The trick in this blog entry is to take a subject I myself find fascinating, that is otherwise technical (which is to say boring to most people) and give it enough real-life meaning so that you can see how it might apply to you. With this admission I probably run the risk of some of you saying so what, that many of my blog entries are boring anyway. 

 

I am not quite ready to accept that as fact, but if I did it would certainly take the pressure off me here to perform at my personal best. Realizing that I am about to loose at least 51% of you when you start nodding off, I could just write any darn thing I wanted to. Come to think of it, that is what I do anyway. So, forget I even mentioned it.  

 

From Wikipedia – "A conflict style inventory is a written tool for gaining insight into how people respond to conflict. Typically, a user answers a set of questions about their responses to conflict and is scored accordingly. (Have your eyes rolled back into your head yet?) An example would be: 

 

The instructions tell you to select (A or B) from the pairs of statements that best characterizes your behavior. 

 There could be 30 or more paired question like this which the instrument uses to verify a behavioral pattern.

 

Now you are probably to the point where you think, “This could be interesting, but what does it all really mean to me?”

 

“Most people develop a patterned response to conflict based on their life history and history with others. This response may fit some situations well, but may be ineffective or destructive in other circumstances. The goal is to increase people's awareness of their own patterns and bring more options and flexibility within reach.”

 

Conflict resolution teachers and trainers, mediators, organizational consultants, and human resource professionals use conflict style inventories in their work to help people reflect on and improve their responses to conflict. Awareness of styles can help you to recognize that you have choices in how to respond to conflict. Since each style has a preferred way of interacting with others in conflict, style awareness also can greatly assist you in meeting the needs of those you live and work with. (Now doesn’t that sound worthwhile?)

 

I participated this past year in a training program for human resources professionals. One of the study modules focused on this very subject. The most widely used conflict style inventories are based on the Mouton Blake Axis which puts forward for consideration five styles of conflict response (see Managerial Grid Model). (This is where I am really starting to get ‘technical.”)  These include the Thomas - Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, a standard since the 1960s.

 

Program participants in the training I went to received a booklet copy of the “Instrument”, the same one pictured on Ralph Kilmann’s web site (see bottom of main page), and on Amazon.com.

 

On Kilmann’s web site the five conflict handling modes are listed (with additional explaination not provided here) as follows: 

 

Kilmann says that, “Each of us is capable of using all five conflict-handling modes. None of us can be characterized as having a single style of dealing with conflict. But certain people use some modes better than others and, therefore, tend to rely on those modes more heavily than others -- whether because of temperament or practice.

 

Your conflict behavior in the workplace is therefore a result of both your personal predispositions and the requirements of the situation in which you find yourself. The Conflict Mode Instrument is designed to measure this mix of conflict-handling modes.”

 

Bottom line… I hope I have peaked your interest enough for you to want to do some self -discovery in the area of conflict response. Because, the more thoroughly we know ourselves the better we are able to function at home, at work, and in society.

 

The next thing to do… would be to check with your company’s/agency’s Human Resources Manger or Training Officer to see if they could provide you and/or your work group with additional information on this and other behavioral assessments subjects. If it is available, you might even start by using the Thomas-Kilmann Instrument with your workgroup, and share amongst the group members the individual modes that they tend to rely on. 

 

If you understand the mode you ordinarily adopt, and the modes of your co-workers, what do you think would happen the next time a conflict arises?