Identifying Your Responses to Conflict
Facing our layers of fear and doubt is an unavoidable part of negotiation and the key reason why it takes courage to negotiate.
When we think about negotiating for something we want, even before we get to asking – we’re just thinking about it here – we enter into conflict. That conflict can be within ourselves or with others.
This is why we have to examine our primary responses to conflict:
Suppression—forbidding or restraining the discussion of an idea, activity or issue.
Avoidance—refusing to talk to someone with whom you’ve had a dispute.
Resolution—finding an agreement both parties can live with.
Transformation—changing your relationship with the person with whom you’re having the dispute so that you both can resolve the conflict and better your relationship.
Transcendence—consciously moving through and past a conflict. In other words, you’re no longer dominated by the need to repeat the conflict.
No doubt you can identify your principal style of dealing with conflict. If you're most often hovering somewhere between avoidance and suppression, grab your courage and lean into the conversation with transparency and the intent to be curious about what's possible.