Principles of Successful Conflict Resolution

Truth = The absolute way things could be in a perfect world, where we are trying to go.
Reality = The relative way things are in the real world, where we are at now.

Conflicts occur when people have differing opinions as to the causes of and solutions to particular truths and realities they are part of. Conflicts are related to success and failure in both work and personal relationships because they can either widen or close the gap between our truths and realities and affect our happiness and general sense of well-being. After all, our main purpose is to close this gap between our real and ideal selves because this is the only thing we can do to get authentic happiness. Therefore it is important to learn and apply the principles of successful conflict resolution. Here are the seven main principles that lead to successful resolution of conflicts at home and at work.

1. The depth of the conflict has everything to do with the amount of effort needed to resolve the conflict successfully and the likely outcome. Things that make up the depth of the conflict are: (a) the relative importance of the issues to the people (b) how passionately the people feel about what they think they know regarding the truths and realities of the situation (c) the level of perceived discomfort the conflict is causing (d) the viewpoints about the conflict itself (e) the preferred conflict resolution strategies of the people, and (f) the investment the people have in a particular outcome.

2. Human thinking and feeling usually work together to make conflicts worse than they need to be. One major bad habit we all have is to artificially divide things into either-or, polar opposite categories, adding the judgment that one side is better, truer and more useful than the other side (in the color spectrum there is but one pure white and black, all the rest are just different shades of gray). This particular mental habit not only widens the gap between our perceived truths and realities, but also within the same truths and realities, making them almost impervious to communicate. And of course emotions hide the issues of a conflict from being understood and explored rationally.

3. Our viewpoint in place and time often determines what we see—what is true or real for us. In this sense, our particular perspective of conflicts has a lot to do with succeeding or failing in resolving them. If we see conflicts as opportunities to learn and grow, we generally succeed in closing the gap between truth and reality; but on the other hand, if we see conflicts as something to avoid because they make us uncomfortable and we fear unfavorable outcomes, we generally fail and widen the truth-reality gap. Conflicts are easier to resolve when there is agreement with this basic viewpoint, oddly in either direction.

4. Part of this viewpoint we have about conflicts involves our intended outcome for ourselves, the other person, or the bigger group we are part of. We can intend a win-lose outcome, a win-win outcome, or compromises in between. Obviously a “truthful” outcome is where all the people involved and the relationship of organization all win something without losing anything. However, when push comes to shove, we need to be prepared to accept compromises where everyone gains more than losing. Of course this is all tied to our # 4 viewpoint.

5. Another important part of this viewpoint is the approach we use to resolve the conflict to get our intended outcome. The reality is that we usually embrace the wrong approach that leads to failure. We can choose one of the extremes of being aggressive and competitive in making the other person defensive to win, or being completely passive in accepting the loss without a fight, or more typically somewhere in between these extremes. Or we can go underground and be subtly passive-aggressive in our efforts to win the argument. And finally, we can put aside all we think we know and be open to creatively transcending the either-or approach and use assertiveness—open, honest, responsible and rational communication—to resolve the conflict successfully, with either a win-win outcome for all or an acceptable compromise that doesn’t sacrifice anything of value to anyone.

6. The degree of our discomfort with a particular conflict has a lot to do with our motivation to do something to resolve it. The conflict resolution becomes much more difficult when the perceptions of this discomfort level are different. And usually only more discomfort can speed up agreement on this matter, but then again we all have different tolerance levels of mental and emotional discomfort.

7. In being successful in anything, it is essential to avoid the natural tendency we have in falling prey to the “priority reversal” habit. This is when we approach two important aspects of something in the reverse order that leads to success. Maybe the most important gap we all need to work on closing is the one we each have between the absolute truths we aspire towards and the relative realities we live in. If we focus on understanding what we are part of right now and then on making it a little better, we will probably be contributing to the over all, bigger picture of truth were more creative conflict resolution principles reside.