Conflict is something I think most of us try to avoid, I know I do.  However, conflict can be beneficial if dealt with quickly and correctly. Recently I took a quiz to discover my style of conflict management. The quiz compares the results to a sample of Dutch students over five conflict-handling styles  – yielding, compromising, forcing, problem solving and avoiding. Before taking the quiz I wrote down my thoughts about my style of conflict management, which was:

• I try to avoid it at all costs
• if I do experience conflict I try to get to the base of the problem
• I usually will give in a bit to the other party (I suppose this could be called compromising!)
• I look for win/win situations for both parties

As I expected I scored quite high in problem solving and avoiding. However, I was quite surprised by some of the quiz results. I scored high in yielding (giving in completely) and only moderate on compromising. I also had a moderate preference for forcing (winning at the other’s expense) which I didn’t think I did but perhaps this is to offset the strong preference for yielding.  It seems from this test score that I have some more work to do on conflict handling to get to my ideal handling preferences which would include more compromising and less yielding and forcing. For those of you that get nervous when dealing with conflict (i.e. confronting the person), Judy Ringer’s website has an excellent article on how to approach this.

References:

McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings. (2018). Self-Assessment 11.4: What is your preferred conflict handling style? Retrieved from http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/007040187x/student_view0/chapter11/self-assessment_11_4.html

Ringer, J. (n.d.). We have to talk: A step-by-step checklist for difficult conversations. Retrieved from https://www.judyringer.com/resources/articles/we-have-to-talk-a-stepbystep-checklist-for-difficult-conversations.php