CONFLICTS IN THE TEAM
When you communicate with other people, especially if you are in some way tied to them for longer periods of time (with bonds of family, school, work…- for the case of this guide, we’ll stick to talking about teams), disagreements are almost inevitable. Those disagreements actually are a definition of conflict. Conflict is a natural thing, and it will happen as you go through life – so knowing how to approach it is a very useful skill to have!
WHEEL OF CONFLICT
The Wheel of Conflict is a framework created by Dr. Bernard Mayer, a well-known mediator, facilitator and psychotherapist. Dr. Mayer stated that if we can understand and locate the sources of conflict, we can create a map to guide us through the conflict process. Dr. Mayer proposed that it is the human needs that are at the core of all the conflict. The Wheel of Conflict expanded the previous framework created by dr. Christopher Moore, adding to it five new factors that can help us understand how conflict unfolds, and those are: how people communicate, their emotions and values, the structures, interactions, and history.
Dr. Mayer defined the difference between needs and interests – according to him, needs are viewed as more fundamental and lasting, while interests are more superficial and passing. Resolutions that we make are not as meaningful when they rely only on interests that we have. If we want to understand the drivers of conflict, proposed by dr. Moore (those being relationships, structure, data, values and interests), we have to determine the level if needs that best explain the conflict in the following areas: Survival (for example – food, shelter, security…), Identity Needs (for example – meaning, community, autonomy…) and Interests (for example – substantive, procedural, psychological).
To give you more insight, we will cover communication, emotion, values, structure and history one by one.
COMMUNICATION
Every communication has a potential for conflict. Disputes often arise from conversations in which you and the person who you are communicating with, generate your own set of assumptions – of how you hear and see whatever information is presented to you by the other person. Those assumptions are what often can lead us to take a negative stance in communication, and maybe even make us believe that the person we are interacting with has bad intentions. Some other things can also affect how you or members of your team impact how you communicate. For example – gender, age difference, different cultural backgrounds, stereotypes, and many more
EMOTIONS
Dr. Mayer states that emotions are energy that fuels the conflict. They are, after all, a range of psychological states – from misery to anger. You may be wondering- what affects our emotions? Well, it can be some previous experiences we had – either with the person we are communicating with, or maybe not even related to them. We remember the experiences we had, because they make us who we are. Some of those experiences are, unfortunately, negative. If, during conflict, we start feeling any emotion intensely, we should take a moment to breathe and try to determine where it is coming from – is it something coming to us from the past, or was it caused by the conflict we are involved in now?
VALUES
Each person’s values and beliefs can cause a conflict, since all of us are, for ourselves, trying to figure out what is important, what is right or wrong, what principles we should follow, and how we should leave our lives. If this is the source of conflict, it is very unlikely that it will be resolved. If we enter a conflict because of this reason, we should recognize our values, and try to steer the conversation in a constructive direction – instead of finding things that we disagree on, we should aim to find things we have in common.
STRUCTURE
Dr. Mayer says that we should analyze where and how the conflict we are in occurs, so that we can identify the structural components of the conflict. Those components could be available resources, time constraints, communication mechanisms, and many more. If you decide to do this type of analysis, make sure to try to look at the structure in the broadest possible sense, taking into account the dynamics of all the sides in the conflict (for example – team dynamics (team member-team member, team
HISTORY
When it comes to history, dr. Mayer states that every person involved in the conflict brings their personal history and experience with them. We are all different people, with different backgrounds, different education, different views, different economic backgrounds… If there are historical relationships (of any kind) between the people involved in conflict, between the topic of the conflict, and the system we find ourselves in (team, school, college, workplace…), it could have a powerful influence on the direction of the conflict.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
There are many effective approaches to resolving conflict, and effective communication is essential to them all. Good communication is caring about what the other person has to say, while focusing your energy on cooperation, understanding and tolerance. What can be helpful with this is reframing the issues that caused the conflict. Every time you are engaged in some kind of conflict, try to have dr. Mayer’s Conflict Wheel in mind, and try to take a moment to analyze where this conflict is coming from. Is it because of something that happened in your past? Something that happened in their past? (maybe you were lied to, and that is where this suspicion you have towards your team member comes from) Did something happen to you today, and that is the reason there is so much anger towards the person you are communicating with? (There was an exam at college today, and you are quite sure that you are going to fail) Are you struggling with deadlines in your private life? (you have to turn in a 10-page essay by tomorrow) Did the person you are now in conflict with approach you in a way that you perceived as too aggressive? All of these, and more, can affect how we behave during a conflict, and if we become aware of them, if we manage to find out why we are acting in certain ways, we will be able to moderate, first of all, ourselves, and ask the person we are communicating with all the right questions.
If you would like to learn more about mediation and conflict resolution, you we recommend this YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@1mediate/videos
DICLAIMER
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the ANPCDEFP. Neither the European Union nor the ANPCDEFP can be held responsible for them.