Managing Conflicts at Work: Building Skills for Teams and Leaders
Recently, many of my clients have requested solutions around the management of conflict in the workplace. Whether it's between two leaders of an organization or a team, including Conflict Management training as part of a leadership curriculum provides many benefits. With these requests, I often turn to the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Instrument (TKI).
As a certified facilitator of the TKI assessment, I have been teaching this model for over 10 years. I find the biggest values with TKI is the assessment, in that it helps participants understand their preferences, as well as building awareness of different approaches to manage conflict that may be more appropriate depending on the context.
The TKI assesses an individual's typical behavior in conflict situations and describes it along two Dimensions - assertiveness and cooperativeness. My clients, especially those who have an analytical or technical mindset, appreciate having data behind these preferences for managing change in the workplace.
Source: Thomas, K. and Kilmann, Ralph. Thomas-Kilmann Conflcit Mode Instrument Workbook. CPP, Mountain View, CA.
Where people fall along these two dimensions will define their preference as Avoiding, Accommodating, Compromising, Competing, or Collaborating. There are situations where each of these styles is most appropriate. Most people have one or two strong preferences for workplace conflicts.
Work Conflict Management Modes
Avoiding = does not address the conflict
Accommodating = neglect own needs for the other person's
Compromising = expedient, mutually acceptable, partially satisfies both concerns
Competing = power-oriented
Collaborating = fully satisfies both people or teams
Imagine how effective you could be at work and in life if you developed all five of these approaches so that you could use them in the most appropriate situations!
If you are interested in learning more about training on workplace conflict management for your teams or leaders, contact us.
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About the Author:
Sarah Scala is a senior talent management leader and executive coach with 20+ years of experience providing organization development, change management, and leadership development solutions for diverse global and local industries. She is a collaborative consultant, coach, and educator supporting performance transformation of executives, leaders, and teams. Sarah is a methodical, results-driven leader recognized for helping clients reach their highest potential, increase revenue, reduce turnover, elevate business profitability, build competencies, and improve performance.
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