Rating

The Coward's Guide to Conflict

Empowering Solutions for Those Who Would Rather Run Than Fight
Tim Ursiny | Sourcebooks © 2003

This is a fine, short guide to managing conflict. Author Tim Ursiny particularly addresses those of
you who are "conflict cowards," people who do not like conflict...and who does, outside of a few
well-compensated litigaters? Ursiny himself is a confessed hater of conflict. He has hated it ever
since he was a child and now, even though he’s an executive coach and a fairly beefy guy, he still
hates it. He is also a psychologist, and his style and approach have much in common with the work
of other pop psychology writers, although this guide is more useful than most. Ursiny keeps the
reading light by providing ample anecdotes and he invites readers to participate through several
self-examination questionnaires. He provides some clearly written, easily accessible explanations
of how conflicts occur and how to manage them. In fact, he defines conflict, its consequences and
even its benefits so broadly that almost anyone fits the book’s target audience. You got a problem
with that? getAbstract.com doesn’t and warmly recommends this entertaining, refreshing book,
which - we agree - has something for almost everyone who’d rather duck than fight.

Take-Aways
• Engage in conflict calmly.
• Avoiding conflict leaves its underlying causes unaddressed.
• Giving in to others creates feelings of bitterness and resentment.
• Critical people often have low self-esteem.
• To manage conflict well, listen not only to the words the other person says but also to the
unspoken message behind the words.
• Use the kind of listening - you have several choices - that is appropriate for each circumstance.
• Fear of anger is unproductive; anger is just like thunder and can pass almost as quickly.
• Conflict can, paradoxically, lead to deeper levels of intimacy.
• Appeasing, rationalizing and withdrawing almost always make conflicts worse.
• Try to see the other person’s side.

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 Summary

Lots of People Hate Conflict

You are not the only conflict coward but, unfortunately, hating conflict doesn't make it go away.
Life is full of conflict. A lot of people have conflict-ridden marriages, jobs and relationships. Some
people run into conflict whenever they go to a supermarket. They encounter conflict in the parking
lot and in the checkout aisle. Conflict can even flare up in churches, synagogues and mosques. No
area or dimension of life is immune.

“Our fear is often just in our heads. This doesn’t make it any less real, but it does mean
that we can change it.”

Learning to deal with conflict is very fruitful. Among its fruits are:

• Overcoming fear so that you can handle conflict when you must.
• Understanding how and when to address a conflict.
• Gaining the ability to calm people who are upset.
• Confronting people when they need confronting, without hurting them.
• Developing the diplomatic skill to manage conflict with co-workers and bosses while staying
employed.

“True conflict cowards know that fearing conflict is not simply a matter of choice. In
other words, you can’t just decide one day not to be afraid.”

You might respond to conflict or the possibility of conflict in one of seven ways:

1. Avoidance — Avoiding conflict may be more comfortable, but it does not allow you to resolve
the conflict's underlying causes. You may avoid conflict by checking the caller I.D. before you
answer the phone, disappearing when you see a person you don't like coming down the hall or
lying about your true feelings and opinions.
2. Surrender — Giving in and letting the other person have his or her way might eliminate the
immediate possibility of conflict, but it can also leave you with hurt feelings, bitterness and
festering anger. It may also keep the other person completely in the dark about your thoughts
and feelings.
3. Passive-aggressive — Consider the man whose stepmother only made breakfast for him when
she was angry with him. She'd never say anything, but she'd get up early in the morning when
he was trying to sleep and make lots of noise in the kitchen banging pots and pans around while
she prepared him a delicious breakfast.
4. Bullying — The bully uses another person's fear of conflict to get what he or she wants without
conflict. Bullies harm other people. Interestingly, they are often conflict cowards themselves
and will back off when credibly challenged.

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 5. Compromising — One of the most wholesome ways to deal with conflict is to negotiate a
compromise. Everyone gives something up and everyone gains something, but it's fair.
6. Cooperation — If people work together to solve a problem, they can make arrangements that
allow everyone to gain without requiring anyone to give up anything really important.
7. Giving honor — You honor others by doing what they want, not out of craven fear of conflict but
out of a real desire to please them and make a sacrifice. This tactic may look like surrender, but
its consequences are far superior to the results of surrendering. Surrender's fruit is bitterness,
but the fruit of giving honor is joy.

Psyche Yourself to Cope with Conflict

People try to avoid conflict because of 10 different fears:

1. Fear of getting hurt — Remember that human beings have an innate fight-or-flight reflex.
Flight is often the lower risk strategy. Avoiding danger when possible is good, but sometimes
we exaggerate the danger presented by addressing a conflict.
2. Fear of being rejected — A paradox exists in human intimacy. If you do not risk rejection, you
can never develop intimate relationships. Many people avoid rejection by putting up a false
front, and they end up with false relationships.
3. Fear of losing a relationship totally — This is fear-of-rejection squared or cubed. It afflicts
people who are so dependent on a relationship that they exaggerate the risk of losing the
relationship or the consequences of that loss.
4. Fear of provoking or witnessing anger — This especially afflicts people who grew up in homes
where anger was always suppressed or, paradoxically, where anger flashed often. But people
who have confidence in themselves and their relationships do not fear anger. They know that
anger is just ... anger.
5. Fear of being called selfish — Most of us have a negative impression of selfishness, and a lot
of people are very averse to being branded as selfish. However, justly pursuing your own
preferences and rights is different from being selfish.
6. Fear of putting one's foot in one's mouth — Some people are so afraid of saying something
wrong that they don't say anything at all.
7. Fear of failure — People can be so afraid of losing a conflict that they won't risk having it. But
sometimes failure is the tuition one pays in the school of success.
8. Fear of causing pain — People may fear conflict because they would rather suffer pain
themselves than cause pain to others. This fear actually can be a form of not respecting others
or of underestimating their abilities to reach a resolution.
9. Fear of success — Some people fear obtaining what they want because they feel undeserving.
Such people may have been told as children that they were unworthy. Those who internalized
such messages can grow up to believe that getting what they want would be unjust.

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 10. Fear of closeness — Some people are fundamentally afraid of intimacy. If they do not risk
conflict, they will not have deep and true relationships — and since they are afraid of intimacy,
they accept that loss.

Insights into Conflict

Conflict can, in fact, be good for you and for your relationships. Sometimes it takes a good storm
to clear the air and make it possible to see clearly. The great advantages of a good, healthy conflict
include:

• More honest and fulfilling relationships.

• More trust and confidence.
• Less irascibility and melancholy, with improved inner tranquility and calmness.
• The respect of others and enhanced self-respect.
• Deeper levels of intimacy.
• Career progress, as measured in money, opportunity and work assignments.

“Realize that you are not the only person out there who has had to struggle with facing
conflict.”

Conflict has many causes. One is that people have different personalities. The DISC (dominance,
influence, conscientiousness, steadiness) system ranks people according to their personality styles.
For example, people who focus on the job at hand tend to take a dominant approach, especially
when they want to move fast. More methodical people rank high on conscientiousness. Others
focus on relationships. Fast-moving people may seek to exert influence, while more methodical
people manifest steadiness. According to where people rank on the DISC continuum, they need
different skills and techniques, and they react to possible conflict in distinct ways. Different
personality types have certain characteristic flaws:

• Dominant types — These people may be impatient, dictatorial or insensitive, but they perceive
themselves as honest and effective.
• Influence types — People in this group may be inclined to make too many promises and deliver
too little. They may also be disinclined to give due attention to details.
• Steadiness — Excessive steadiness can lead people to suffer from lack of direction, indecision
and aversion to change.
• Conscientiousness — Taken to the extreme, this becomes perfectionism and intolerance of
different ways of doing things.

“Fully consider the reasons that you want to change your conflict style.”

Many conflicts are merely misunderstandings among people whose DISC quotients are different.
When people learn to understand these differences, it may become easier for them to resolve

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 conflicts productively. Anger, on the other hand, usually just provokes the other party to
defensiveness — and possibly to the reciprocation of anger.

How to Fight

One of the most effective ways to deal with conflict is also among the most obvious: listen!
Depending on your situation, chose one of these five distinct ways of listening:

1. Listening with appreciation — In this mode, relax and enjoy what you are hearing. For instance,
people listen appreciatively when someone tells a joke or plays music.
2. Listening with empathy — Listen to give encouragement and moral support. Nodding and
expressing concern are fitting accompaniments to this kind of listening, which is most
appropriate when people are trying to express what they feel.
3. Listening comprehensively — Try to assimilate knowledge. People in this mode listen so they
can use what they are hearing by organizing and developing the data provided. This kind of
listening works when you are receiving instructions or trying to select the right course of action.
4. Listening with discernment — People listening in this mode are usually working to collect and
make sense of information, to put it in context. Think of being a detective or a journalist.
5. Listening to evaluate — People using this type of listening are deciding whether to take some
action or to remedy some problem. Listen this way to make sure information makes sense in
light of what you already know and believe.

“Fortunately, true assertiveness does not have to be aggressive, and each individual can
find his or her own style of assertiveness that feels right.”

Clearly, different kinds of listening are appropriate to different circumstances. The wrong kind of
listening will make a conflict worse than it has to be. The right kind of listening will turn it into a
positive experience. How do you know what kind of listening you need to do? The best way to find
out is to ask, or try to discern, what the other person needs or expects. When you understand that,
you will know how best to listen.

“Have you ever betrayed your beliefs? I have, far too many times in my life.”

Just as there are different ways of listening, there are also various ways to talk. The following four
ways of talking are sure-fire techniques for making a conflict bitter and acrimonious:

1. Criticizing — Critical people use language that is frank to the point of rudeness, demeaning and
fraught with judgments. They like to make others cringe. Often they have very low self-esteem
and try to make themselves bigger by demeaning others. Some critics are defensive or really
believe they are in a position to judge others.
2. Appeasing — Appeasers give their opponents what they want in order to pacify them. They
sacrifice self-respect and honesty just to make others go away or stop criticizing.

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 3. Rationalizing — Those who rationalize are often out of touch with their feelings, disregard the
legitimate importance of emotion and hide behind a façade of logic.
4. Withdrawing — People who withdraw may actually leave the room, or may simply clam up and
freeze the other parties out.

“Find a tree somewhere on a windy day (outside your window, in a forest preserve,
wherever) and study how the thinner branches of the tree react to the wind … Try to
apply this wisdom of nature to your own life.”

Prepare for future conflicts by understanding yourself and determining a course of action.
Understand that the above modes of talking (or in the case of withdrawal, communicating by
not talking) are egregiously bad, but more thoughtful approaches really work. Guarantee healthy
conflict resolution by:

• Talking honestly.
• Looking at the other person eye-to-eye.
• Being patient.
• Being respectful.
• Being open.
• Listening as much as you talk.

About the Author

Tim Ursiny is the founder and president of Advantage Coaching & Training and a frequent
speaker at corporate events.

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