Conflict Resolution at Work for Dummies®

Chapter 2. Understanding What People Bring to Conflict

In This Chapter

• Reviewing communication

• Understanding the individual's perspective

• Shedding light on emotions

• Addressing common responses to conflict

Each person in your workplace is a complex system of past experiences, beliefs, values, opinions, and emotions. Each has different ways of communicating, processing the things around him or her, and handling conflict. Much like fingerprints, each individual is unique.

This chapter helps you gain a better insight into the people on your team — why they see things the way they do, why they react to different people in different ways, and how their emotions can complicate the whole situation. You'll understand how your colleagues' personal beliefs and attributes contribute to the team dynamic and sometimes contribute to conflict (which is normal, natural, and inevitable by the way) so that you can build better working relationships and a more productive working environment. You'll see the broader foundation of conflict and be more prepared to proactively reduce and perhaps prevent it.

Rediscovering Communication

Good communication is the hallmark of a productive working relationship. Easier said than done, right? Even when you believe you're being crystal clear, it's possible that the other person doesn't understand what you're really trying to say. This happens for a variety of reasons, including differences in goals, misunderstandings with language, ambiguous body language, and misinterpretations ...