what does it take to resolve a conflict?

Conflict Matters: what does it take to resolve a conflict?

One of my favourite mediators is Ken Cloke who asserts that we all “….have an incontrovertible desire for reconciliation.” For that full reconciliation to occur, there has to be resolution on at least three levels: behaviour, thinking and feeling. So we have to decide how deep, how far down we are going. The “behaviour” level is at the surface, and the starting point for most disputes, and sometimes we can keep the “discussion” simply focused on the behaviour in question and reach some kind of agreement at that level. But unless the “thinking” and “feeling” levels are also addressed, there is likely to be at least some ongoing resentment, leaving the agreement well short of real reconciliation.

There might be plenty of situations where we can live with that. Disputes between parents and young children are an obvious example. Disputes between a grown up couple that lives together….maybe not so much. If the relationship is important to us, we can start by asking ourselves questions like:

“What was it (s)he did that really got under my skin?”

“How did that challenge what is important to me?”

“What value of mine did that threaten, or undermine?”

“How did that affect how I see myself?”

“What was the impact on me, internally?”

“What am I assuming was the other person’s intention?

These questions are based on some composed by one of my teachers, a conflict management coach who lives in Canada¹. While getting clear about what happened to us (inside) is important, if we are interested in reconciliation it is no less important to find out what was going on for the other person. Which means we need to think about how the other person would answer the same questions. For starters, just reword the questions slightly and use your imagination e.g.: “How might what I did challenge what is important to them?” “What might they be assuming about my motivation?” That last question in particular is fascinating: once we are in a dispute it is only too easy to assume the other person’s motivations are less pure than our own.

Obviously the other person may not be interested in answering such questions, or willing to consider anything beyond the “surface level” behaviour. No problem. What is so good about these questions is that they work well even when only used by one person.

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