Conflict happens. Learn the 4 parts of any conflict, and some questions and phrases you can use to help you handle interpersonal conflict in communication.

When we’re in a conversation, we want things to go smoothly. We want the relationship between us and the other person to work. But conflict happens, and that’s what today’s episode is about.

Hi everybody, this is 10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication, giving you inspiration and strategies to improve engagement, experience, and satisfaction since 2017. I’m Dr. Anne Marie Liebel, a researcher, consultant, and educator with expertise in communication and education. I’m here to dig into some of what we might take for granted about communication in our professional lives. If you want to strengthen the work you can do in your professional sphere, this is a place for you because communication touches everything. We’re here to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, make the difference we got into our jobs to make.

In the last week, I had two different people in two completely different conversations bring up interpersonal communication and conflict. One of them was a colleague who does teaching about this, who was saying they were doing more teaching about this, they were getting more requests about it. And then sure enough, later that same week, or it was just earlier this week? Gosh, wow, just earlier this week, I had someone come to me and want to talk about: Can you give me some advice in a professional conflict and in this conversation? What should I do?

So, take from that what you may, but I know it means time to do an episode on it! Because it’s been a while since we’ve talked about conflict in this show.

So this is for those times when an otherwise normal or unremarkable conversation goes sideways, takes a turn, gets tense, maybe gets derailed.

Because we know when communication falls short in the health sector, patient satisfaction and outcomes get impacted. And that’s what we don’t want. And that’s why we’re here in this show. The majority of the people that I talk to really wanna preserve the relationship as well. So we’re gonna talk all about that and maybe refresh some of what you know, and hopefully give you some new tools, because I’m going to take time at the end of this episode to give you some phrases that you can use and questions that you can ask yourself.

What I’m sharing is leaning on a book that I have leaned on a lot in my professional life, from the Harvard Negotiation Project, it’s called Getting to Yes, and it’s been around for decades. I don’t know how many editions this book has gone through. It analyzes decades of cases from international negotiation and conflict resolution, and I think it’s got great advice in it.

So the authors suggest we look at interpersonal conflict as having four parts. And I found these four parts handy when you want to break something down–especially a conflict that has just happened, and you’re trying to make sense of it. You want to be better next time. So those four parts are: you, the other person, the relationship between you, and the problem.

You, the other person, the relationship, and the problem.

Now the authors say there are two sets of concerns in any conflict. One is the people: you, the other person, the relationship. And the other is the problem at hand.

And they spend a lot of time in this book helping you untangle the two of those. Because if you’re like me, you’re thinking, “Well, what about when the person’s the problem?!” And yeah, Okay, I’m gonna talk about that too. But it’s important that we at least give ourselves a chance to think about them separately.

And to help you do this, the authors give us this example. It’s two shipwrecked sailors in a lifeboat fighting over limited supplies. Each sees the other person as the problem, instead of the fact that they’re in a lifeboat with limited supplies.

To survive, the authors say they will want to “disentangle the objective problems from the people.” So that’s what they’re trying to tell us to do: identify the objective problems. Once we can do that, we can focus on shared goals. In this case, the objective problem: they’re in a lifeboat with limited supplies. The shared goal we’re going to assume is survival. So they will want to focus on the shared goal, regardless of whatever personal relationships are like between them right now.

So the authors use this story to remind us how important it is to separate the other person from whatever issue that they are raising. They say, “Deal with people in personal ways, and deal with issues in strategic ways.”

Now, you may have issues with the other person’s approach to the problem! And okay, so maybe they are thinking the same thing about us! This can feel like a personal attack, which can get our hackles up and make things even more difficult to deal with.

So I want to remind you–like the authors do–that it’s not really us. It’s not really the other person either. It’s the conflict in our approaches to the problem. That can also make the problem a little more difficult to see and to tackle. So let’s get to tackling this.

Here are some phrases and questions that you can use broken down by those four parts of a conflict. And of course, this is a reflective practice show, so we’re starting with you.

Give yourself a moment to think about your interests and ideas in this conversation. This is going to help you when it comes to dealing with the problem, too.

Alright, now let’s talk about the other person. Even if you know this person well already, it’s a good idea not to assume anything. Go ahead and ask the questions I’m going to share with you, listen to what they say, and keep in mind that it’s possible your idea of what a good outcome is different from theirs. So:

Repeat back to them what you heard and consider asking clarifying questions to make sure you understand their perspective on the issue. Like:

Okay, number three, the relationship. I had a professor in grad school who laid down this really basic truth. It’s one of those that it’s easy to say but it’s incredibly hard to remember to put into practice: People want to be understood on their own terms. Right.

When you think you understand the other person’s perspective, the easiest, most important move you can make is to let them know you hear them, whether or not you agree with them. Here are some ways you can do that:

So this is letting a person know that you heard them, even if you don’t agree with them.

And number four, the problem. The authors of Getting to Yes recommend that you tackle this together, because collaboration isn’t just good for the relationship, it’s also good for problem solving. So ask the other person what they think might work. And whatever they say, find something you can agree on, that you think you can work with, and build on it. You might have heard this as like the yes, and move. So let me give you some examples of how you can say that.

Now, what about those times when the person is asking for something that you can’t do, or you can’t meet all of their requests. Here are some phrases to get you out of that tight spot.

And if you want to introduce a compromise, you can use these phrases:

These questions and phrases help you focus on the issue while respecting the people: yourself, the other person, the relationship. And these phrases can help you get the conversation back on track while keeping the relationship intact, and dealing with the objective problem out there in the world. If you’d like more help with this, go ahead on LinkedIn and message me, or visit Health Communication Partners and click on Contact. This has been 10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication from Health Communication Partners. Audio Engineering and Music by Joe Liebel. Additional music from Alexis Rounds.

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