This week I gave a workshop on the patterns of conflict we get into that we cycle through and can’t seem to break. There were 14 smart, caring, good people in the room, and they shared a common quality: They recognized that they were having the same conflicts over and over. Their little conflicts and their monster conflicts had the same characteristics. They defaulted to the same conflict style and the same response when they felt stressed, attacked, or judged.
After the workshop, they said they had learned very useful strategies to break the cycle, change the pattern, and do conflicts more competently. They set out to practice their new conflict skills on the people who cycled through the conflicts with them.
One of the things they learned is that each of them can change the pattern on their own, whether the other person in the conflict knows, agrees, participates, or collaborates on the change. By taking responsibility for managing his or her own contribution to the conflict pattern, each of them can change the conflict to something more productive.
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