How to stand your ground when you hate conflict 

Being agreeable may be built into our DNA but there’s a lot to be gained from leaning into an argument rather than running away from it

Pic: iStock

WE RUN from it. Hide from it. Pretend it’s not happening.

Conflict can be internal or external, and although internal conflict impacts your inner peace and equilibrium, it’s the external variety we dread the most.

Unresolved or poorly handled, conflict can lead to bullying, incivility, psychological strain, people refusing to work together, and general bad vibes. Yet only in Barbieland does everyone agree all the time and get along all the time.

In the real world, we all have different assumptions, expectations, aspirations, values, and triggers. Conflict arises not because of these differences but because we don’t always know how to communicate and integrate them properly.

Before resolving a dispute, we should consider where it comes from, associate professor of organisational psychology at DCU Business School Dr Melrona Kirrane says.

“Differing points of view, personality clash, cultural differences, conflicting values and beliefs.

“Remember that conflict isn’t always a bad thing.

“We tend to run a mile because we see it as distasteful and distressing, but when people dig their heels in about something, it shows they care about it,” she says.

“There’s nothing worse than apathy.

“When people are passionate about something, they’re energised.

“The ideal would be to capitalise on this, to channel it, rather than to run away or shut it down. We should be able to leverage good conflict rather than to avoid it at all costs.”

But what if you loathe confrontation and get palpitations even thinking about it? Could you be — whisper it — female?

“Yes, women avoid conflict,” Kirrane says. “Of the big five personality traits — conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, openness to new ideas, and emotional stability — the data tells us that women tend to score higher on agreeableness, while more men score on its opposite, aggression.

“Agreeableness means a desire for harmony, which sees women erring on the side of cooperative behaviours.

“Conflict is not part of that — women value agreeableness too highly. Which is why there are sex differences in dealing with conflict.”

To be fair, women gestate future humans, so being cooperative and agreeable is a core survival skill from an evolutionary perspective. Plus, we’re socialised to be ‘nice’.

“Women want to resolve the conflict,” chartered workplace psychologist at the RCSI Centre for Positive Health Sciences Dr Mary Collins says.

“We tend to be higher in empathy. Whereas men tend to be more objective [and want] to win.”

The downside, she says, is that women score more highly on avoiding, accommodating and compromising — that is, in general, we acquiesce too much.

However, Collins says it’s not all about gender. “Conflict is deeply personal,” she says.

“What might be a conflict to me is just a robust conversation to you. Depending on personality, some are more sensitive to conflict than others.

“Rather than gender stereotypes, it can be more down to individual personality.”

And possibly being Irish. We are “an indirect nation”, she says.

“We Irish are good at artificial harmony — it’s all grand. People need to have a different view and assert their own opinion. Conflict doesn’t have to be negative and hurtful — it’s really important in any effective team or group (Check out Patrick Lencioni’s teamwork model).”

Be strategic

It’s easy to let our feelings take over when in the midst of a conflict but it’s more effective to use your head and be strategic.

Kirrane suggests six ways of addressing conflict.

• Focus on facts, not on personalities — highlight the issue, not the person.
• Multiply the alternatives so that it’s not just either/or (read Six Thinking Hats by Dr Edward De Bono for more on this).
• Create a common goal and appeal to a higher objective so that people can loosen up their defences and see the bigger picture.
• Try to be light-hearted — reduce tension with humour.
• Ensure everyone has the same opportunity to be listened to and to speak so that people know, whatever the outcome, the procedure of getting there was fair.
• Seek qualified consensus — so everyone gets a little piece of what they want. And beware of burning bridges.

“Pause,” organisation and workplace sector lead at the Mediators’ Institute of Ireland Niamh Fitzpatrick says.

“Unless it’s an emergency, don’t respond straight away to something that’s making you angry. Try giving yourself 24 hours to think, pause, reflect, understand — you can train yourself to do this.” Or as 18th-century philosopher Thomas Paine put it: “The great remedy for anger is delay”.

How you communicate with the person who is upsetting you is critical. If, for example, someone is spraying perfume around you at work and it’s making you gag, don’t just say stop, but explain why you’d like them to stop.

“You have a better chance of a positive resolution if you explain why something is bothering you rather than just asking someone to stop doing something,” Fitzpatrick adds. Use appropriate describing language rather than angry emoting or passive-aggressive hinting.

She also reminds us to step outside ourselves instead of making assumptions: “Just because I would never do something doesn’t mean you wouldn’t — people have different expectations when it comes to behaviour.”

In other words, not everyone finds spraying perfume unpleasant, disrespectful or space-invading, even if you do.

The trick it seems is communicating effectively, with utmost civility — the behaviour that often goes missing in conflict. And that’s what makes us avoid it — we don’t want to be uncivil. There’s enough of that online.

Ability to listen

At the heart of effective communication is the ability to listen, and it’s all more important at times of conflict.

Bo Seo is the Korean-Australian author of Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard. He’s also a two-time debate world champion and former coach of the Harvard debating team.

“Something has gone wrong in how we speak to each other,” he says.

“However, this is not about false nostalgia — there’s never been a time when we’ve managed this level of diversity in our societies, when we’ve given quite so many people a platform and the ability to speak, and better managed our disagreements.

“However, there are several things about our current moment that make it difficult to disagree. One is attention span — debate is a skill that helps us pay attention and helps us see the other person in their fullness.

“One unusual thing about debate is that when one person speaks, no one else does. There’s a commitment that you’re going to have an opportunity to respond, but we’re going to take it in turns so that you’re not going to have to interrupt.

“So there’s an agreement about the disagreement before we launch it. About how we’re going to have the conversation. That’s a useful skill and a useful practice.”

Seo’s approach to conflict is a version of the Talking Stick — the ancient indigenous tool adopted by hippies for conflict resolution. A central rule governs it: You listen when someone else is speaking. I’ve tried it — it really, really works.

Seo got into debating because his teacher reassured him that he wouldn’t be interrupted: “That I might be heard, in this activity, to voice my opinions.”

Aged eight, he’d moved with his family from South Korea to Australia. He didn’t speak English. “My difference from my peers felt very threatening to me — so I felt the best way to get out of it alive was to be very agreeable. To smile, nod, hold my tongue, keep my thoughts to myself.”

He used agreeableness as a survival skill and was conflict-averse.

“Conflict aversion is a posture that leads to a smaller life,” he says. 

“A life where you’re alienated from your own thoughts — when you don’t give voice to something on the tip of your tongue, the thought dies. That part of you becomes inaccessible, you hold others at arm’s length as you walk a tightrope where the only things we can talk about are the ways in which we agree.”

He calls this “an extraordinary loss.”

Debating helps us to be more “flexible in our thinking”.

“It’s a skillset we will all have to exercise more frequently as citizens in a diversifying society.”

However, debating is not the only approach to disagreement: “Mediation and listening are important skills too, but they can be discounted because they are coded female.”

To resolve conflict, what’s important isn’t setting out to win but to listen. And when you are handed the metaphorical Talking Stick, express yourself with clarity and civility. And, says Seo, do it face to face.

So wherever you face conflict, either at work or within your personal relationships, the key is to pause and listen, rather than dive straight in.

Equally crucial is not to dive out the nearest exit instead of facing up to the fact that wherever there are humans, there will be friction. Conflict in itself is not the issue — it’s over-reacting or under-reacting to it, which is the issue. Positive resolution takes practice.

• Bo Seo is speaking at a Trinity College Dublin symposium on October 20.

Reaching a deal

The Thomas-Kilmann Methods of Conflict Resolution, summarised by Dr Melrona Kirrane:

• Withdraw or avoid: This can be appropriate when it’s a trivial matter or there’s no chance of getting a positive result. The problem is the conflict may fester or escalate, and the relationship remains superficial.”
• Accommodate: “This is where you have high concern for the relationship, so you basically give in. It builds the relationship and is an appropriate style to use if the other person is an expert or has a better solution.”
• Collaborate: “This is creative problem solving where everyone wins. It can take a lot of time, but it’s a good style when you want to get commitment from both parties.”
• Compete: “This is a win/lose approach where one party wants to be a winner at all costs and doesn’t care about the damage to the relationship. It’s a good style when quick or decisive action is required – like when your core values need to be defended. But you compromise the relationship this way.”
• Compromise: “Also known as lose/lose because neither party gets what they want. Requires a moderate level of standing firm and a moderate level of cooperation. It works if you’re looking for a temporary solution or when time is important. But it’s quite likely that problems will reoccur.”