Steps to Resolve Conflict: Life

Conflict is inevitable, as long as you have human beings in front of you, you will have a conflict. This makes conflict management key, whether it's avoiding arguments, disputes, long-running conflicts, or ultimately litigation. Conflicts can be avoided by taking early steps in an argument to defuse anger and facilitate communication, and can be resolved by applying a number of strategies used by mediators.

Keep calm

What leads to conflict is escalating anger that begins to upset people.

Listen to understand

In most conflicts, listening is only used to formulate a counter argument with which to refute that of the person in front of us.

Accentuate the positive

It is important to find or create some common ground between yourself and the person on the other end.

Present your arguments tactfully

The key here is to help people understand our perspective on the issue without offending or remaining defensive.

Attack the problem and not the person

It is important to try to depersonalize our comments as much as possible and focus only on the issue or problem.

Avoid the blame game

When it comes to resolving a conflict, blaming is only useful if we acknowledge our guilt in some way.

Focus on the future, not the past

In the present and in the future is where the solution is.

Ask the right kind of questions

Questions like "why?" or "what did you think it would be?" they denote that we are speaking defensively and in interrogation mode.

Be creative

It is important to remember that everything is negotiable and that any idea can be good when trying to resolve a conflict.

Celebrate the agreement

Sometimes managing conflict can become a long and hard process.

Once it has been achieved, it is good to congratulate each other and celebrate in some way the success in solving the problem.

By José Alfredo López, reading summaries by Ana V. Capeles, MSW