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DA5. Conflict Resolution

Statement

  1. What are some practical techniques we can use to handle conflicts in our relationships?
    • How can we address disagreements in a way that preserves the bond between individuals?
    • Please share a story or personal examples from your own life where you successfully resolved a conflict while maintaining the relationship’s integrity.
  2. How do effective communication and conflict resolution contribute to keeping relationships strong and fostering their growth?
    • Provide a personal example illustrating this.

Answer

Introduction

A conflict is an interaction between two parties (individuals, groups, or organizations) over a real or virtual goals, scarce resources, or opposing viewpoints. Conflicts are natural parts of human life and they differ in severity but conflicts are inevitable, require energy, and have elements of both content and feeling. Many words such as competition, dispute, and violence are used interchangeably with conflict (Scarbrough, 2023).

Conflict resolution is the process of resolving disputes or disagreements between parties in a peaceful and constructive manner. Effective communication and conflict resolution skills are essential for maintaining healthy relationships and fostering growth.

Practical Techniques for Handling Conflicts in Relationships

Conflicts in our relationships are common and can happen with anyone from our families or colleagues to organizations like a conflict with the delivery company. All these sorts of conflicts can be handled using general guidelines and strategies while leaving the exact details to the specific situation.

Some practical techniques for handling conflicts in relationships include competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. Competing involves defending your position at the expense of others aiming to win and inflect loss on the other party. Collaborating involves working together to find a mutually beneficial solution, it indicates a high concern for self and other and interest in a win-win resolution. Compromising involves finding a middle ground by giving up some of your demands to meet the other party halfway. Avoiding involves ignoring the conflict or pretending it does not exist. Accommodating involves giving in to the other party’s demands (Scarbrough, 2023).

Addressing disagreements while preserving the bond between individuals is crucial for maintaining healthy relationships. It may involve choosing different strategies in different situations, or even switching between strategies during the conflict resolution process. Usually, resolutions that involve collaboration or compromise are more effective rather than competing which leads to escalation or avoiding and accommodating which indicate a lack of interest in the relationship.

For example, conflicts are normal with my wife over if our kid can watch TV or not. I don’t think that watching TV is harmful, but my wife thinks it makes kids lazy; and this is the source of conflict. Whenever this conflict arises, if I see my wife is aggressive towards it (she is taking a competing strategy), I switch off TV and take the kid out (accommodating strategy). If we are not busy, we take a collaborating approach by taking turns in entertaining the kid to avoid TV. If we are busy, we take a compromising approach by allowing the kid to watch TV for a limited time. I think switching between these strategies helps us maintain our relationship and avoid escalation.

Effective Communication and Conflict Resolution in Relationships

Effective communication involves active listening, empathy, and nonverbal cues, allowing individuals to connect authentically with others and navigate diverse social situations with confidence and ease (Reid, 2022).

Resolving conflict strategies are put together in a practical framework named STLC, that involves stopping to analyze the situation, thinking about a strategy to resolve the conflict, listening to the other party’s perspective, and effectively communicating your strategy and feeling to the other party (Scarbrough, 2023).

Effectively communicating our strategy and feeling helps us in expecting the other party’s reaction and focusing on the issue rather than the person. By keeping the conversation centered around ideas rather than individual differences, you can avoid escalating the conflict and maintain the relationship’s integrity.

Going back to the previous example of the conflict with wife over kid’s TV time. Active listening while constantly analyzing non-verbal cues such as hand movements and facial expressions, I can determine when the wife is in competing mode, so I would communicate my accommodating strategy by showing empathy to her position, non verbal cues such as lowering my voice, clearly communicating my strategy by saying I will switch of the TV in an attempt to contain the situation. Not effectively communicating such as just switching off the TV may be seen as an aggressive act and may escalate the situation.

Conclusion

To conclude, conflicts are inevitable parts of human life and can be handled using practical techniques such as competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. Effective communication and conflict resolution skills are essential for keeping relationships strong and fostering their growth; empathy, active listening, and nonverbal cues are key components of effective communication.

The SLTC framework effectively connect the conflict resolution strategies with effective communication skills in a practical recipe for addressing disagreements in a way that preserves the bond between individuals.

References