How to Deal With Conflict

I had to write a discussion in my class about dealing with conflict an I thought that it could also be beneficial to my readers so I wanted to share some of my thoughts here.  Please feel free to comment below.  I love to interact with your comments.


I have had extensive experience with managerial actions causing conflicts in the workplace, especially with my experience in the military and currently working on a training base.  One of these items listed was poor communications.  I think the military as a whole has an issue with this.  I have been working on orders being given a next order number for working a flowing 179 day order while here in Texas.  My active duty leadership started asking me 2 weeks out what my future plans were, and I went long term talking about eventually working as a contractor, etc.  2 days before my orders were about to start I was informed that the funding did not come down and I would need to figure out something else while they waited to see when they would have more days for me to work on.  Now I realize this explanation uses a lot of military specific lingo, but suffice it to say that my guard leadership knew 3-4 weeks out that I would not be able to have a full-time job for the next 6 months as planned and my active duty leadership knew 2 weeks out the same information.  No one informed me until 2 days before my previous orders expired, to leave me in a frantic job search while not knowing what I was going to do for future paychecks in the near future as a traditional guard job is only 1 weekend a month and does not supply a full month’s income.  Luckily the end results were for me to land an immediate opportunity as a contractor that lead to a better future and my current job, but this was extremely unacceptable and highly unprofessional in my eyes from both sides of my leadership.  This particular conflict showed an extreme lack of communication, insufficient resources and leadership problems.  

In my past experiences with conflicts there is the excellent tip of knowing what you don’t like about yourself early on.  If I could have recognized my own qualities that I did not like in myself such as impatience, over-analyzing, over-thinking, I may have been able to avoid some of the problems I encountered early on in my career in head-butting with coworkers.  Managing myself to keep calm is easy for me to do now, but it would have been easier to calm my younger more opinionated self that felt the need to be heard instead of really staying calm and listening to another person, this would also be helpful in verifying that I accurately heard another person.  I know that now I constantly reaffirm with my customer that we are understanding things in the same way, as to sometimes a request they send to me has a different meaning that would be initially assumed.  I have gotten very good at knowing my individual customers and know that although what they say doesn’t always seem clear; I know what was meant by their words.  This continuous verification saves time and misunderstandings and creates a better working relationship from both sides.  It took me a few years to be able to deal with a situation that would always be a conflict.  Once I was able to agree to disagree but still find a common ground to work on, life went a lot more smoothly for me both in and out of work.  

This is also inter-related in terms of who I am according to my DiSC profile.  Although my current results show that I have the ability to work with a team and make things happen, a lot of time in the past this was only after much conflict and me with the feeling of “if you want something done right you have to do it yourself.”  I know that I still have this line of thinking at times and for good reason, but I have become better at voicing my personal conflicts in a diplomatic way in order to resolve it at the lowest level and earliest possible time.  Early on in my career I was NOT the assertive person that I am now.  I was very shy and timid and kept my conflicts and problems to myself causing them to fester and sometimes turn into a much bigger problem than if I would have just voiced my concerns and found a solution as a team early on.  



Being assertive is very important, but it should not be confused with being aggressive.  Aggressiveness is  highly likely to hinder communication with more timid personalities.  Being assertive is not allowing yourself to be walked on and to ensure that you are a part of the team.  I think that given any situation where a person will not participate or is too afraid to contribute, that they are harming themselves rather than laying the blame on the assertive person.  With that being said, it is all about how you approach an issue and the need to show some finesse.  An effective communicator will recognize someone who cannot be as assertive and try to find a way to get that person to open up and participate and make sure that the communication flow is not one sided.  Once you stop caring about the communication flow or if you try to make your opinion the ONLY opinion, than you have crossed the line from assertive to aggressive.

I am the worst at topic jumping.  I can talk about so many things at once and people can get lost.  Also so many thoughts go on in my head that sometimes I will accidentally talk over someone or else the thought it gone, which is very rude but never intended to be.  The best way that I overcame that in work was to think about what I had to say for a second time and run it through my head, this gave me time to think before talking and to better gauge the appropriate time to contribute to a conversation.  I find that I sometimes have to restate things in my head to make them more understandable, and sometimes even "dumb" down my lingo. 

I have found that delegating can be a very delicate subject.  For me the best way that I have found to delegate tasks is to not only asking a task but to give an explanation about the importance of the task and why I chose the person.  For example telling someone that a chart must be made up because we need the visual for a presentation and this is very important for the selling point of a project and could make or break the sale.  I chose this person because they are dependable and even though this may seem like a mundane task I can trust them to do a good job and pay attention to detail and get it done in time to use.  In this way there was no lying or talking someone up.  This person's work ethic really is valuable and the little things can make or break a project.  Once you can make someone see why something is important and how they can contribute, they personalize with the task and find a sense of pride in the task and may not enjoy it, but once you can make something their own they will do a better job because they feel like a valuable asset.  Everyone wants to be valued in one way or another.  Unfortunately we all have to do tasks we don't want to do, but the approach is how you end up with the best result and the best motivating factor, to me.

Additional techniques are to regularly conduct training on delegation, so that there are no hard feelings when a task is delegated and nobody feels as though they are being singled out, so that all people involved can understand the delegation process and the reasons behind it.  Communication can ALWAYS be improved upon and constantly reaffirmed that everyone understands the meaning behind any discussions or requests.  This will never stop no matter how old or how experienced or who I am working with.  Communication is the number one area to keep at the forefront and constantly groom and ensure that the communication skills I use are appropriate and effective for each situation.  


Here is the original article Interpersonal Conflict

Over-Protectiveness: More Freedom Improves Child Development

You can never know what kind of parent you will be until parenthood is thrust upon you.  Whether or not you "plan" to have a baby there is NOTHING, I repeat nothing that can fully prepare you for what it will actually be like until you are there.  This is absolutely true no matter how many days you have been a parent...  Each day presents it's own unique set of fun, challenges, learning opportunities, mistakes, victories, and of course more love than the day before.  With that being said let's talk about this crazy thing that happens from the second you see that little one for the first time and is sealed forever from the first moment they are in your arms: over-protectiveness.

You suddenly feel the need to protect this precious life with every part of your mind, body, and soul.  it is something ingrained in us and it is a constant battle of balance as a parent.  You want to make sure that your child is safe, but you don't want to be SO over-protective that they don't learn anything either.  You want to wrap them up in a bubble suit before they go outside or lock them in the house (ok I didn't feel this way but many parents do).

Any moment that your child is spent in pain of any kind you feel crazed inside.  You would do ANYTHING to feel the pain for them, for them to never know sickness, or cuts or bruises.  And then you have to step back and realize that all of these things bring about knowledge and experience for them.  I know that sometimes a child will need to be burned to truly understand that something is hot.  You can tell them a million times but until they touch the oven or the burner or a flame, they will not be able to fully comprehend what "hot" really means without experiencing it for themselves.  Now hopefully at some point in their life they will have managed to acquire enough knowledge, experience and common sense to not need to experience EVERYTHING to learn from it.  Hopefully there will come a time when they can learn from observing those around them as well to avoid many negative paths that they could but don't have to travel.

Well let's get to the heart of the matter, at least as it pertains to the message I wanted to get out with this blog.  I recently came across an article about schools in New Zealand that have decided to take away all of the rules as they pertain to recess on the play ground.  They were having trouble with kids paying attention, sitting still, bullying one another etc.  From the outside looking in, one would think that all hell broke loose and that supervision had long since fled.  They would see tree climbing, skateboarding and *gasp* barefooted children playing outside in the dirt!  The horror (in case you don't know me in real life I mean this in the most sarcastic of ways)!  This school was actually letting kids go out and be kids outside in nature!  Of course there was still supervision to prevent any serious harm and to be there should anyone scrape a knee or need help in one way or another. 

However more amazing than actually letting kids get outside and be kids was the resulting aftermath.  After being allowed the freedom to play without strict rule following and constant berating for stepping out of line; these children were doing BETTER in school.  They were paying attention, exuding more confidence in their work, participating more.  Bullying dropped to a level of being nearly nonexistent.  More surprising the level of serious injuries also saw a decline! 

By being given the chance to learn around them and to learn what the boundaries where for themselves through experience they were able to more accurately learn the physical limitations of their own bodies.  They learned what "hot" really meant, what falling out of a tree, or off of  skateboard when going to fast was like.  And without anyone shoving the information down their throat or limiting their play to a level when any playground equipment became a "danger" they were able to set healthy limits on themselves!  These children were learning things that no amount of reading or hearing about could EVER teach them.  They were experiencing the world for themselves in a supervised but not overprotective controlling, rule-ridden environment. 

Of course my initial thought at reading this was how awesome this idea was, and how can I ensure that my son goes to a school of an obviously high intelligence in the way to "teach" and view children.  Then my second thought was: No wonder this is in New Zealand, if it was in America people would freak out and sue the school, etc.  Which made me wonder what the HECK is wrong with us.  Ok so I wonder this ALL the time.  But the whole legal system has become such a joke....  but that is going WAY off topic. 

The fact of the matter is that we live in a over-protective, over-medicated society and we have gotten lazy and selfish.  Instead of letting kids BE kids, so many people want to diagnose a healthily active child (especially boys) with having ADD.  "Sorry you son can't sit still for 4 hours at a time when he is 2, he must have ADD." What?  he is 2, he should be required to do something like that at his age, it's ludicrous and bad for him.  He needs to get around and learn using all of his senses.  He needs to be allowed to be 2.  Children are young for such a VERY short time.  Why take that away from them.  They need this foundation of learning through senses to have as many tools to make it in the world as an adult as we can provide them.  Yes we should teach them things, but in an age-appropriate way.  Counting, let's count the rocks in a line, or steps we have to walk up to go down the slide, or the petals on a flower, etc.  Colors, let's write the name of each color with the coordinating sidewalk chalk or get messy with paint (washable is always best) on some construction paper.  Let's let them learn as children CAN learn.  Let us as parents and teachers and anyone else who will ever have a moment to influence a child let them learn how to TRUST themselves, and their instincts.  Let's help them to learn their limitations and then how to strengthen themselves physically, mentally and spiritually to overcome any obstacles that they do encounter.  Let's give them role models worthy of attaining.  Let's teach them how the entire world is a learning experience, but also how to be safe from grave or serious harm.  Let's teach them how to work hard and reap the rewards with the freedom of play :)  Heck, do it for our own sanity, especially parents, teachers of the younger children, let them exercise and expend energy!  It will make an amazing difference in the behavior of a child!

Here is the awesome article that got me on this thought process.  I would love to hear your thoughts as well!  Feel free to comment below.

School Ditches Rules and Loses Bullies