How talented are you to manage conflict? You may be surprised...

By Dries Lombaard; Director: Strategic Engagement - Strengths Institute South Africa


Conflict. As much a part of life as breathing.

Conflict is not a popular subject for many.  It is seen as destructive many times, although it may actually be one of the most productive allies you have.  (Read about it in a blog post I wrote.)   

It all depends on the "HOW".  The style and skill in which you engage with conflict will make all the difference in the world.

There are five well know conflict managing styles.  They are:

• Avoiding,
• Accommodating,
• Compromising,
• Collaborating and
• Competing.

You probably chose one of the above as your style the moment that you read it.  Or, you saw a face of someone that personalise one of the styles for you.

Which one of these styles are the best way to approach conflict?

That all depends on the situation.  Conflict is always extremely contextual. Therefor each of the five different styles of conflict management will have results and benefit within a specific context.  The same applies for using it in the wrong context: you can then expect results that may have no effect, or even make things a lot worse.

You should be able to determine two levels of energy before you engage into conflict.  The level of Cooperation, and the level of Competitiveness.  The degree in which each of these two levels combine, is an indicator to which style will fit best in the context.

Have a look at the graph below to see it illustrated.

As you can see above, the level of cooperation and competitiveness is key to understanding where the specific style fits in best.

• Low on both cooperation and competitiveness, and you may just as well avoid the conflict, as there are no interest or energy involved in any case.  
• High on cooperation but low on competitiveness, and you know that there will be room for accommodating differences.
• Average levels of cooperation and competitiveness means compromise may well be needed, and that style will achieve success.
• High on competitiveness but low on cooperation, and a competitive style will take the lead and win the argument.
• High on both cooperation and competitiveness - collaboration is the key to resolving the issue at hand.

Projecting your style - judging the other style

Humans are natural projectors.  We cannot help it.  It comes completely natural to us simply because we view the world through our natural lens of unique "wiring".  This fact was researched and studied in psychology, neurology, philosophy, theology and many other human sciences.  We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.
When it comes to conflict and interaction between people we cannot help but project our own emotions, thoughts, beliefs, values and experience onto the situation we find ourselves in.  Maybe a better word than "projection" would be "perspective".  You argue from your own perspective - or at least from a perspective we adopted from someone or something else.

There is not a problem with projecting or arguing your perspective - on the contrary, this is what makes each one of us unique. The problem comes in when we cannot understand, accommodate or respect the projection and perspective of someone else and the, unfortunately, we often make the error of judging someone unfairly or incorrectly.  Judgment is not the same as discernment.  Judgment is final. Judgment means the end of the argument has been reach.  In a court of law judgment follows the closing arguments.  In the very same manner, if we judge unfairly and prematurely based on solely our own projection and perspective, we fall in the trap of shutting down the creative process of a conflict situation.

The problem with judgment is that it effectively ends any argument - even if only in your own mind - and even though we may continue the discussion or even pretend to still be listening and engaging, our mind has been made up.  We judged.

When it comes to managing conflict we should be very aware of our natural tendency to project from the essence of our own style, and judge a different or opposing style.  It is actually a natural defence mechanism.  We want to protect our own secure perspective.  But it also limits us from learning and growing - and often reaching a best solution....or even from building a truly great relationship based on respect and understanding.  This is probably the one most detrimental aspect when it comes to bad conflict management.

How not to judge

Actually there is nothing wrong with judging.  It is judging from the wrong perspective, or judging prematurely that causes detriment in relations, situations and interactions.  So a better statement should probably be "How not to judge prematurely or falsely".

Our attempt should not be directed towards not judging but towards when and why we choose to judge in a specific manner.

In attempting this, one of the most powerful tools we have, is self awareness.  Being aware of where our own emotions, intentions and perceptions originate and the behaviour it creates.  Being aware of our natural Style of Conflict that we will default towards - Accommodating, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding or Competing.

My first advice on this is that you spend some time thinking about the five styles, and through honest introspection choose your most natural one or two styles that you would act out in a conflict situation.  You may find that your reaction within a specific style could be determined by the context and situation, which is a good sign of self awareness and a mature approach within conflict.  Sometimes avoiding a situation is the wisest move, but at other times you may absolutely need to compete.

I will soon write a follow-up blog post on which of the 34 StrengthsFinder Talent Themes most naturally prefer a specific conflict style.  This will be even more helpful to you in both self awareness and in growing within your ability to manage conflict wisely.


Dries Lombaard is the co-owner of Strengths Institute South Africa, and has more than 7000 hours of Strengths Coaching experience over the last decade.  He is leading a vibrant and growing network of Strengths Coaches in Southern Africa, and works with corporate and multinational leadership and management teams and C-level leaders as a Strengths Coach and training facilitator. 

Quit before a boss sucks the life out of you {Guest Article}

By Rob Wyse;  Communications Advisor/Strategist/Writer for Global Executives, Managing Director, New York at Capital Content

In a story in Parade, Lady Gaga explained that Tony Bennett “helped her through a troubling time when, she says, ‘I didn’t even want to sing anymore.’”  Her problem was that she could no longer trust people around her. They wanted to make her into something she wasn’t. Gaga also explained that there was emotional impact. She said, "I was so sad. I couldn't sleep. I felt dead."So why am I writing this? Because in your career, you have to be you. Genuinely you.

You and I certainly don’t have the fame, or notoriety of Lady Gaga, but we can learn from her and others in the limelight.

She stayed true to herself, true to her voice, and through it, reinvented herself. And to reinvent herself, she needed to collaborate with a person she could totally trust. She found that person in 88-year old Tony Bennett.

And, to succeed in business, you need to collaborate with those you trust. You need to find the people who want you to succeed, and in turn, you want them to succeed.

A few years ago, I was working with an executive who kept negatively chiding me, and many of the “underlings.” And, that is the way this senior executive viewed the staff at the company – as underlings. After continued negativity, I realized I had to end the relationship. It was hard. I liked the work I was assigned helping the company communicate about interesting business trend issues. In fact, I was always learning. But, I could no longer give to the client. The pain was not worth the gain.

While Lady Gaga felt she could not sing anymore, for this company, I could not perform anymore either. But, unlike Lady Gaga, I did not have an endless bank account and could not just quit cold turkey.

I was lucky. I was able to set a plan and eventually found a replacement for the income. I took the energy I was putting into the company and directed it into finding something new.

Is my life perfect? The answer is “no.” And, that is certainly not a real expectation. I have days of failure and days of success. I have days where everything goes wrong, and days where everything “seemingly” goes right -- probably no different than most of us.

But, now in my work there is a difference. Without a cloud of negativity, I can perform better simply because I was able to quietly shed an executive who was stifling me.

And, being stifled is different than typical on-the-job frustrations. If you are stifled, as my title connotes, the life is being sucked out of you.So, how do you keep pumping the life back into your life? How do you have boundless energy?Take a tip from Tony Bennett. Tony’s reference is Duke Ellington who said, “Number one, don’t quit. Number two, listen to number one.”

So, while I am suggesting that you quit, or leave the people sucking the life out of you, look in the mirror to pump the life back into yourself.

Keep trying. Keep reinventing yourself.  For that, we have many public role models.

One role model is Lady Gaga. Even at 28, Lady Gaga had to reinvent herself. She showed that she could transition from rock to jazz – and her new mentor, Tony Bennett, compared her to Ella Fitzgerald.”

Think of others who reinvented themselves:

George Foreman from boxer to grill master.
Suzanne Somers from actress to direct marketer extraordinaire.
Jack Welch from CEO to best selling author and management guru.

Think about Madonna who is a singer, songwriter, actress, dancer and businesswoman. Last month she was banned from BBC Radio1 for being old and irrelevant. The fact that she keeps pushing makes her relevant, and the ban will only make her more successful.

Inside all these examples, and inside you is the “little engine that could.” They are driven. Driven with passion, and driven by fear – a fear of failure. They keep chugging along.You may or may not like the examples I chose, but I trust you respect the resilience of these people.

Probably the most famous person who was open about fear of failure was the late Joan Rivers. She kept making and remaking herself – from comedian, to talk show host to Fashion Police. She stayed relevant. And, if you ever saw the 2010 documentary about her entitled, “A Piece of Work,” – she laid it on the line. Rivers said in a segment of the film holding up a blank page of her calendar, “You wanna see fear? Here’s fear!”

She was driven by her next booking, her next venue to always be relevant. And, she was until the very end.

So, if you have a boss sucking the life out of you, you are wasting your time. Find a way to get out. Find ways to start doing other things and volunteering so you engage with life. Things lead to things. And that is how to remake yourself.

But, number one don’t ever quit on yourself, and number two, listen to number one. (I think I heard that before).

This article was published on LinkedIn on 13 March 2015

Research: We're not very Self-Aware, especially at work {Guest Article}

By Erich C. Dierdorff and Robert S. Rubin

If you’ve participated in a training or development program in the past two decades, chances are you took an assessment designed to increase self-awareness. While you may have discovered your “type,” “profile,” or “style,” it probably did little to make you a more effective leader or team member.

Put simply, self-awareness is understanding who we are and how we are similar to or different from others. One key facet is self-knowledge – how we see our various personality traits, values, attitudes, and behaviors. But another aspect is being aware of how consistent (or inconsistent) our self-view is compared to an external appraisal – how other people see us or against objective data. The latter is essential for transforming self-knowledge beyond mere personal introspection into accurate self-awareness.

Yet in talent development practice, companies spend millions of dollars and countless hours every year on self-reported assessments that only target self-knowledge. The core problem is that we’re notoriously poor judges of our own capabilities. A 2014 study of 22 meta-analyses (containing over 357,000 people) found an average correlation of .29 between self-evaluations and objective assessments (a correlation of 1.0 would indicate total accuracy). And the correlation was even lower for work-related skills. So my self-reported profile may suggest that I see myself as a persuasive speaker – but tell that to the audience who just fell asleep.

The punch line is that with no external data, the results of self-knowledge assessments are presumed to be accurate, when instead they may reinforce inaccurate perceptions of ourselves. The net result can be harmful to development and performance and, as we observed, the effectiveness of teams.

For teams to perform effectively, each member must possess a combination of technical and interpersonal skills and constantly adjust their contributions to meet the team’s needs. Correctly understanding one’s capabilities relative to others is therefore paramount.

To illustrate, we recently collected data from an executive development program at a Fortune 10 company. With 58 teams and more than 300 leaders performing in a dynamic and competitive business simulation, we tested the extent to which accurate self-awareness was related to team effectiveness, which was evaluated across a number of business metrics like market share, ROA, customer awareness, productivity, and so forth. Levels of team coordination and conflict management were also assessed. And what we found was striking.

First, when individuals were less self-aware (i.e., there was a large gap between the assessments of their own behavioral contributions and the assessments of their team members), the teams substantially suffered. In fact, teams with less self-aware individuals made worse decisions, engaged in less coordination, and showed less conflict management. These findings held even when we controlled for teams’ overall levels of teamwork.

Second, the most damaging situation occurred when teams were comprised of significant over-raters (i.e., individuals who thought they were contributing more than their team members thought they were). Just being surrounded by teammates of low self-awareness (or a bunch of over-raters) cut the chances of team success in half.

It’s clear that talent development interventions need to go beyond self-knowledge to be effective. So what should leaders and talent development professionals do? We see three tactics that can help people build accurate self-awareness.

Use self-awareness tools that are linked to performance. It’s no secret that many of the most popular developmental assessments used for gaining self-knowledge, such as the MBTI, DiSC, The Birkman Method, and The Core Values Index, woefully lack evidence linking their results to actual learning or job performance. Whatever instrument, exercise, or intervention you use must capture and deliver results that truly predict something of value. Use external benchmarks: measure how someone’s self-view compares to others’ views and measure how assessments directly relate to outcomes like increased learning and job performance.

Create a line-of-sight between self-awareness and personal job success. A wealth of research shows that when individuals see learning as valuable to their careers, they’re more motivated to learn and apply new skills to their roles. This means that we must directly communicate why the capabilities on which individuals are receiving feedback are actually relevant. Don’t assume that individuals already recognize the need for accurate self-awareness: substantial research shows that those most in need of improvement are the most unaware.

Teach self-development skills in addition to self-awareness. Acquiring accurate self-awareness is only the beginning – true personal development builds the capacity to take action. Most talent development efforts unfortunately fall short of teaching self-development skills, leaving behind a “knowing-doing gap.”

Research shows that multiple strategies can be brought to bear. For example, self-management training can help people plan, apply, monitor, and adjust their newly learned competencies. And by reinforcing that mistakes are natural to any learning process, error management training encourages deeper learning and the transfer of that learning back to one’s job. At the very least, demonstrate how imperfect self-views block the way to real and lasting behavioral change.

Will Rogers rightly once quipped, “It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” It’s time for talent development professionals to focus their development resources on the forms of self-awareness that matter most.

Erich C. Dierdorff is an associate professor of management in the Driehaus College of Business at DePaul University and co-director of BusinessEducationInsider.com

Robert S. Rubin is an associate professor of management in the Driehaus College of Business at DePaul University and co-director of BusinessEducationInsider.com