How to Manage, and Not Manage, Conflict

Conflict management is a term that we have all heard before, but what does it really mean? Of course it means managing conflicts among people, but it goes a bit deeper than that. In A Systems Approach to Small Group Interaction, Stewart Tubbs says that conflict management is defined as “the opportunity to improve situations and strengthen relationships” and that it is “cooperative, balanced, and empathic.” Not all conflict management is good conflict management, but ideally, conflict management ends up unifying a viewpoint amongst parties of differing opinions. Group members in a conflict must both share a willingness to resolve the conflict in order to yield the best results. This results in increased sharing of feelings and ideas, less future conflict, and increased individual and group productivity. Doesn’t everybody want these things?

Tubbs goes on to describe the Conflict Grid. The Conflict Grid, whose categories are also described here, is a grid that illustrates the relationship between focusing on concern for people versus concern for results, and how this balance will yield effective conflict management. It also shows how conflict management can become skewed when the balance between these two components is off.

• 1,1 – This style of management is a hands-off approach. Also known as avoidance, this type of conflict management does not actively solve problems, it avoids them. People who practice this type of conflict management will make use of physical boundaries that provide distance between that individual and the conflict. There is no desire to confront problems, and the less that is said about them, the better. The following clip from Office Space demonstrates how unproductive avoidance can be.

• 1,9 – Also called accommodation, this type of conflict management is all about concern for people. However, this is all about the appearance of harmony. The attempt to make people feel better is put above the actual resolution of conflict. There is often a lot of smiling and nervous laughter to cover the actual problems taking place. However, even though this sort of behavior seems like it is meant to help people, it doesn’t. This is because there is no actual confrontation of the underlying issue. It is all about sacrificing one’s own needs in order to make the other person feel better, but without doing anything substantial to work towards resolution. I have only watched the first season of The Office, but it stuck out to me as the perfect example to represent the accommodation style of conflict management, because…well, Michael Scott is the epitome of awkward laughs.

• 9, 1 – This type of conflict management is based on authoritarian control. Since concern for results is prioritized much higher than concern for people, the power figure in this instance will take the upper hand. This style is also known as competing, since people involved in this type of conflict will do whatever is necessary to get in the position of power so that they can control the outcome. If there is also already an authority figure in these situations, they control the action to be taken in order to “resolve” the conflict. This type of conflict management does not inspire cooperation or a high moral in the people who are involved. In the following scene from A Night at the Roxbury, Steve and Doug’s dad bosses them around without addressing the real problem, which is that they want to open their own nightclub.

• 5, 5 – This type of conflict management is all about compromise since the attention given to people and the attention given to results is the same. However, in this situation, each party is settling for less than a fully satisfying resolution. The willingness to compromise means that there are no losers, but there are also no winners. This means that the solutions to the problem are workable, but not necessarily the best. In the beginning of the trailer for War Dogs, the characters played by Jonah Hill and Miles Teller land a gig with the government for a relatively low cost. Both the government and these two characters end up settling for less than what they wanted – for the government, quality and for Hill and Teller’s characters, money.

• 9, 9 – This is the optimum style for resolving and managing conflict, and is based on collaboration. Both results and people are placed on high priority. Also in this type of management, the real underlying issue is addressed and discussed, not avoided. Communication is important, and comments that do not elicit open communication (like, “Anyone who thinks that is nuts”) should be eliminated. Rather, communication that is honest and empathetic, such as “I don’t agree with that position because…” Problems are looked at objectively, while emotions and feelings are worked through, not put on the back-burner. Tubbs offers 4 guidelines that will help anyone wanting to implement this style:
  • 1. Make sure to agree on the use of terms and definitions.
  • 2. Build on areas of mutual agreement.
  • 3. Determine the changes that are necessary to produce a satisfactory resolution of the issue.
  • 4. Stick to the issues and avoid personal attacks.

Implementing the 9, 9 style will help anyone that finds themselves with the need for conflict resolution. And let’s face it, that is all of us at one point or another. It is also important to be able to recognize the other styles of conflict management when they arise. This will help you identify what behaviors and priorities need to shift in order to maximize a highly rewarding solution to whatever situation arises.