You are getting late to leave home for an urgent appointment and get a call from your close friend in distress.
Your team member has a serious difference of opinion with you on how to solve some problems in a project in hands.
Due to eroding bottom line, company management has declared lower than expected annual salary raise and therefore, many key employees are exiting for better offers from competitors.
You have received an emergency call from spouse, while your boss and colleagues are waiting for you to start an urgent meeting.
Your new responsibilities have made you busier than before; while your family needs more time from you at home.
So, conflicts cripple people. More you dislike, more would these show up like part of your routine life. One of the most rampant across globe is conflict in managing time. These are the drain on your time and energy. This is the age, when most people live on edge! Conflicts can further drive you crazy!!
You can receive lot of advice, guidance and coaching how to manage conflicts from published material, models and programs. Do these indeed help? I find these very mechanical and focus on ways to deal with conflicts after having occurred and pain started. Therefore, most get bugged and bogged down by conflicts and resulting confusion.
Why conflicts?
Single most important information, you should know about conflicts is –
Conflicts, though irritating and at times highly intimidating, are inevitable, when you have 2 or more contradictory thoughts in self or you are involved with 1 or more persons and have differences or clash of –
- Attitude
- Ambitions
- Approach
- Agenda
- Beliefs or faiths
- Desires
- Ego
- Goals or objectives
- Intentions
- Interests
- Priorities
- Requirements
Conflicts are of 2 types – Internal to you and external with other people. But, to tell you the real truth – it is your internal conflicts, which drag you into external conflicts! I am not sure whether Leaders, CEOs, Management Gurus, Coaches, Professionals or Individuals are aware of this fact!
If you can resolve your internal conflicts, majority of external conflicts would evaporate!!
Golden rules to resolve your internal conflicts
Internal conflicts are nothing but conflicts of thoughts (COT), arising from 1 or more of above 12 attributes in contradiction. Normally, you would have multiple thoughts in your mind; but please be aware that there is one which is latest or current and rests are linked to your past memories. Conflict is always between the Current and Rests from Past!!!
- Identify by practice, which is your current thought and which are from past memories. Those associated with your emotions, ego or biases are definitely the ones from past.
- Treat the thoughts from past memories only as your knowledge or information.
You would experience the magic of conflict ceasing to exist and you would be driven to a correct response to your current thought! - Develop sense of right or wrong from the results of your doings.
- Hard notions would always hurt and harm you; not easy but make efforts to dilute or discard.
- Your best strength is flexibility and that comes from your soft notions and nature.
- Avoid obsession with any particular person or a thing; obsession invites destruction.
- Set doable goals or objectives for what you want to be. Drive relentlessly and continuously towards these. It would give tremendous pleasure and purpose.
If you follow above, you would surely turn to be Self-assured, Suave and Sober individual! And if you can make peace with yourself, you would make peace with anyone else!!
Golden prescription for prevention of external conflicts
- Be a good listener. When you listen to others, they would listen to you.
Rules 4 and 5 above would make you a good listener in any case. - Respect and appreciate others, to be respected and appreciated by them.
Your power, popularity or pressure instead to command or order respect or appreciation would not survive for long. - On every occasion, set expectations of the people you have to deal with (whether senior or junior or peer), at right and realistic levels.
- Set clear guidelines and directions for work or activity.
Often people leave it open and this is one good reason why chaos is created. - Lay down simple and easy to understand rules for given activities to be performed by an individual or group.
- Winning an argument is not worth; seeking solution is!
- Drive common vision and goals, and inspire people to accomplish through collective wisdom and efforts, while forgetting individual identities.
- Communicate and interact with people to understand their pulse and problems, to avoid surprises and provide solutions.
Click to continue ….. Beauty beneath Managing Conflicts
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