The CINERGY® Conflict Management Coaching Blog –ConflictMastery® Quest(ions) – is for anyone who finds self-reflective questions helpful for examining and strengthening your conflict intelligence. It is also for coaches, mediators, HR professionals, ombudsmen, leaders, lawyers, psychologists, counsellors and others who also use self-reflective questions as tools for helping your clients in these ways.
It seems to me – based on my work as a conflict management coach and, well, just as myself – that one of the things that leads to interpersonal conflict is when we have expectations of another. It might have to do with how we interact on a day-to-day basis, how we treat one another privately and publicly, how we communicate when in conflict, how we support each other, or whether our values and needs are compatible. Further, we might expect someone to support us in a matter, to acknowledge something we did for them, to care for us when we are not well or unhappy, to meet our needs, to recognize our good deeds, to trust us, to respect our decisions and reasons we acted in certain ways, and so on. The list is endless!
It is worth considering this variable when we find ourselves reacting to these and other sorts of circumstances. Exploring our affirmative answer to the question, “Am I reacting because of unmet expectations?”, will make it easier to understand what we needed and ultimately, easier to articulate that to the other person. Taking a look, too, at our related reactions helps us do so. Indicators may be if we are feeling disappointment, betrayal, dismissed, ignored, not trusted, that we and our needs are not taken seriously, and many other emotions that reflect that we are let down by what the other person said or did or didn’t say or do.
How we manage situations and the range of feelings we experience will differ depending on variables such as the length and nature of our relationship, our needs and values and beliefs, influences from our upbringing, how we are feeling at the time, the amount of stress in our lives, our general state of health and well-being, and so on.
This week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog is about this topic and you are invited to consider an interpersonal dispute in which you experienced unmet expectations in the situation and emotions that reflect that as you answer the following:
#interpersonalconflict
#conflict
#coaching
#conflictcoaching
#conflictmanagementcoaching
#conflict management
#disputeresolution
I expect you have heard the expression “perception is reality”, which essentially refers to a mental impression we have of something. And these perceptions define how we see that something – and how we react. The thing is, perceptions might not be the truth; they are not necessarily reality. When we allow them to become our reality they influence how we look at things and others’ actions without a lot of thought to the range of other possible interpretations. Perceptions not thought out have a huge impact on how and what we process, focus on, remember, interpret, understand, decide about, and act on.
Our perceptions are rooted in many things, including our values, needs, hopes, attitudes, beliefs and other aspects of who we are, what’s important to us, how we live, in the ways we relate and communicate, and so on. When we are interacting with others, at some level of consciousness, we take their messages at face value and trust they hear us as we mean our messages to be. In the usual course then, in our day to day interactions, we and others deliver and receive messages without incident. For the most part, we accurately perceive what is being conveyed and check things out if not.
When matters become conflictual and we are provoked by something another is saying or doing (or they become triggered by something we are saying or doing) what we hear and what is meant becomes skewed. As things become increasingly heated, the likelihood of misinterpreting our exchanges increases. At these times, we tend to experience messages as undermining us and our values, needs, or aspects of our identity. We may justify our negative reactions and escalating emotions by saying our perceptions are reality and accordingly, we find fault with the other person and make self-serving excuses for what we said or did in response (in retaliation even). In other words, we act on our assumptions about the other person (such as their motives) without checking out whether our perceptions are, in fact, the reality of what was meant, or the reality we chose to believe instead.
This week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog invites you to consider an interpersonal conflict in which you are perceiving messages from the other person as truths though you are not absolutely sure about their intent.
#interpersonalconflict
#conflict
#coaching
#conflictcoaching
#conflictmanagementcoaching
#conflict management
#disputeresolution
“Don’t find fault. Find a remedy.” (Henry Ford)
While Henry Ford’s quote might well apply to making cars and running a business, it also has application to our interpersonal disputes when one of the common things many of us do is find fault with the other person. Or, we find fault in ourselves. Fault-finding in either case is not a good use of our time and energy. Though, yes, we can learn from finding fault in ourselves – with how we handled a situation – if we use that learning to improve our conflict competency. This week’s blog touches on the tendency to blame in either case, and how we might consider finding a remedy instead.
Why do we find fault anyway? The reasons vary of course – depending on the situation and other person and a host of other factors that may be leaning against us when we are faced with a conflict or initiate one. The other person may have let us down about a matter; we may want to take the attention away from our own bad behaviour; we are experiencing hurt, or feeling offended, betrayed, disappointed; our expectations, hopes and needs have been thwarted; a project didn’t work; we have a high opinion of ourselves, and lack respect for the other person or their efforts; and so on. These and many other possible reasons may result in a tendency to go to blame as a way of reacting. This isn’t to say that we overlook situations when someone has (or we have) done something blame worthy. (There are lots of situations that are unforgiveable and finding fault is a necessity.) The point in this blog is to consider – in our interpersonal disputes – whether finding a remedy – rather than fault – is a better use of our time and energy.
I suggest you bring two situations to mind – one in which you found fault with someone else and one in which someone else found fault in you – as you respond to this set of Conflict Mastery Quest(ions).
#interpersonalconflict
#conflict
#coaching
#conflictcoaching
#conflictmanagementcoaching
#conflict management
#disputeresolution
You may have heard the African proverb “Don’t look where you fall, but where you slipped”. In a similar vein, I recently posted a similar sentiment on Instagram (@cinnien) that read “I’ve learned so much from my mistakes. I’m thinking about making a few more.” Both sets of these words are comforting to me – especially at those times I am kicking myself for things I said or did that offended someone, for not doing the ‘right’ thing in a situation, for making numerous errors at all sorts of things, for failing exams or losing a legal case, for not succeeding on a project, and so on. The reality is that unless we purposely make a habit of making mistakes and hurting others, we all slip.
When it comes to interpersonal conflicts, I expect that we have all said or done things or interacted in ways that have caused others hurt and upset. At times, we might be able to justify our own actions and words – being a way we stood up and defended ourselves from others’ poor behaviour towards us. At other times, we know we stepped over a boundary and feel very badly about that. We might ruminate and wonder what to do, and the feelings of unrest, guilt, shame and self-blame remain in our consciousness for long durations.
We can, of course, learn from our mistakes and likely, find more productive ways to engage in conflict when our buttons are pushed. A lot of the time, it seems our brains stay in the negative place and it takes a huge effort to shift our mindset.
This week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog asks you to consider how to better manage the aftermath of an interpersonal conflict about which you continue to agonize, and see if you can shift your mindset to see whether it is really a slip and not a fall – perhaps, a mistake from which you have something to learn.
#proverb
#interpersonalconflict
#conflict
#coaching
#conflictcoaching
#conflictmanagementcoaching
#conflict management
#disputeresolution
