Resolve Your Conflicts With These 10 Easy Steps To Conflict Resolution
Some of the most common and unwanted occurrences of life are conflicts. We may choose to become angry, sad, depressed, curse someone or the other, or blame our luck. Or we may choose to handle them with a stable head on shoulders and work out like how beings with grey matter do.
Below are the ten steps to resolve conflicts easily.
1. Understand Your Viewpoint
Try to know yourself, your viewpoint and biases. Then consider the issue without being biased and make notes of your observations.
2. Visualize
Try and visualize the process by keeping all parties involved with their viewpoints. Brainstorm on their thought process and what they are expecting. Try to think of what they’ll reply to your thoughts. This will make your presentation stronger and eliminate loopholes apart from providing greater understanding to other party/parties.
3. Focus on Your Points
After the visualization is done, rethink and jot down the points that are most important to the amicable resolution and which can also eliminate the harms from the possible outcomes. Also, identify a range of outcomes that could be termed as desired outcomes.
4. Identify Meeting Place
The place where a discussion takes place is extremely important. In the case of conflicts, none of the parties must feel scared about the meeting place. Therefore a place must be mutually decided which is free for discussions and also convenient to all the parties involved. The time also must be thus decided by mutual consent.
5. Support People and Ground Rules
While the meeting place and the time are set, a core set of ground rules needs to be set for the discussions to happen smoothly. Also, support people such as advocates of either party, facilitators, mediators etc. need to be decided upon. It’s better to have some other people who are aware of everything and can facilitate the meeting.
6. Be Open to Listening
While the base for discussion from your end was set during visualization and understanding, it is still important to listen and understand the arguments and points from other parties before venturing into your own points, or after doing that in case you present first. Either way, you must be ready to make an extra effort to listen and understand.
7. Be Clear and Specific
Be clear and specific with your requirements or takeaways from the resolution. Being clear and honest with good reasoning is an important start to identifying resolution.
8. Flexibility and Brainstorming
It’s extremely important not to jump to conclusions, and be flexible in approach. By delaying the judgment and looking for brainstorming, while not overlooking tangents of the case or any other aspects, you create a well-rounded judgment in the end.
9. Be Calm, Patient and Respectful
These virtues must be carried all through the argument and meeting.
10. Build an Agreement that Works
Review hallmarks, implement and evaluate the agreement. While in the long run, there may be an understanding needed that these can be changed if needed and on the consent of all the parties involved.
