Tips for Dealing With Conflict
November 14, 2018
Whether it be with labmates, a mentor, or someone in your personal life, conflict affects relationships. Learn how to view conflict as a positive thing and how to properly manage conflict both in your professional and personal relationships.
Do you experience conflict? Welcome to being human
The only way to not have conflict is to not care about anyone or anything. Let’s talk about how you feel and metaphors you use to describe how you feel in conflict. My example is being led to the principal’s office and impending doom.
Your metaphor matters because it describes how you feel.
Examples include:
- The flu – you’re hot and it wells up and feels better but then it comes back.
- Over caffeinated always buzzing, always anxious.
- Like a little kid, clustered and scared.
- Like you’re learning archery and the target is moving.
- The feeling of futility, like you’re working towards a goal but then the goal changes
Conflict feels different depending on the situation you are in.
I’ve done this in lots of ways with lots of people. There are lots of death metaphors, lots of futility and frustration. Conflict is not pleasant. We stay away from conflict because we think it’s this terrible thing. We think of conflict as the problem but it isn’t. You’re always in conflict whether it’s expressed or latent. Conflict is the means by which I can get what I want and achieve understanding. We assume our relationships should be easy and perfect.
Conflict is like learning another language: you need practice, the structure is different, you do some internal translating (perspective taking), and patience is required of both parties. We don’t get mad at babies when they struggle to walk, and you shouldn’t get mad at yourself as you’re learning to manage conflict. As you practice and continue to get better at managing conflict, then your experiences can get better.
Conflict comes down to your needs
When I ask what is most important to you, what would you answer? People say things like security, competence, identity, family. No one ever says anything like the lab schedule, or the dishes being done. We don’t see those things as being most important, yet those are the things we have conflicts about. The number one conflict for freshmen is with their roommates and about dishes. Remember it’s not about the dishes, it’s not about the toilet seat being up or down, it’s about something else. Conflict boils down to the things you care about the most.
All our conflicts are about base needs: who I am, what I can do, autonomy, time. You can have a big conflict with your child about curfew, but at the end of the day, it’s not really about curfew, it’s about respect and autonomy. You have to get to the root of the conflict. You may not be able to get to the root of it in the moment you may have to take time to think about it to identify what base needs are being attacked.
Q: How do you measure the amount of respect someone needs from you?
A: It depends on the person. There will be conflict and you have to figure it out. It’s like learning to dance, you step on each other’s toes, sometimes it hurts a lot and sometimes it hurts a little.
Some of you might be passive aggressive like passing notes, some of us are aggressive (poop on the doorstep), or some of us tuck it in and then we blow up. Often we work on conflicts downstream with someone else, not the person who the conflict is really with.
When we talk about conflict it’s really a way to learn what matters to you the most. In conflict, you can use the acronym VOCAB
Vulnerability
Vulnerability is unsettling because you’re opening yourself up to being hurt. But you need vulnerability to resolve conflict. You can say to your advisor: “I feel like an idiot” or “that makes me feel like a baby.” This gives you the opportunity to be authentic and facilitates connection. You can’t have a connection if you don’t open up about what it’s really about. If you get defensive you won’t get a connection and you won’t get help. This is good to practice when the stakes are low.
Your advisor knows how it feels to be vulnerable, just like you do. Don’t just set up false notions or make assumptions when you get defensive, people can see right through it.
Ownership
Ownership is taking accountability of your own stuff. How many of you have sat up at night thinking about some conflict and what you’re going to say? It’s important to own your emotions and recognize that they are yours. For example, I don’t do well when I get yelled at, but how I feel is mine, so I have to own it. I feel sad but I need to own it. However, you can’t control what other people think and feel. When you own your own stuff, you feel competent, you can let them take care of their stuff and it facilitates cooperation. Even if someone is angry, if they’re willing to own that, that’s where you want to be.
Let’s say you get a bad grade on a test and you say “I studied really hard, this is wrong, it’s not fair.” How likely will your professor be to work with you? You’re dumping all your stuff on them and not owning it. Even if you’ve been hurt in a conflict, don’t own their feelings and don’t make them own yours. You also need to own the conflicts you haven’t had yet. How they react is their problem, but you can engender willingness and cooperation by taking ownership.
My experience is when you are vulnerable, people will meet you there.
Communication Process
What type of words and punctuation do we use when we tell stories of conflict? An Exclamation point (!)? We play the victim, hero, and villain. It’s important to “ask, listen, express”: If you express something without listening you don’t usually have all the information.
Ask: How are you feeling? Why did you do this? Etc. not “Where were you at 8:00 pm last night?”
Example: A student is 50 minutes late for class. You may be mad at them, but if you let them explain themselves they will feel validated, and you may find out they were saving a dog that got hit by a car.
When you express and do it with an exclamation point, you’re assuming you know all the details, you know their motives, their situation, their feelings. This allows you to have empathy. We are an anti-empathy society. Social media has no empathy at all. Sometimes people say things that hurt your feelings and you go right to them being a bad person rather than asking about their experience.
Acceptance
Let go of what you can’t control and what expectations you have that aren’t real or realistic. Idealized versions of the relationship that can’t exist, or things you just can’t control. You can’t even control little kids, you can’t force them. If we accept the reality, accepting what’s real allows you to be vulnerable and let go of what you can’t control.
That facilitates peace and gives you autonomy and them serenity. You can’t control everything, so if you can live in a place of acceptance it will be easier. If you don’t accept it you can’t have peace because you have to control it, especially when you can’t control the outcome.
It’s a hard pill to swallow but you can’t have peace in conflict if you can’t accept what’s real.
Boundaries
We establish boundaries based on NO, not on YES. If you come by my house, knock on my door, walk in, open the fridge and want take a nap on my bed. Are we going to be close? No! When we establish boundaries, then we can say no. A lot of our conflicts are about boundaries we have never expressed. Consent for example, is about NO not about YES.
Why don’t we say things? Fear of conflicts, ideas of what it means to be a human/identity, we want to be integrated not different from others.