IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGING CONFLICT
In prior sections, discussion focused on the attitudes, norms, and values that foster cooperation. These are necessary but not in themselves sufficient. Knowledge and skills are also important in promoting constructive resolution of a conflict.
This is the thesis underlying the book. Knowledge of the theory presented earlier in this chapter offers a useful framework for organizing one’s thinking about the social psychological consequences of cooperation and competition as well as the conditions that lead to one rather than the other. It is a way of orienting oneself to situations not previously encountered. Along with the other theories discussed in this book, it enlarges one’s knowledge of the range of conditions to be considered as one wishes to develop and maintain a constructive, cooperative process of conflict resolution and to prevent developing a destructive process.Skills are also vitally important if one wishes to develop and implement successfully an effective, cooperative problem-solving process. There has not been much systematic discussion of the skills involved in constructive solutions to conflict. There are, I believe, three main kinds useful to the participants in a conflict as well as to third parties (such as mediators, conciliators, counselors, or therapists) who are called on to provide assistance to conflicting parties. For convenience, I label them rapport-building skills, cooperative conflict resolution skills, and group process and decision-making skills.
First, there are the skills involved in establishing effective working relationships with each of the conflicting parties and between the conflicting parties if you are the mediator or with the other if you are a participant. Some of the components of this broad category include such skills as breaking the ice; reducing fears, tensions, and suspicion; overcoming resistance to negotiation; establishing a framework for civil discourse and interaction; and fostering realistic hope and optimism.
Thus, before negotiations begin between two individuals or groups perceiving each other as adversaries, it is often useful to have informal social gatherings or meetings in which the adversaries can get to know one another as human beings who share some similar interests and values. Skill in breaking the ice and creating a safe, friendly atmosphere for interaction between the adversaries is helpful in developing the prenegotiation experiences likely to lead to effective negotiations about the issues in dispute.A second, related set of skills concerns developing and maintaining a cooperative conflict resolution process among the parties throughout their conflict. These are the skills that are usually emphasized in practicum courses or workshops on conflict resolution. They include identifying the type of conflict in which you are involved; reframing the issues so the conflict is perceived as a mutual problem to be resolved cooperatively; active listening and responsive communication; distinguishing between needs and positions; recognizing and acknowledging the other’s needs as well as your own; encouraging, supporting, and enhancing the other; taking the perspective of the other; identifying shared interests and other similarities in values, experiences, and so on; being alert to cultural differences and the possibilities of misunderstanding arising from them; controlling anger; dealing with difficult conflicts and difficult people; being sensitive to the other’s anxieties and hot buttons and how to avoid pressing them; and being aware of your own anxieties and hot buttons as well as your tendencies to be emotionally upset and misperceiving if they are pressed so that these can be controlled.
A third set of skills is involved in developing a creative and productive group problem-solving and decision-making process. These include skills pertinent to group process, leadership, and effective group discussion, such as goal and standard setting; monitoring progress toward group goals; eliciting, clarifying, coordinating, summarizing, and integrating the contributions of the various participants; and maintaining group cohesion.
The third set also includes such problem-solving and decision-making skills as identifying and diagnosing the nature of the problem confronting the group; acquiring the relevant information necessary for developing possible solutions; creating or identifying several possible, alternative solutions; choosing the criteria for evaluating the alternatives (such as the “effects” on economic costs and benefits, on relations between the conflicting parties, and on third parties); selecting the alternative that optimizes the results on the chosen criteria; and implementing the decision through appropriate action.People are not novices with regard to conflict. From their life experiences, many people have developed some of the component skills involved in building rapport, constructive conflict resolution, and effective group process and problem solving. However, some are not aware that they have the skills; nor are they aware of how and when to use them in a conflict. The fact that everyone has been a participant and observer in many conflicts from childhood on results in implicit knowledge, preconceptions, attitudes, and modes of behavior toward conflict that may be deeply ingrained before any systematic training occurs. Many of a person’s preexisting orientations to conflict and modes of behavior in it reflect those prevalent in his or her culture, but some reflect individual predispositions acquired from unique experiences in the contexts of family, school, watching TV, and the like.
Before students can acquire explicit competence in conflict resolution, they have to become aware of their preexisting orientations to conflict as well as their typical behaviors. Awareness and motivation are developed by having a model of good performance that students can compare with their preconscious, preexisting one. Internalization comes from guided and repeated practice in imitating the model. Feedback on the students’ successfulness gradually shapes their behavior to be consistent with the model, and frequent practice leads to its internalization.
Once the model has been internalized, recurrence of earlier incompetent orientations to conflict is experienced as awkward and out of place because there are internal cues to the deviations of one’s behavior from the internalized model. In tennis, if you have internalized a good model of serving, internal cues tell you if you are deviating from it (say, by throwing the ball too high). If self-taught tennis students have internalized poor serving models, training should be directed at making them aware of this and providing a good model. So too in conflict resolution.In summary, the discussion in this and the preceding sections has centered on the orientation, norms, values, and skills that help to develop a cooperative, constructive process of conflict resolution. Without competence in the skills, having a cooperative orientation and knowledge of conflict processes is often insufficient to develop a cooperative process of conflict resolution. Similarly, having the skills is insufficient to develop a cooperative process without the cooperative orientation and motivation to apply the skills or without the knowledge of how to apply the skills in various social and cultural contexts.