is, however, one of the most common problems when it comes to resolving conflict. When confronted with a tense or difficult conflict, too many people smooth it over, bury their head in the sand, and the conflict goes on for another one, two or three weeks, months or even years in some cases,

I want to introduce you to a definition of conflict and then give you a pathway for the resolution of conflict. Before I do I want to say this for some people, even the word conflict means warfare, dead bodies and blood on the streets, and it's very common for women and men to see anything less than that as not being conflict at all. So this is a definition that starts at a very low level, because most conflict starts out as very small upsets and builds and grows into a full scale battle. So here's the definition: conflict exists when one person has a need of another and that need is not being met.

Now don't be fooled by the simplicity of this definition. The resolution of conflict starts from here, and the first step is to express the need. The second step is to find out if the need can or can not be met. If the need can be met, then we have resolution. If it's a no, then we negotiate to resolve the conflict, or we go into the management of conflict. So here's the problem, most people go straight from having an unmet need into the management of conflict, bypassing step one and step two because they are afraid and don't talk to the people who can do something about it. And that's not pretty. In fact, it gets quite ugly.

So here's what the management of conflict looks like: sulking, withdrawing, getting sick, the silent treatment, backstabbing, gossiping, shouting, blocking, being aggressive and getting angry. So the resolution of conflict starts with expressing your unmet need and then finding out if your unmet need can or cannot be met. If your conflict has escalated to the stage where it's too tough or sensitive or difficult to handle, then you really need to think seriously about involving a neutral third party to help you mediate the dispute.