Holly - Verified nice person and Attorney

When I decided to go to law school, more than one person told me I was “too nice” to become a lawyer. “Nice” and “sweet” were adjectives I had heard people use to describe me throughout my life. Occasionally I had also been told I was a “people pleaser.” Determined to prove I could be both a nice person and an attorney, I applied for law school anyway.

During law school I discovered a practice called mediation—a process that encourages the empowerment of people in conflict to communicate with the dual goals of seeking to understand/be understood, while also maybe resolving disputes and keeping people out of the courtroom. Mediators assist parties by facilitating the process and modeling effective communication and listening techniques. The moment I learned what mediation was is the moment I knew I wanted to become a mediator.

I immediately enrolled in mediation training and on the first day the trainer provided us with a conflict style assessment. I eagerly completed the assessment but was disheartened by the results. “AVOIDER” was my predetermined conflict style. This sounded so…bad. How does one become a conflict resolution professional, a mediator, if one prefers to avoid conflict? The trainer asked students to line up across the classroom according to the five conflict styles. In a room full of COLLABORATORS and COMPROMISERS, I was the lone AVOIDER. I was mortified. It seemed like maybe I was not cut out for mediation after all.

Twenty years later, I have enjoyed a rich and diverse career as a mediator and educator. I am now the trainer who asks students to engage in this assessment to discover their own conflict styles. You may be wondering: why do we do this?

Conflict Resolution Starts with Self

Whether you are preparing to have a difficult conversation with a co-worker or partner, or you are negotiating with a client, YOU are part of the equation. As the mindfulness and meditation practitioner Jon Kabat-Zinn noted in his 1994 book, “Wherever You Go, There You Are,” how you show up in the world or in any particular moment matters. Your presence has direct impact and relevance. YOU matter.

Self-Care

The most important lesson I have learned about conflict resolution is that the better I feel about myself, the better I am able to show up and help others. This sounds simple and straightforward and we all “know” that self-care is important but for me it took until I was 40 years old to truly prioritize myself in my own life. Cramming my days full of activities and work while also juggling kids, family, and maybe a social life too was a precarious struggle. I rarely got enough sleep, exercised either too often or not at all and typically chose to “catch up on work” when I had a little extra free time. Years of this led to burn out and feeling emotionally and physically exhausted every day.

Self-care is unique and personal. For me, self-care means being conscious about what I eat and drink, opting to go to bed early the night before a big meeting or presentation rather than staying up late for last-minute preparation and moving my body to stretch and sweat every day. For you, the self-care recipe may look different but it is important to recognize what habits and practices support your best self. As the saying goes, “habits are easy to form and hard to break.”

Self-Awareness

So let’s say you have had a good night’s rest, you wake up refreshed and energized and you go for a run or practice yoga with the sunrise. You have a healthy breakfast and you feel great as you head into your work day. You have taken care of yourself physically and mentally and you are ready to tackle that difficult conversation or negotiation.

Here is where that conflict style assessment comes into play. We all have tendencies to react or respond to conflict and change. The conflict style assessments help us to identify our own default modes when we are calm and not under pressure and also when we are in situations of storm or intense stress. Understanding where we are now helps us to better navigate where we want to go in the future. As one of my favorite fitness coaches, Christine D’Ercole, is fond of saying, “How can you tell an Uber driver where to take you if you don’t know where you are starting from?”

The five conflict styles that we generally refer to include: AVOIDING, ACCOMMODATING (or harmonizing), COMPROMISING, COLLABORATING (or cooperating) and COMPETING (or directing).[1]

Like me, you may initially assume that some styles are better than others. Based solely upon the labels, you may think that all negotiators and mediators should aim to be COLLABORATORS. While collaboration is an aspiration for many interactions, taking a collaborative approach or style in all conflict scenarios is not always advantageous. Why? Because collaboration takes time. Sometimes decisions need to be made quickly and not every issue warrants a lengthy dialogue and discussion. Collaboration may be the goal when you are working with parties who value their relationship to each other and when you have the time to bring everyone together and ensure that all voices are heard. In an emergency or crisis, collaboration is likely not the best conflict style and a more directive or competitive approach might be more effective.

Similarly, sometimes adopting a more avoidant strategy is helpful in certain situations. All five styles have strengths and weaknesses. Not all styles or approaches are best suited for every situation. This is why we encourage students and professionals learning about negotiation and mediation to take these assessments and learn about all five styles.

Although each person may have a default or preferred style, we have the ability to learn and practice all styles. Recognizing when to use a specific style is a useful skill to practice during conflict resolution, negotiation and mediation trainings.

Conflict Styles Explained

The five conflict styles measure a person’s assertiveness (advocacy for self) along with their cooperativeness (emphasis on relationship and needs of other).

This conflict style grid allows us to properly understand and identify our own tendencies. Keep in mind that your conflict style may vary from one situation to the next depending upon your relationship to the other person involved. For example, I learned that although I have avoidant and accommodating tendencies in my personal life, I score much higher as a collaborator when I am working with conflict in the workplace. AVOIDERS are low on assertiveness and also low on cooperativeness. This can actually be a desirable approach in certain situations. Have you ever heard the saying, “don’t sweat the small stuff?” Avoiders are excellent at this! They are often wonderful observers who don’t find it necessary to engage in all possible conflicts that might be coming their way. Now, avoiding is certainly not the best approach for many other situations where action and engagement is needed, but it is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

The conflict style assessment also provides us with language and concepts to articulate observed behavior. For example, I have learned that what others had described in me as “nice” or “people pleasing” may actually have been a desire to preserve and value relationships over a desire to be self-assertive, all hallmarks of an ACCOMMODATOR. The reframing of these personal attributes have helped me to see that traits are like coins; there are always two sides - the strength and the weakness. The same trait or style that might benefit me in one situation may also be a hindrance in another setting.

Beyond Self

Holly at Medicine Bow Peak - We thought this was a goat at first glance too…

Learning about ourselves and our own preferred or default styles can be both informative and useful in helping us to articulate how we view conflict and change. This awareness can also lead to strategic planning and action to help us explore and practice other styles when appropriate. How we show up and approach difficult conversations or challenging negotiations may be the only part of the process we can truly control or plan for. There are many factors and variables at play during a negotiation or mediation and flexibility is a key tool in any good conflict resolution toolbox. Understanding when and how to use your preferred conflict style and when and how to practice using other styles provides additional options when you are faced with unforeseen challenges or difficult situations.

[1] See Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument www.kilmanndiagnostics.com and Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory https://www.riverhouseepress.com/en/

Conflict Style Matters