Understanding Communication Strategies

Many employees are expected to argue for themselves in order to promote the organization's interests through their own department.

But how do you monitor the strategies these people use to argue for their interests?

You can encourage people to use communicative strategies to resolve conflicts. You can also stress the importance of avoiding contentious strategies that result in division. To do this, considers these points:

• rules for open communications
• conflict-resolution methods
• avoiding contentious strategies.

Rules for open communications
When you hire someone for your department, or when meetings start to get out of hand, you could bring up a series of basic rules for open communication. These are communicative strategies. The following provide more about the elements of open communication:

• I statements: When discussing your feelings about an emotional situation, use statements such as, "I feel this way when this happens." It's non-accusatory and expresses what you feel.
• willingness: People on both sides of a disagreement need to indicate their willingness to resolve their differences.
• listening: Everyone needs to hear the speaker and acknowledge through verbal and nonverbal means that he or she is listening.
• restating: When it's your turn to speak in reply to what someone else has said, restate what you believe you heard him say. This helps eliminate misunderstandings.
• agreements: It's also important to point out what interests you have in common with those you disagree with. This sets an optimistic tone for possible agreements.
• requests: It's divisive to ask someone to stop doing something you don't like; however, it's OK to request a change of behavior, especially if you suggest alternatives.
• consistency: Be consistent with your verbal and nonverbal message.
• word choice: Be careful with the words you use when describing negative feelings. Try to choose noninflammatory language and tone down your emotions.

Conflict-resolution methods
There are other strategies you can use, but these strategies should be used as a last-resort tactic, when nothing else has worked. These strategies lie somewhere in between communicative and contentious.

The following provide more about these strategies:

• Giving in is an acceptable strategy when you won't suffer long-term harm. It can be an effective bargaining chip that lets you move on to a more important point.
• When it appears that a conflict is about to escalate, it's OK to break off or even give up on trying to resolve it.
• Avoiding a problem can be OK if time will take care of it. This is a difficult decision to make.
• In emergencies, when quick and decisive actions must be taken, when you must implement an unpopular decision, or when someone is playing games with you, it is OK to be abrupt.

Avoiding contentious strategies
It is very important to point out to the people in your group what you consider to be contentious strategies. The following provide more about these inappropriate tactics:

• Sometimes, when people try to become your new best friend, and flatter and compliment you, they may be trying to get you to make a decision against your interests.
• Inducing guilt is an inappropriate way to get someone to change her mind.
• Gamesmanship is the use of maneuvers that further your own position over others.
• Another contentious tactic is the use of threats.
• Side issue remarks are derogatory comments directed at your opponent.

To resolve a conflict with an employee, it's important to use appropriate communicative strategies and avoid contention. You should show willingness and consistency in resolving a conflict, use I statements and proper word choice, listen to and restate a message, find common ground and request a change of behavior.

If these strategies do not work, you should then use an appropriate last-resort strategy.

Understanding Cooperative Resolution

Conflict occurs in every organization.

Organizations that successfully manage conflict can do so by resolving it cooperatively.

There are two means that effective leaders use to reach cooperative conflict resolution. They:

• set preconditions to a cooperative resolution
• follow the steps to a cooperative resolution.

Set preconditions to a cooperative resolution
Whenever there is a conflict between your employees, it's important to set the preconditions for cooperative resolution before any attempt is made to resolve the conflict.

This will help both parties in a conflict to separate the problem from the people involved, and work together for a mutually beneficial solution. Begin by meeting separately with each side and establishing the following preconditions for cooperative resolution.

Make certain that both parties understand that they can meet their own interests by helping others meet theirs.

Encourage both parties to come up with an alternate plan. It's important that neither side enter negotiations with a rigid mindset.

Make sure that both parties separate the people involved in the dispute from the dispute itself. Work-related problems that become personal disputes are more difficult to resolve.

Follow the steps to a cooperative resolution
Once the preconditions for a cooperative resolution are set, a leader should get the parties in a conflict to sit down together and follow the steps for a cooperative resolution. These are the four steps that a leader should follow:

1. Conflicts often arise over simple misunderstandings. Taking time to eliminate all misunderstandings between parties in a conflict can make it much easier to reach a cooperative resolution.
2. The second step is identifying and analyzing all issues and interests. This is an important step because it is easy to overlook issues in a conflict, yet difficult to find solutions if all issues are not identified.
3. In the third step of the cooperative resolution process, leaders should help employees find integrative solutions. This type of solution allows both parties to win. As you negotiate for a mutually beneficial solution, you should make sure that neither party dominates and that both remain flexible.
4. If unable to find a successful integrative solution, a leader should proceed to the fourth step. This involves revisiting each of the steps in an attempt to find a solution. If still unsuccessful, the leader makes the final decision.

To resolve conflicts between employees, it is important to follow the steps for reaching a cooperative resolution. To do this, you should eliminate misunderstandings, analyze the issues and interests of both sides, and find solutions that benefit both parties.

If a cooperative resolution is not found after following these steps, you should revisit the previous steps. If a solution is still not reached after revisiting all the steps, you will have to make the decision yourself.

By applying a variety of methods, you can resolve the conflicts between your employees cooperatively. How could these skills contribute to your own leadership abilities and to the success of your organization?

Understanding Conflict

Conflicts among employees occur in every organization.

As an effective leader you need to know how to deal with conflict.

Understanding conflict means examining:

• the concept of conflict
• constructive conflict
• the escalation of conflict
• the psychological changes that accompany conflict
• the two primary reasons for conflict.

Constructive conflict
While we all know conflict when we feel it, most of us don't work with it well because we don't understand its dynamics. What are the inner workings of conflict?

Conflict is an everyday, naturally occurring fact of life. Without it, there is no progress, evolution, or art. Don't fear it; learn how to face it and work with it. It occurs when you believe that in order to get what you want, someone else won't be able to get what he or she wants.

The concept of conflict
The resolution of a problem can show the three ways conflict can be constructive. These are:

• when it leads to unity of purpose and collaboration
• when it leads to better decision making
• when it produces change.

The escalation of conflict
Many conflicts, however, turn destructive because they escalate out of control. Consider the following reasons that conflict escalates:

• Cooperation turns into accusations and threats.
• One issue becomes many.
• A specific issue gives way to general complaints.
• Consideration turns to getting even.
• More people begin to get involved.

The psychological changes that accompany conflict
There are a number of psychological changes that happen to people when they get involved in conflicts. These are explained in detail below:

• When you are in conflict, you develop selective perception, only seeing your own side of the story. You begin to look for evidence to prove you're right.
• Conflict can also cause you to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, where you create a worst-case scenario, and then get what you expect by acting as if it's going to happen.
• When conflict is played out, a complete communication breakdown occurs. Trust is rarely reestablished, and any polite conversation that follows is filled with tension and bitterness.

The two primary reasons for conflict
There are two primary reasons for conflict. One primary reason for conflict is that two people have different interests; they want different things. Another primary reason for conflict is two people have the same interests, which are in conflict; they believe only one of them can have what they want.

Exploring conflict resolution within your organization can improve the atmosphere in the workplace and lead to greater creativity and collaboration.