Weekly Training Booster Episode #5: Improve How You Deal With Conflict

Join Andy Palmer and Darren A. Smith in the fifth episode of the Weekly Training Booster. This episode was about how to deal with conflict, or manage conflict. We discussed how important tone is to the situation, the use of irritators, and the Thomas-Kilman conflict behavioural model.

You Can Read the How to Deal With Conflict Episode Transcript Below:

Andy Palmer:

Okay. We're back here again with an MBM Weekly Training Booster. This is number five. Today we're talking about conflict resolution. So Darren and I had a huge disagreement this morning over something that felt quite trivial at the time, but it's caused us quite a bit of friction between the pair of us. Now, we're both going head to head and yet we're trying to figure out if we had our time again, how could we manage our conflicts better? How could we get conflict resolution faster? So Darren, if we had our time again, what would you and I have done differently?

Darren A. Smith:

I think what I read about conflict is that everyone says, "Just calm down, listen, do it properly." But actually, when you're in conflict, you basically want to beat the other person to a pulp. I get that. So telling us that we need to calm down and it shouldn't matter, I get why people are saying that. Actually, I'm not sure that achieves the behavioral change that we're looking for because what we're really looking for is to understand that it happens. The adrenaline's pumping, we're in conflict and I think what we need to know is what's going on more in our heads at that time. And I want to share a couple of models that hopefully will help people understand what is going on in their heads, which I think then will calm them down rather than just telling them, "You need to be calmer."

Andy Palmer:

All right, good stuff. I think the calming down a bit's important just to take the heat out of the situation. And yet the psychology that sits behind the reason why we're already in that place and then what we can do is where the true value and the importance comes from. So let's hear about this first model that's in your mind right now.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. So it's Thomas Kilmann. These guys came up with a model many years ago and it says that we have five ways of dealing with conflict and we have a default, one of them. So if we can understand which one we are defaulting to, that will help us understand how we deal with conflict normally because that's our default behavior. Now, once we understand that stuff and we understand it well and we're trained in it, we can then move into using other behaviors, because the challenge isn't to stop having conflict, the challenges to manage conflict using other behaviors.

So as an example, one of the behaviors is avoid. Now everyone sees that as the weak one, but it's not because sometimes you just need to walk away. So one of the five default behaviors is avoid. And if we can plant that in people's heads, then maybe one in 100 arguments, if they're really in conflict, they might just walk away because they'll live to fight another day.

Andy Palmer:

Yeah, absolutely. I think depending upon the level of conflict and of attention of where that could then go, being mindful of actually making a conscious effort to avoid escalation can be super powerful and why some people will have an avoiding mode just by default. It allows them to at least select it or be aware of where they're at.

Darren A. Smith:

It does. And avoiding isn't the weak one, all five are exactly equal.

Improve how you deal with conflict with this week's WTB

Andy Palmer:

Good. Okay. So, that's avoiding. Tell us about one of the other styles.

Darren A. Smith:

Well, I'll go right to the other end, the one that I am. And again, each of these has their strength and weakness. So on our Kilmann model, there's competing. And the phrase that people would use to describe competing is might is right.