Interpersonal Conflict Resolution: Beyond Conflict Avoidance Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School

Strategies can include engaging in deep breathing techniques before the confrontation. Let’s say you want to remind your boss that you don’t answer work calls after 5 p.m. If you worry that your boss will fire you for reinforcing this boundary, you might remind yourself that your boss is a reasonable person who values work-life balance.

Why is Conflict Important?

It’s untenable because it stalls forward progression on issues, erodes trust with colleagues, and causes us how to deal with someone who avoids conflict to carry the stress and resentment as toxic overhead. Conflict avoidance is a false peace, where we pretend that everything’s fine and watch it gradually get worse and worse, rather than addressing it and getting to the other side. Everyone from the boardroom to the shop floor requires the ability to work through opposing sides of an issue and come to a resolution in the best interest of customers, shareholders, and employees. That’s because conflict is part of strategic planning, resource allocation, product design, talent management, and just about everything else that happens in an organization.

Why Avoidance Behaviors Magnify Stress

Handling these small situations politely but firmly can help you build confidence. These situations are excellent opportunities to practice communication skills. Journaling and meditation have been found to be highly effective for managing emotional stress. In addition to finding techniques that calm your physiology, look for strategies that soothe your emotions. Once you are able to catch yourself using avoidance behaviors, you will be able to start working on stopping yourself and replacing these unhelpful behaviors with more effective ones. If we rely on these “strategies” for stress relief they can get out of control and create more stress.

A Framework to Minimize Conflict

• If not, they’ll correct you and you’ll get another chance to summarize and make them feel heard.
• Start any new assignment (e.g., new job, new project, new task) with a conversation about what success looks like for everyone involved.
• The most important step in resolving a task-based conflict is to declare who owns the decision.
• I’ve talked before about establishing fair fighting rules, and having rules of engagement for high-conflict situations is similar.
• With high conflict, you have heroes and villains, and you’re always the hero or on the hero’s side.

To hear some tell it, we are experiencing an epidemic of conflict avoidance, finding new ways to walk away from conflict rather than engaging in interpersonal conflict resolution. Ghosting, for example—ending a relationship by disappearing—has become common. Numerous tech companies are being criticized for laying off people via email rather than in person. Many people experience the pain of estrangement from family members, which can arise without warning or explanation.

You disagree, argue, struggle, try to understand, and then make the best decision. The worst thing you can do is get to this point and say, “let’s agree to disagree.” More on the problem of letting a task-based conflict drag on here. It’s the opposite of all the things that make conflict healthy. Passive-aggressiveness is the indirect expression of hostility or disagreement. It can show up as a persistent negative attitude, such as resentment or disinterest. It can also manifest in resistance — both hidden (e.g., procrastination) and obvious (e.g., sarcasm).

• These healthier forms of coping do not necessarily approach the problem directly but they do affect our response to the problem.
• Liane’s expertise has been featured on WSJ, CNN, Fast Company, Psychology Today, and Forbes, establishing her as a leading authority on solving workplace challenges.
• ” By encouraging your team to consider alternative scenarios, you’ll expose assumptions, reduce groupthink, and help mitigate any risks inherent in even a good plan.
• Similarly, if you’re more comforted by smells, you can keep an essential oil on hand to take a quick whiff of when you’re feeling anxious.
• ” This strategy gets your colleagues’ cards on the table first and gives you a sense of what matters to them in the deliberations.
• To set yourself up for success, it also helps to know in advance what or who activates you.

Laughing nervously or plastering a fake smile on our face instead of acknowledging distressing emotions can also lead to feelings of loneliness and depression. In a relationship, this can look like going silent on a partner, changing the subject, or enduring uncomfortable situations instead of expressing issues openly. Join and enjoy unlimited access to SHRM Executive Network Content. Get unlimited access to articles and member-exclusive resources.

What Is Avoidance Coping?

Fundamental to psychological safety is the belief that team members won’t be punished for making mistakes. It’s also okay to have conflict when we’re building community. If you’ve ever been in one of my communities, you know we have rules of engagement that everyone agrees to as part of joining to prevent people from trampling on others. Again, if you can, create distance from people who blow things up, get off on conflict, or are addicted to drama. Now that you’ve identified the high-conflict individuals in your life, let’s talk about how to deal with them.

Why Most People Avoid Conflict… and Why You Shouldn’t

Getting positive reinforcement and lowered stress will encourage you to let go of your unhealthy avoidance coping habit. Take a minute to think of situations when you tend to use avoidance coping. Make note of these and try to actively notice when you are avoiding something in the future. People find themselves using avoidance coping instead of facing stress head-on for many reasons. Anxious people can be susceptible to avoidance coping because initially, it appears to be a way to avoid anxiety-provoking thoughts and situations. Holding expectations of someone that you fail to communicate effectively is a sure fire way to create unhealthy conflict.

By Elizabeth Scott, PhDElizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing. If you are finding it hard to make changes or are not even sure where to start, a mental health professional might be able to help. Having the skills and support of a trusted therapist can make an immeasurable difference as you learn to replace your old ways of thinking about and responding to stress with more effective ones. When you become comfortable being uncomfortable, you will be better able to deal with your feelings and the stressors that cause them.