International Association of Facilitators
1999 Annual Meeting
Williamsburg, Virginia, USA
January 14-17, 1999
Thread #5: Conflict Resolution & Mediation
David A. Wayne, Ph.D. and Marilyn Oyler, MA
ICA Phoenix
4220 N. 25th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85016 USA
Tel: (1-602) 955-4811
Fax: (1-602) 954-0563
(1-800) 742-4032
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icaphoenix@igc.org
Conflict is a natural occurrence experienced by teams and groups. In fact, for groups planning or implementing significant change, conflict is often a sign of health. Knowing this does not make it any more comfortable for group members or their facilitator when it arises. This presentation focuses on conflict from the perspective of the facilitator. We believe that to be effective during conflict, the facilitator must understand both his/her own reactions to it, be able to accurately diagnose the type of conflict occurring, and then, based upon these two, learn when, how and where to intervene. The synthesis of ideas presented draws heavily on the work of others in identifying personality and reaction to conflict and on the framework from Hersey and Blanchard’s early work on situational leadership. However, we try to use the basic constructs and both synthesize them and apply them to the arena of conflict, again from the perspective of a facilitator.
Many people are familiar with personality inventories such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the D.I.S.C. profile or others of the well researched, valid and reliable instruments. Any of them can be used to focus on the responses to conflict of people taking the tests. Often, however, they are a little too complex for good application. People resonate with and understand their own profiles but often have more difficulty integrating them with who they are relative to conflict situations.
One simple instrument that does this integration well, and helps both the facilitator with understanding personal style, as well as the group(s)he facilitates is called True Colors. Based loosely on Jung’s ideas of preferred personality styles, and the later work on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, this personality inventory is much simpler and easier to apply. The program is trademarked by Don Lowry of California and was originally designed to be used within the educational arena. It helps educators and students examine preferred learning, as well as examining leadership, management and other issues. It posits that we basically have a personality preference which may or may not be the way we are able to operate in life. Unlike some of the personality types, True Colors is not a deficit model. In other words, each category has its strengths and areas that might cause concern to others but all types are important in effective group functioning. Simply put, these very general personalities (with much overlap) are divided into four types, designated as gold, blue, orange and green.
Those with gold as their strongest color are characterized as being practical, straightforward, sensible individuals. They believe in traditions of the family, society and the country and are orderly, practiced and dependable in their everyday dealings. They tend to be relatively conservative, like to have clear procedures to follow and have problems with disorganization and change. Well prepared for the future, they have a clear sense of right or wrong and have high expectations of others. They often see conflict in terms of power and, as a facilitator, they believe that they should have the power to stop it. Conflict is often caused when people ignore or break group norms and sometimes task is seen as more important than the interpersonal issues that may arise. In addition to being highly principled, these individuals tend to be task oriented. If they are facilitating a group, they may ignore conflict in order to complete the task at hand.
The people in this category are people persons. They are very caring and compassionate and sometimes have a flair for the dramatic or poetic. They are good listeners, imaginative and romantic. Often good at communicating, they are the people who will insure that everyone in a group feels comfortable and is being heard. They will pick up small nuances of discomfort from others and are, themselves, very sensitive. As a group they have a real problem with conflict and prefer situations that avoid competition. As a result, as facilitators, this group is particularly uncomfortable when negative feelings are expressed in groups they are working with.
People in the Orange group are action-oriented and quite spontaneous and impulsive. They may be observed in groups having difficulty sitting still, particularly if one topic is gone over and over. Witty and charming, they thrive on competition. Learning by direct experience, people in the Orange group are good trouble shooters. They may have difficulty following rules that they had no part in making and yet are very open-minded. In conflict situations they may react quickly and then immediately recover and forget that there ever was conflict. Being extremely generous, they can forgive behavior and disruptions and become wonderfully focused when faced with an emergency or difficult situation in a group. As facilitators, they may move the group on faster than is ideal during conflict.
The Green group is characterized by "big picture" people. They are versatile, far-thinking and inventive. They like to use logic and are often abstract thinkers. They love learning and knowledge for the sake of true understanding. They may come up with "far out" ideas, many which will prove very useful. Conflict arises for them in several different ways. Greens may not pick up emotional nuances from others and, being demanding of themselves and others, may push others too hard. They are often "right" at the wrong time so others in a group have to catch up to them and, by that time, they may have moved on to other ideas. Finally, rules hold little sway for them if they don’t make sense and they may choose to break them for that reason. As a result, as facilitators, they need to continually pay attention to group norms and not their own.
The actual True Colors instrument includes cards that are rank-ordered and a questionnaire. Most people will be able to select one style that is most like them and many have a second that is very close. As facilitators, the instrument gives an individual an ability to both self-diagnose reactions to conflict and to diagnose possible sources for group conflict when it arises.
A second relatively easy way to diagnose conflict issues for self or others, is use of a more specific tool that is particularly focused on conflict. Two of the most common ones used are The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and Marshall Sashkin’s Conflict Style Inventory (CSI). Thomas and Kilmann’s instrument is geared towards individual coping mechanisms. People complete 30 forced choice question such as: 7) a. I try to avoid creating unpleasantness for myself or b. I try to win my position. Based on responses, individual behavior in conflict situations is measured on two axis’. The first is level of assertiveness, the second, cooperativeness. From this comes five reactions to conflict: competing, collaborating, avoiding, accommodating and compromising. The tool is useful for the facilitator in a couple of ways. Like True Colors, it helps create self-awareness of coping styles. Also, it may be the type of tool that is suggested by the facilitator when a group is in a significant amount of conflict as a way to look at dealing with the conflict (Parts II and III below).
The Sahkin CSI instrument provides 10 case studies o