Mar
02
How to Solve Conflicts Without Compromising or Killing Each Other
In every conflict, there are really three sides to it (like a triangle): your truth on one side, their truth on the other and then the higher-level solution at the top.
If you stay stuck on your side of the triangle, you never solve the problem.
The Triangle of Truth, my new conflict resolution model, is a tool to help you break the stalemate. It’s not about “compromise” or “right versus wrong.” It’s about being willing to engage in conflict in such a way that we allow something bigger, better and more inclusive to emerge.
Why do we need a new tool? Because the way we’re currently managing conflict isn’t working!
The funny thing is, everybody wants the other side to start listening and collaborating first. But it doesn’t work that way.
We can whine and dither about how other people should be more enlightened and open-minded, or we can start helping them get there. If you want to recast disagreements, diffuse anger, and solve problems, you can’t sit on the sidelines criticizing. If you want to elevate the dialogue, you have to be the one who leads the way.
You start by making a conscious effort to look for potential “truths” behind the imperfect ideas that imperfect people are offering.
Understanding someone else’s truths doesn’t mean that you have to agree to their plans; it just means that you’re willing to hold a space for their perspective and that you’re willing to see the potentially good intent behind a plan or idea you may not like.
You don’t have to compromise your ideals. But just because their version of “better” looks different than yours, you needn’t judge their intentions to be less than honorable.
When we express moral indignation over the imperfect solutions being presented by others, we aren’t solving problems; we’re contributing to them.
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1 Comment for this entry
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March 2nd, 2011 on 10:00 pm
This is very much in line with the aims of mediation – a process that could be described as helping two people with different perspectives on something to create a third perspective that works for both of them. As a mediator, it seems to me that when conflict is effectively resolved it leads to one or more of the following: Learning, connection and/or insight. Learning is in relation to the situation – possibly a new way of doing something emerges. Connection is in relation to the person we are in conflict with – we come to understand their perspective and how they could see things their way…without having to agree with them. So often, as you mention, others’ views are dismissed as invalid. We don’t move forward when we stick to that but understanding a perspective without agreeing with it allows us to move forward from ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ to ….’Oh ok, so that’s how you see it’. Finally, insight is in relation to ourselves – we come to understand that we often react the same way to a particular behaviour in others, for example, and that that usually leads to a fall out. When we realise it we can start to find other ways of dealing with that rather than just ‘react’ as we did before we realised it. I hope I’ve not run out of space….but your title…How to solve conflicts without compromising or killing each other …is the very thing that mediation, a sometimes maligned process, is committed to achieving ….often with great success.