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03 / Tension & Conflict
Key question
What to do when things grind to a halt?
Wherever people work together, tension arises. This is normal and often even productive: in the Flow Principle, tension is necessary to get things moving. It only becomes difficult when tension solidifies into conflict.
Learning objective: You can distinguish between different levels of conflict, assess your approach to conflict, identify the stage of escalation, and prepare for a clarifying conversation.
Tension drives movement, while entrenched conflict blocks it.
3.1 / Identifying conflicts
What is it actually all about?
Many conflicts look like a dispute about a factual issue, but are actually about something else. Three levels can help sort things out:
01
Thing
It is about facts, objectives or approaches: which layout, which deadline, which budget.
02
Relationship
It is about recognition, trust or respect: Who is heard, who is ignored?
03
Values
It is about convictions: quality over speed, freedom over security.
A factual conflict can be resolved with arguments, but a relationship or values conflict rarely can. Therefore, first ask yourself at which level the conflict truly lies.
First establish the relationship level, then address the content.
3.2 / Conflict Styles and Escalation
How are you coping with it, and how far along is it?
The Thomas-Kilmann model describes five styles: competing, accommodating, avoiding, compromising, and collaborating. None is always right. What matters is how important your concern is to you, and how important theirs is to the other person.
The Austrian conflict researcher Friedrich Glasl describes nine stages of escalation. In the first three, both sides can still win; from the fourth, it becomes about winning at the other's expense; from the seventh, everyone loses. The earlier you intervene, the easier it is.
The earlier, the easier.
3.3 / The Clarifying Discussion
Interests rather than positions.
Roger Fisher and William Ury from the Harvard Negotiation Project advise looking behind positions. Behind "I want Mondays off", there might be the interest of having time for a child. There are often more solutions for interests than there are for positions.
A clarifying conversation takes place in a calm setting, both perspectives are given time, and it concludes with a concrete agreement. If you reach an impasse, involving a third party is not a defeat, but a sensible step.
Behind every position lies an interest.
Exercise
Resolve a conflict
Task: Prepare a clarifying conversation about a real or fictional conflict.
STEP 1
Describe the conflict in three sentences and assign it to a level: factual, relationship, or values.
STEP 2
Use the tool to assess your style and the level of escalation.
STEP 3
Write down your interests and the presumed interests of the other person.
STEP 4
Draft an opening and a proposal for an agreement.
Evaluation: Do you see more than one possible solution now?