5 Unproductive Ways of Resolving Matter/Conflict:
Conflicts are inevitable
part of us as humans. As we deal with the infallibilities of each other,
conflict becomes inevitable. This notwithstanding, we can always manage
conflicts and glean the better side of it, rather than make it negative
and obstructive.
In every human endeavor, be
it relationships, customer relations, marriages, business transactions, many
but to mention, a few, conflicts rear its heard, sometimes, leaving ugly trails
behind it. To the extent that people can hold contradictory opinions on
how things must or should be done, we should not be surprised that conflicts
will always exist among people, societies and even countries. Interestingly,
even identical twins, can vehemently share their own doses of disagreements.
This means the odds of conflicts cannot even be overcome through blood.
Interestingly, conflicts
are not just external. It is as much an internal construct, as it is external.
Internally, we continue to battle with and over issues that tends to pitch our
intentions against our actions.
Notwithstanding these,
conflicts can be managed in a way that engender goodwill, harmony, trust,
and build tranquility, even among people who severely and severally
disagree.
In this piece, I share five
unproductive ways we deal with conflicts, further deepening what would have
otherwise been resolved
·
Shifting the goal posts: Changing the subject matter from Apples to
Banana, because it suits a party. This is a denial stage where parties to the
conflict overlook the facts of the case in points. This red herring turns to
complicate the conflicts as the issues that forms the basis for the disagreement
are neither dealt with or blatantly disregarded.
·
Sitting on the fence: Avoiding confrontation. Avoiding speaking or act on same. Closely
related to the above, is the situation where parties to conflict refuse, to just
talk about the matter. Although, each party is not satisfied about each other,
they still don’t want to confront each, over fear of losing their friendship or
reputation. This is how people deal with friends who refuse to repay a loan. This
is very unproductive as it compounds long standing bitterness.
·
Sharing Blame: Trying to equalize by referencing past mistakes of other
party to square the situation up. This usually happens when the guilty party, aware
of their mistake but failing to admit same, tries to equalize guilty but also
referencing the past mistakes of the other party. This is very unproductive way
of managing conflicts, as none of the parties win.
·
Shirking personal responsibility: Forgetting that it
takes two to tango and taking steps to improve on your role. In every conflict situation,
the parties must recognize their own role in getting into the conflict situation.
To effectively manage conflict, each party must recognize their own role in
getting into a conflict situation, without shirking same.
·
Simmering with Rage: It is not good to resolve conflict when the heat of anger is
on. Let it cool off, first. Anger is not the best state to manage and get the
best out of conflicts.
Conclusion:
Conflicts are inevitable and part of our human race. Getting into conflict situation is not much of an issue than getting out of same. To this extent, we need to avoid certain situation and attitudes that compounds the conflict.
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