Conflict and Difficult Conversations.

I attending a fascinating workshop this week run by the Manchester NLP and EI Group.  The workshop was run by Natasha Goggin (www.transformconflict.co.uk) and was on how we can better manage conflict through the use of NLP & EI.  Presenting with Natasha was Jo Berry.

Jo brings an incredible insight to conflict resolution as her world was turned upside down in 1984, when the IRA bombed the 'Grand Hotel' Brighton, England, killing her father Sir Anthony Berry. Jo made a personal commitment to bring something positive from this tragedy and to understand those involved. She chose to give up blame and instead start a journey of healing.  Jo met Patrick Magee, the bomber, in 2000 and from that initial 3 hour meeting came a life long journey together speaking and demonstrating their ability to see each other's humanity, dignity and respect.

Most of us will never be faced with a conflict situation as significant as Jo was but we can all learn a lot from what allowed her "difficult conversation" to deliver a positive outcome and use this when we are faced with difficult conversations in our business or private lives.

For me, two very strong pointers came out of the workshop:

• People generally behave in the way that they do for a good reason.....To themselves.  If we are wanting to break the conflict cycle in a difficult conversation we must work to understand why the other party is thinking, acting or behaving in the way that they are.....and by this I mean the underlying reasons not the rhetoric that will likely be used to justify their comments, acts or behaviours...and this is a two way street, both parties must be prepared to entertain this.
• Very often, conflict situations arise when one or both parties feel they have no choice in what is happening.  This is frequently seen in business conflict situations where "the management" are trying to force a change through and the "the workers" feel their only option is to fight it.  If we can change the discussion to look at what we would like to achieve rather than how we are planning on achieving it, there will almost certainly be more options (and choice) open to those involved.  Once choice is available, discussions will tend to move towards a logical review of the options rather than a stalemate position of the planned action.

So how can we use this information to our advantage and ensure that we reduce the frequency and significant of difficult conversations ?  The most effective way I have observed  is to ensure that there is a third party involved....an arbitrator or facilitator who is independent from either party and ensures that the ground rules are clear and that both sides play by the rules.  

This isn't always easy !  Finding someone within a business who is truly independent from the two parties involved in a conflict is not always possible due to management reporting lines....and the same can be said about conflict in a family (parent and child) environment.  But by creating the right environment for the discussion to take place, agreeing the ground rules of respecting the position of each party and ensuring the discussions allow both parties a feeling of having a choice then we stand a reasonable chance of reaching a reasonable outcome.