12 Skills for Conflict Resolution | BTalk Australia

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Helena Cornelius

(Episode 371; 18 minutes 15) The Conflict Resolution Network is a support organisation for anyone who needs help developing the skills needed for managing conflict. It was founded in 1986 by Helena Cornelius and her peace activist mum Stella Cornelius, who is still involved in the network in her nineties.

On BTalk today I talk to Helena about the 12 skills that help to resolve conflict, in the workplace, or in any other aspect of your life.

Have a listen to the podcast and add your own thoughts in the Talkback section at the end of this post.

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• Transcript

Phil Dobbie: Hello I'm Phil Dobbie, welcome to BTalk Australia, today the 12 skills you need for successful conflict resolution.

Conflict, I hate it. I'm one of those many people who would rather run from it than face it head on, hoping it's going to go away. What happens, of course, and we all know this, is that things are left to fester and then they go from bad to worse. Well, Helena Cornelius is a co-author of Everyone Can Win, Responding to Conflict Constructively. She's also a director of the Conflict Resolution Network and she's on the phone right now. First of all, quickly, tell me about the Conflict Resolution Network.
Helena Cornelius: We are a support organisation for anybody who needs more skills in resolving conflict.

Dobbie: Right

Cornelius: So our main purpose is to develop those skills and to make those skills easily available, mainly through our website.
Dobbie: Now you must hate it when anyone or everyone talks to you they probably also want to talk about your mum. She's an amazing figure, isn't she? Stella Cornelius, she's a long-term peace campaigner and also a very active 90-year-old, it was her baby as well I guess.

Cornelius: It was indeed. We started in 1986 together. She'd been involved in peace activism for many years before that, but in 1986 it was international year of peace and that was a UN program. So the United Nations association was happy to have us begin under their umbrella and auspices to promote the schools of conflict resolution as a contribution to peace and peacemaking and of course we've just gone on and on and on doing it, we hope, each year a little better than we did before.

Dobbie: Which is great, I know on those skills you reckon there's 12 of them which are key, which I guess anybody should be aware of if they're facing conflict in any walk of their life but I mean obviously for our audience, particularly business. The first of those is to look for a win-win, and I guess that means getting over a lot of the animosity, isn't it, in many cases to be able to look for that win-win situation.

Cornelius: It does. Basically, it orients you. What you're actually seeking to do is to have a cooperative relationship. It isn't always easy and particularly if you're dealing with somebody who's giving you a very hard time but your intent is that where it is possible to be cooperative and to find a solution that will work for both of you, that's where you're heading.

Dobbie: The second skill is looking for a creative response and I guess it does have to be a creative response, doesn't it, because if the answer was obvious there wouldn't be any conflict in the first place.

Cornelius: No, that's right, that's right. And one of the things that I always use, whether I'm dealing with conflict or just my personal life, if there's an obstacle in some way, I use it as an opportunity. So it's an opportunity for something better. If something is absolutely dreadful, I'll still say it's an opportunity for something better. And so then of course to find that opportunity means that you're actually going to need to be creative in solution hunting.

Dobbie: Yes, which is where the fun is, of course, finding the creative solution.

Cornelius: That's right. It gets to be very thrilling really when you've got a whole team of people all working together, sure that things are only going from bad to worse and then they start hunting for creative solutions, you re-energise them.

Dobbie: Yes, put everyone on the same side I guess straightaway. Empathy is your third skill. Now that's a hard one. You're probably in an argumentative mood, it's not always easy to find that empathy, is it?

Cornelius: No, it's not but it's often the very first thing that's lacking. When we fall out of empathy with somebody else, what they appear to be doing seems so much worse than if we actually have got some sympathy for them. We can understand the place they're coming from.

Dobbie: Yes, difficult to do but I guess it's essential that you do. Assertiveness is another one. Now I thought this was part of the problem, not part of the answer, being too assertive is what causes a lot of conflict, isn't it?

Cornelius: Being too assertive can definitely cause conflict because if we believe that the only person who needs to have their rights asserted is us, then there is a problem. Of course, we need to both be assertive and hear the other person's side as well. Now often, what happens is that we're sitting there quietly seething and not saying a word because we don't know how to say it. Often we don't know how to say it because we're too timid. We're scared that we're going to offend the other person. At times we're scared that we'll lose our job. At times that is realistic and one has to use appropriate caution.

Dobbie: So speaking your mind is key to getting somewhere, it does make sense. If you don't know what everyone's thinking how can anyone have empathy towards your point of view?

Cornelius: They won't. I think that one of the silly things we do as human beings is we're sure that the other person should know, and of course they don't necessarily know until you tell them. You know if they're masters at reading body language and the slight raising of an eyebrow or facial muscle, yes, perhaps they can see it. But most of the time most people need to be told in a way that isn't going to get their hackles up, that is saying how you're seeing it from your point of view.

Dobbie: I guess also it would be interesting to see, wouldn't it, how many conflicts in the workplace are actually due to a misunderstanding, not necessarily a difference of opinion, just somebody thinking you're thinking in a particular way when in fact you weren't.

Cornelius: Absolutely, that's exactly what happens a real lot of the time. It's just not an unusual occurrence at all. We think that other people understand us and they haven't really.

Dobbie: Now you've said cooperative power is another skill and by that you just mean working together towards that solution I guess.

Cornelius: But working together powerfully, using skills of coming away from all the shoulds we put on ourselves to making each of the things that you do be something you choose, which is often refraining how you're looking at something. Noticing if perhaps you have ended up being a victim to a situation or a person rather than seeing yourself empowered and able to make moves and changes if that's what's really needed. It's that type of thing I'm talking about with power.
Dobbie: Now the next one we've sort of touched on a little bit, managing emotions. This really does get back, doesn't it, to putting that anger aside or that feeling of retribution or any of those other ugly human emotions we have.

Cornelius: Yes, in the heat of the moment. We so want to punish another person when they've been a pain in the ass to us.

Dobbie: We do.

Cornelius: And it's not terrible to notice the wish, but whether we actually act on that wish is another matter. And usually things go worse rather than better if we act on the wish for retribution. So there's that.

Now the key emotion that most people seem to be dealing with all the time is either the other people's excessive anger or our own. And it's interesting how anger comes up time and time again as one of the key things that people haven't handled well in conflict and I often get asked questions on, well how do you handle it when the other person is so angry that all they're doing is yelling and screaming and not listening to you? And, of course, it needs skill. It's not something that we've necessarily grown up with. This is a skill we may well have to learn late in life.

Dobbie: Well a lot of these innate human emotions, aren't they really, that we're dealing with that you've got to try and quell.

Cornelius: Yes

Dobbie: In the olden days it might have just ended up with a good fight, a good club over the head, which is perhaps not the way you want to resolve some of these things.

Cornelius: I've got a saying that I say to myself and to others quite frequently and it is: anger is a fire for change and that's what you really need to use it for and understand it as.

Dobbie: Yes, use the power .

Cornelius: Absolutely

Dobbie: A willingness to resolve, you've said is another one. Does that mean, I guess we've got to be a bit more open, haven't we, about what we've been fighting so hard for from one side and say look we're happy to reach a solution here.

Cornelius: Yes, and very frequently as soon as one can turn one's self around so that you are actually willing to resolve, sometimes it's all that's needed. It's like that way you find a way.
Dobbie: You've got to have a lot of honesty here though, haven't you, as well?

Cornelius: An awful lot of conflict resolution is exposing yourself to yourself, so that you actually see where you are unwilling to resolve. And very frequently you might say, look I just don't want to deal with that customer anymore. I'm happy if I never see them again. And you can say it once, you can say it twice, if you find yourself saying it very frequently you'll be out of business.

Dobbie: That's right. It might be a deeper problem there.

Cornelius: That's right.

Dobbie: Mapping the conflict, you've said, is another skill so I guess this is all about looking for a bit of common ground, I guess, is it?

Cornelius: It's looking for common ground but in particular what you are looking for is understanding the needs and the fears or concerns of each of the significant parties who are involved. And we often do it with an actual writing it down on a piece of paper or on a white board with a group of people who are working together and then one of the lovely things that happens is the problem ends up being on the paper, not with the person directly opposite you. So you say well this is our problem, we don't know how to manage our team of workers to get this big change that we need in the organisation and it becomes something a little out there so we can all talk together about it, adding needs and fears to each of the group through a piece of paper and then beginning to see that there're often many similarities between what apparently were very different groups of people's need or individual's need. They actually need very many of the same things.

Dobbie: Yes, this is where they start to realise that they're actually all fighting from the same side.

Cornelius: Yes, that's right.

Dobbie: I've seen that happen a few times in my life I have to say. OK, development of options is another skill. I guess this is where you're actually following up from that white board. This is where you're actually looking for those practical solutions.

Cornelius: Yes, and indeed you may well do it by having a brainstorming session. I find brainstorming sessions fascinating. People will come up with the stupidest ideas. If you're really doing a brainstorming session well, you write down even the stupidest ideas because sometimes it's those very silly ideas that actually spark the next idea that has the journey from the previous one, that actually really works in the situation and creates a spark that changes things around.

Dobbie: Yes, which we talked about creativity that we talked about earlier.

Cornelius: Yes that's right. The brainstorming is a great way to get options going.

Dobbie: Negotiations, you've said, is still an important skill. I guess, whatever solution you're going to come at you're still going to have options, aren't you? So there's going to be a bit of argy bargy and you're going to have a bit of negotiation to try and resolve it.

Cornelius: Of course and you need some skills in that. You need to be able to do the, well look if I do this will you do that? So that there's an exchange happening and some equity happening in the situation. So there's a whole heap of skills that have been taught for years, often in a win-lose context but they can certainly be equally available to you in a win-win context.

Dobbie: Yeah and actually that's key, isn't it, because being a bloke of course it's inbred in us that we've got to have that win-lose situation. If we're going to win someone else has got to lose.

Cornelius: That's right

Dobbie: It is just an innate part of being a man I think, but as we started off saying it's got to be a win-win otherwise it's not going to be a successful outcome.

Cornelius: No, that's right and one can still have a competitive spirit with all of that. You can still choose to do as well as you possibly can, but it doesn't have to be at the expense of someone else.

Dobbie: Yes, I'm please to say anyway, Helena, you know I'm 45 now and finally matured so those things aren't quite as important to me. Mediation, so what's the difference between mediation and negotiation? I guess mediation is you're pulling someone else in

Cornelius: That's right.
Dobbie: So do you always need a mediator?

Cornelius: No, no you don't but sometimes you get in situations where there's such a breakdown in communication, so that really the very best thing that you can do is get in a third person. Now sometimes that third person can just be an astute supervisor in a situation. Occasionally it can be a colleague who doesn't have as we say a hierarchy role over you because there's no actual laying down of the law done by a mediator.

They're not an arbitrator. They're not like a judge. What they're actually doing is something much more like a traffic cop, steering the situation, steering the conversation, steering the communication pattern and saying now did you hear that person say that and if you really think they haven't you may well be asking, look I think you should repeat that back because that seems to me to be a very important point that we're skimming over, something like that. It might be that you have somebody who's getting really nasty and calling the other person names. You may need to set some ground rules so that that doesn't actually happen during this mediation time. So there's a lot more traffic cop thing rather than judge thing that a mediator would do and can be enormously helpful in very challenging situations.
Dobbie: Now the final skill and I think this sounds like a crucial one, broadening perspectives. And this is the key, isn't it really? I mean we need to stop seeing everything just in the way we always have and accept the fact that you know we might be wrong in a few things. The world might have moved on. Perhaps we should be having a broader outlook on everything.

Cornelius: Well that's right and quite often that broadening of perspectives is about looking at it from a bigger point of view. Somebody wants a pay rise, that's all very well but what's the context? The context is all the pays of everybody in the organisation and where do you fit in that context?

So seeing that broad of perspective of the organisation may be very important. It might go further. You might be relating it to the awards that are for the industry. It may be that OK this is not working right now, but from the perspective I need is an over-time perspective, that over time this person will develop the skills that I need. Or in the context of fairness they're not somebody I really can sack so I need to work on, well now can they be manoeuvred around to a better fit in the organisation. So once again you might be taking a bit of perspective in that area. There's lots of ways of broadening perspectives.

Dobbie: Now all of these resources are available on your website. It's certainly worth dropping by and having a ferret around, isn't it?

Cornelius: Absolutely, yes. We've got lots of stuff there that's free training materials and there's posters that can go up on notice boards so if you think a particular skill is badly needed you're very likely to find a handy one-sentence poster that would go somewhere to remind people. There's posters on fighting fair, which are great if you need to do a mediation session. If you're a trainer there's a 500-plus page, free trainers manual there that you can download. And then there's books available for purchase as well.

Dobbie: OK, marvellous resource. I do appreciate your time today, Helena. And just one final question, I guess growing up with a mum who is such an advocate of peace, obviously when you were growing up there wasn't any in-fighting or any fighting at all going on in your household.

Cornelius: What garbage that is. No, we did have plenty of it. As I once said to one of my children, I know that you're angry right now. In fact, we don't even like each other very much right now, but in our family that's the start of a conversation, not the end of one.

Dobbie: Yes, as you mentioned having kids and I've grown up, you know with a fairly old dad, but I have to say those 12 skills for conflict resolution, I've had to relearn all of those pretty quickly over the last few years I have to say.

Cornelius: Well I'm so pleased you did, well done.

Dobbie: It's a good test bed for anyone. Appreciate your time. It's a pleasure to talk to you today.

Cornelius: Thank you, Phil, bye.

Dobbie: Wasn't that great? I find that very helpful.