Conflict Management Coaching - IPMA

■ conflict management ■ conflict management ■ conflict management ■
How to Recognize: They are described as dependent, neat, conservative,
perfectionists, and careful. This is the person who reads a law
like Sarbanes-Oxley for sheer pleasure!
Communicating with this style:
■ Be prepared.
■ Be straightforward and direct when approaching them.
■ Build credibility by looking at all sides of an issue.
■ Do what you say you can do and be specific.
■ Have an action plan at the ready complete with dates
and milestones.
■ Take your time, but be persistent
■ If you disagree, prove it with data and facts or testimonials
from respected people.
■ Give them time to review any information before they have
to make a decision.
■ Give them space.
It is no accident that the Dominant and the Compliant styles are one
after the other. These two styles have the most adapting or accommodating
to do when communicating with one another in order to
avoid conflict.
Steady: This type is the steady-Eddie team member. This person is
the same most all the time. They have emotions of course, otherwise
they wouldn’t be human. However, they rarely show emotion one
way or the other.
How to Recognize: These folks are patient, predictable, reliable,
steady, relaxed, and modest. If you ask this person to come up with
ideas for an employee picnic, they will write a 10-page report. Their
files are probably alphabetized, numerical, and color-coded.
Communicating with this style:
■ Begin communication with personal comments to break the ice.
■ Show sincere interest in them as a person.
■ Patiently draw out their personal goals and ideas. Listen and
be responsive.
■ Present your case logically, softly, and in a non-threatening
manner.
■ Your questions need to be specific. Ask, preferably, “How?”
questions.
■ Your body language should be casual and informal.
■ If a situation affects them personally, there may be hurt feelings.
■ Provide assurances, but don’t make promises you can’t deliver.
■ If a decision is required from them, give them time to make it.
Influence: This personality style is magnetic, enthusiastic, friendly,
demonstrative and political.
How to Recognize: They can be so enthusiastic at times that they
appear superficial. This style will leave a message on your voice mail
and have to call back four times to leave the entire message. They
love to talk and cannot do it without using their hands.
Communicating with this style:
■ Plan interactions that support their dreams and intentions.
In other words, do not legislate or muffle.
■ Allow time for relating and socializing.
■ Talk about people and their goals. Facts and figure do not
impress them.
■ Focus on people and action items and be sure to put details
in writing.
■ Ask for their opinion.
■ Provide ideas for implementing action.
■ Allow enough time to be stimulating, fun, and fast moving.
Do not be curt.
■ Offer special immediate and extra incentives for willingness
to take risks.
The Steady and Influence styles also have a difficult time communicating.
They do better than the Dominates and the Compliants, but
conflict can still easily develop and each style needs to do their own
share of adapting.
Each of these personality types has a preferred communication style.
Conversely, each has a style of communication they do not like.
However, with a little effort to understand each other’s style and
adapt our own communication style, there will be fewer miscommunications,
better insight, and less conflict. While eliminating conflict
is not possible, nor, according to Pondy, do we want to, we can
certainly have less of it and make the conflicts we do experience more
productive.
It is important to realize that all people have different learning and
communication styles and learning how to work with all of these
personality types is a key to helping your team towards managing and
resolving conflict. There is more to conflict than just the conflict
itself. Remembering to establish boundaries during the resolution
phase is important. Attack the problem, not the person. Look at
disputes from a point of view other than your own, and be willing to
LISTEN. People in conflict often forget this step. In addition, once
the conflict is resolved there should be a process to evaluate the resolution
to see if it worked. Doing this will reduce the number of
conflicts and the conflicts that do occur will be easier to manage.
Diane Bogino is president of Performance Strategies, Inc.
(www.performstrat.com). Bogino is a consultant, author, trainer
and speaker who assists companies with hiring and performance
challenges. She can be reached either by phone at (404) 320-7834,
or by e-mail at diane@performstrat.com. —N
WWW.IPMA-HR.ORG AUGUST 2010 | 19 |