Conflict Resolution Part two
Conway Daily Sun
July 31, 2013
By Michael Kline

In our last article, we discussed conflict  as a fact of life, but how it doesn’t need to be a “way of life”.  Ironically, conflict is often exacerbated by our attempt to avoid conflict.

Conflict can be good when it produces gains, innovations and new ideas. Conflict can be good when it fosters unity and understanding and brings about behavior changes. When people address conflict, they talk about their interests and get to know each other better. Greater empathy and understanding occur; people learn that not only can diversity be handled, but can be interesting and productive.

Conflict is bad when it escalates, leads to hostility and fear, or is suppressed. Most of us are better at choosing either
the flight or fight response, either escalating the conflict or suppressing it. Neither choice is as productive as dealing with the conflict and turning it into a positive event it could be. In our Conflict Resolution seminar, we teach the
Dr. Crawford method of resolution, using the acronym L.E.A.P.

L.E.A.P.  stands for Listen, Empathize, Ask them and Problem Solve. 
1.      Listen  – When someone appears to be difficult, they are not just giving you information, they are giving you
the key to what they want/how to get their cooperation. Most difficult people appear difficult because they are stating their position, rather than their interests. You may need to ask good questions to illicit what they really want, in order to clarify their interests. Listen carefully, with intent to understand. Repeat back – paraphrase their interests to show your understanding. “What I hear you saying is…, did I get that right? Did I cover everything? Make sure you get confirmation that you understand their issues correctly.
2.      Empathize - They are likely afraid we don’t understand how serious their problem is. Don’t tell them to
“calm down”, or that it’s “not a problem”, etc. Let them know you understand and can see their point of view. This is not the same as agreeing with them. You are only stating that you understand why they feel the way they do.

3.      Ask them - for their ideas to solve the problem. Because they fear we don’t value their opinion. This also moves the problem from the past into the present and future, and the problem solving stage. People never argue with their own data. Asking for their ideas gets them thinking about how difficult they are being, and may actually provide good
ideas!
 4.     Problem Solve – Only now are we ready to suggest solutions. Be sure to wait until you’ve done the listening, empathizing and asking before you problem solve. Now, thinking win/win, you take all the information and hints you collected during your first three steps, and you blend their concerns into your ideas and solutions. Remember, this is not about manipulating, but working with a high level of consideration for their interests, balanced with high courage for your own interests. This requires a positive, abundance mentality. People with a scarcity mentality will have
difficulty believing this is possible. 

More often than not, most of our conflicts can be avoiding through better communication skills, and when they can’t be prevented, they can be handled more effectively and turned into a positive experience for
everyone involved.  That is your mission, should you choose to accept it.

Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He
may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail,
mike@klineseminars.com.

Conflict Resolution Part One
By Michael Kline
Conway Daily Sun, July 17, 2016

Most work places have more conflict than we are comfortable with.
Today we’re going to explore why that is, and what to do about it. Properly
dealt with, conflict can be a key ingredient to progress in relationships as
well as product and service improvements. In fact, Thomas Paine, the highly
influential writer during the American Revolution wrote “The harder the
conflict, the more glorious the triumph”. 



I’ve been known to risk a little glory to avoid a little conflict, so I’m not promoting conflict or saying it’s good, but good can come from it. Conflict is a fact of life, so we need to learn to deal with it and create benefit when we can. The trouble is that for some, conflict is actually a way of life and that is usually bad for business, bad for coworkers,
employers, employees and customers. 

Let’s start with an easy way to eliminate some conflict – disagreeing about facts. Some conflicts are really just simple disagreements that don’t really matter. Perhaps we’re talking politics and I make a reference to Orson Welles’s Book 1984. You, being so much smarter, remember that it was George Orwell that wrote 1984, so you move quickly to correct me. If we’re friends and you correct me in a friendly way, that’s great. In real life, some folks need to correct people with whom they are not friendly. They take joy in correcting people they don’t like, as a way of bringing them down, thus creating conflict where it need not be. This is so frequent on Facebook it makes me want to delete my account some days. Or perhaps, if I insist that I am correct, you may feel a need to argue that I am wrong and you can prove it. In the meantime, we fight about it and bring up other things that we’ve been wrong about in the past to destroy each other’s credibility. We need to ask ourselves, does it matter that you are right? How does my being wrong affect the outcome of our work? Does it lower our productivity or quality? If we were writing a book about American literature, we need to resolve the issue – otherwise, just let it go. For some folks it seems near impossible, because what’s important to them is not the need for the right answer to be known, but the need to prove they are the one who knows it.

Now let’s resolve some common conflicts that can’t easily be avoided. When two people want the same thing, conflict develops quickly. We usually state our position instead of our interests, eliminating all other possible solutions. If instead, we state our interests and let discussion flow, we find alternative solutions that meet our interests and allow others to have their interests met as well. For instance, let’s say you and I occasionally use the company van for work purposes.  You state that you need to take the van to a customer site this morning. I respond with “no way, I have our most important customer to pick up at the airport”.  How do we resolve the issue? Go ahead, take a moment and guess! I bet that most of you did what most people do at work – they start comparing why each one is more entitled to get their way. We each make a good case, and then we need a boss (parent figure) to settle it for us. The boss listens to our arguments and as the supreme judge (or mother), they will pick their favorite of the day to make one of us a winner and one of us a loser. There can only be one winner since there is only one van, right? Not so fast. The correct and best answer in this case, is to ask each of us to express our interests instead of our positions. 
My interest is not the van itself, but picking up our client at the  airport. Your interest was perhaps delivering a large item to your client as promised. No problem, I’ll drop the large item for you, on my way to the airport! Or perhaps, I could take the boss’s Mercedes to the airport instead of the van. The point is that by stating our interests instead of taking our positions, we open up possibilities and many conflicts can be resolved quickly and easily. 

This is similar to resolving conflicts we feel about our work, our lives and our happiness, isn’t it? Always start with the goal. Is it possible to accomplish the goal some other way? Almost always, the answer is yes, and life’s biggest problems become a much easier to solve puzzle. Enjoy the puzzle and be kind.

 Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He
may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail,
mike@klineseminars.com.

Our tour of western National Parks continues to inspire and educate. This week, I’m sharing what I wrote while traveling earlier this month. The story portrayed at Little Big Horn today is very different from the history book of my childhood taught in the 1970's from the Euro-American perspective. I can't learn enough in one trip to say that I understand all the lessons available from this battle and I certainly couldn't convey the lessons in one short article. After watching a couple documentaries, taking a tour of
  the memorials and listening to the official park ranger presentation, I still know very little. The technical facts of the battle do not begin to explain the nuances of the politics that led to the battle, the pressure for congress and for the President to do something about the struggling US economy of the time,
or the misunderstandings of two very different cultures each wanting the resources of the territory and each wanting to protect their lifestyle and values. So far though, I know there is more than meets the eye and far more
than we were taught in school.
 
There is a Native American saying that if you speak to the animals, they will speak to you and you will understand them. If you do not speak to them, you will not understand them, and what you do not understand you will fear, and what you fear, you will destroy. It seems to me, this lesson applies to many aspects of
our lives.
 
Back in Arizona, I met a Navajo woman who grew up on the reservation, and now lives and works at Lake Powell. I asked her what the biggest misconception is most white tourists have about the Navajo. Her answer took about an hour as she told her story of growing up on the reservation and about her elderly parents who could never leave their traditional home and ways. They have grown to accept her decision to leave the reservation and marry a Jamaican man she met at the resort. She told us about her gay nephew who has difficulties living with his very conservative parents on the reservation, but is getting through it. She says she has many gay Navajo friends, most of whom
leave the reservation, but overall, are starting to be accepted. I got the impression that social progress is happening in her culture, even if a few decades behind mainstream America. I'm sure that is the case in many
communities across the country for non-native communities as well. I learned, by the way, the politically correct term for white people is "non-native".  Incidentally, after using the formal term only once, she quickly returned to
calling us white people and I wasn't the least bit-offended.
 
Her story is not so different from the stories I hear from my Italian, Irish or German American friends - all of us who know our own family history, can tell stories of traditions, foods, holidays, and family stories that our parents or
grandparents held dear. I think we are more similar than different. So yes, talking to others, making simple inquiries can create an understanding, which removes fear. We can in fact, replace judgment with curiosity.

Can we then, if not as a nation, then as individuals, learn the lessons from disasters like the battle at Little Big Horn? Did so many people die in vain? They (soldiers) were killed by weapons our government gave to their enemy, (original Americans) who did not need to be an enemy in the first place, to fight a battle over resources we could have easily shared. Was it not primarily fear and ignorance that caused such horrific pain, suffering and death? What, if anything, is so different about our battles today?

In our own lives, at work, with our family, our neighbors, those crazy foreigners who moved in down the street – who or what do we fear? Is it the pending changes at work that worry us? Is it our own insecurity as a parent that makes us angry at our child’s teacher? Is it our lack of commitment that makes others seem uncommitted? With whom should we be talking and trying to understand? That which we do not understand we fear, and that which we fear, we
will destroy.

Before we destroy our jobs, or our relationship with our children, or the potential friendship with the neighbors, or our customers, let’s reflect on Steven Covey’s habit number five: Seek first to understand, then be understood. 
Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com .