Arabella Tresilian: Welcome to today's session called Own Your Conflict Style. So we're here to learn to communicate without conflict with tools from the Mediator's Toolkit. I'm Arabella Ficilian, and I'm an accredited mediator and the founder of Peaceable.
Arabella Tresilian: So, my…
Arabella Tresilian: background in conflict resolution goes back now nearly 10 years. I run my own practice, I'm registered with the Civil Mediation Council, and, Peaceable is the community where I share some of my learning over the years.
Arabella Tresilian: I'm also a mental health first aid instructor, though I no longer practice, but the aspect of wellbeing is a really important part of conflict resolution for me. I work particularly with sensitive people who really
Arabella Tresilian: Struggle with conflict, estrangement, isolation, and we all know how much that can affect our mental health.
Arabella Tresilian: So, in today's session, you're welcome to gently bring a current or a past situation to mind, if you like. We're going to be talking about our own conflict styles, but also, at times.
Arabella Tresilian: You might want to think about someone else that you have perhaps had a disagreement or a difficult time with, or who's important to you, and think about their conflict style as well. So, in the session, we're going to be looking at the different ways that people tend to respond in conflict.
Arabella Tresilian: And how our personality shapes our conflict style.
Arabella Tresilian: according to the TKI tool, that's the Thomas Kilman Conflict Management Instrument Tool, which will be the focus of our session today.
Arabella Tresilian: We'll ask ourselves why misunderstandings and disconnection happen, even with good intentions.
Arabella Tresilian: And we'll recognize how, our own style and others having an understanding of it can open new ways to communicate.
Arabella Tresilian: And we'll think about small, realistic shifts that can support repair, understanding, and connection.
Arabella Tresilian: So, I'd like to start with this beautiful quote from the poet Rumi, who says, Beyond ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
Arabella Tresilian: And that's really what this is all about. It's about us understanding how our conflict styles show up.
Arabella Tresilian: And have us stuck in these polarities of, I'm right, you're wrong, or just disagreement which keeps us apart from each other. But I do very much believe that there is a field in which that polarity is overcome, and understanding our conflict styles can really help us get there.
Arabella Tresilian: I mentioned I work particularly with sensitive people, and I would count myself as one of those. And, this beautiful book called Sensitive says the sensitive way is the belief, deep down, that quality of life is more valuable than raw achievement.
Arabella Tresilian: That human connection is more satisfying than dominating others, and that your life is more meaningful when you spend time reflecting on your experiences and leading with your heart.
Arabella Tresilian: So, this is very much heartfelt work, I would say. It requires us to have the openness to look at ourselves with love, and with self-compassion, and with curiosity, and also to apply
Arabella Tresilian: Those traits and characteristics to the people that we're thinking about as well.
Arabella Tresilian: Because sometimes, We may feel like we are disconnected from those around us.
Arabella Tresilian: There's a well-known book called Surrounded by Idiots, by Thomas Erickson. It's a great title, but it points to the fact that sometimes we can look at other people around us and think.
Arabella Tresilian: why are they so… why are they so idiotic, or why are they at least so very different? And this book points to the four types of human behaviour, and says.
Arabella Tresilian: how to understood those… how to understand those who cannot be understood. In other words.
Arabella Tresilian: It's about saying that there are different personality types, and these colors may be familiar to you because they're based on the very well-known DISC personality types, and that's really what the book is about. And this is used a lot in workplaces.
Arabella Tresilian: for…
Arabella Tresilian: colleagues, particularly within teams, to understand each other's style and manner, so that they can work better together, but also be more understanding and forgiving of each other at times. Let's have a quick look at this, starting at the red
Arabella Tresilian: corner.
Arabella Tresilian: Which is… so the red disc style is known to be dominant, and a dominant person might be direct, decisive, and a doer, but sometimes they can be seen as domineering, or demanding.
Arabella Tresilian: Whereas the yellow, influential style can be seen as inspirational, interactive, and interesting, but equally, those people can be accused of being impulsive or irritating.
Arabella Tresilian: going on round. We have the green, steady style, stable, supportive, and sincere, but maybe some would see them as too slow, or too sensitive.
Arabella Tresilian: And then, finally, we have the blue compliance style. Cautious, careful, conscientious.
Arabella Tresilian: But to some, they can seem calculating, or even condescending.
Arabella Tresilian: But if you look at the compass points here, you will see that what we've got at play are different aspects
Arabella Tresilian: like, someone who is active up at the top, like north, then round someone with a person-people focus, then going round someone who's more reflective, and then going round, again, someone who's more task-focused. So, life…
Arabella Tresilian: Nurture, nature, schooling, past experiences, past career, past relationships influence us, and I do think that we change our characteristics as we go along. We're not kind of born into one of these and we stay there forever.
Arabella Tresilian: This is just…
Arabella Tresilian: A lens, really, for looking at ourselves and acknowledging our difference, that we are different, and that that is part of life's rich tapestry.
Arabella Tresilian: Similarly, you may have come across the Myers-Briggs type indicator, and you can access this for free on 16personalities.com. The link is there. And that…
Arabella Tresilian: gives us 16 different variations, and I found this to be very useful.
Arabella Tresilian: For use in a…
Arabella Tresilian: Non-scientific way, because we need to treat these lightly as signals that we can interpret for ourselves.
Arabella Tresilian: But the clients I work with often find that this is a very helpful way to feel seen and to feel understood and to feel validated, and sometimes in mediation, my clients might exchange their Myers-Briggs type and say what they…
Arabella Tresilian: agree with and what they don't agree with in whatever it is that, that the quiz came up with as being their type.
Arabella Tresilian: I, for example, came up as a mediator, and it was…
Arabella Tresilian: one of the things that finally made me take the leap from thinking about going into mediation as a career for 7 or 8 years into actually training, because
Arabella Tresilian: this test allowed me to see that my traits of wanting fairness and justice and wanting people to get on were particular to me, and that actually maybe that's something that I could bring to others and it would have value.
Arabella Tresilian: So, we started by asking ourselves about our personality types as a way to just beginning to observe ourselves.
Arabella Tresilian: And as we can begin to own or inquire into our personality type, we can also begin to own or inquire into our conflict style.
Arabella Tresilian: And often people might say, yeah, okay, thanks, but I don't get into conflicts, this doesn't apply to me. To which I might say, oh, really? Is that the case? Because actually.
Arabella Tresilian: Conflict is a very natural and even important part of life. It's how we discern things, it's how we make important decisions in a mutual fashion, it can be how we negotiate.
Arabella Tresilian: It's just that, it can escalate, And be very painful.
Arabella Tresilian: And it can also end up being hidden, and we'll look more at that later.
Arabella Tresilian: Let's have a look at Glasel's conflict stairs to think a little bit more deeply about conflict itself.
Arabella Tresilian: So…
Arabella Tresilian: Even if you think conflict doesn't apply to you, I'm sure at some point you've experienced some degree of tension.
Arabella Tresilian: You've maybe been in disagreement about something with someone, you've felt reluctant to say no, and that's the very first step of the conflict stairs.
Arabella Tresilian: Maybe you might feel strongly enough about it that you would get into a debate or an argument with that other person. You would exchange reasoning.
Arabella Tresilian: If that didn't work out, you might go to step 3, which is avoidance. And the thing about the green
Arabella Tresilian: steps is that there's still potential for win-win. Sometimes avoiding things is just the best way, and it kind of goes away.
Arabella Tresilian: But we do want to recognize and address conflict at that point, in case it escalates, because once it gets to this amber set of stairs, 4, 5, and 6,
Arabella Tresilian: then we start to move into a win-lose space, where one person or party might win, and the other might lose. And actually, that can be damaging for relationships.
Arabella Tresilian: So, at step 4, we have alliance and attack, and that's where people start to take sides, or maybe call names of each other.
Arabella Tresilian: At step 5, we've got loss of face. I've stood up for what I believe in, and if I lose, then I'm going to lose face, and that's going to be embarrassing and humiliating, and maybe have an impact that's greater than that.
Arabella Tresilian: So at step 6, people can start to issue threats. They become quite…
Arabella Tresilian: Dogged or demanding. And suddenly, the ante is upped.
Arabella Tresilian: significantly.
Arabella Tresilian: If things aren't resolved, then we can move into the red zone, 7, 8, and 9, and this is the lose-lose zone. Stage 7 is destruction. Those threats are carried out, and the consequences are felt. And number 8,
Arabella Tresilian: people will start to eliminate each other or themselves. In the workplace, I'm seeing this as things like people, resigning or sacking.
Arabella Tresilian: But then there's point nine, step 9, the point of no return, and that's also known as into the abyss together. And that's really where people allow the conflict to totally take over.
Arabella Tresilian: Maybe you've seen some of those neighbors who fought for so long over the positioning of a fence that they both ran up legal costs that exceeded the value of their house. That's an example of Step 10.
Arabella Tresilian: So…
Arabella Tresilian: If we can understand our conflict style, we can nip things in the bud and make sure that we're dealing with things right down at the beginning of the scale here.
Arabella Tresilian: So, let me introduce the Thomas Kelman Conflict Mode Instrument.
Arabella Tresilian: It starts with two axes. On the bottom, cooperativeness.
Arabella Tresilian: Someone might be less cooperative or more cooperative. And on the vertical, we have assertiveness. Someone might be
Arabella Tresilian: fairly unassertive, or quite assertive. So these are two of the key characteristics that we're talking about when we use the Thomas Kilman conflict mode instrument. Their research showed that the turning up and down of the dials of cooperativeness and assertiveness was one of the ways in which we could understand conflict styles.
Arabella Tresilian: And… Another way of… Deciphering those two
Arabella Tresilian: axes is to say that cooperativeness is about relationship. Someone who's high in cooperativeness will say, our relationship matters. It really matters.
Arabella Tresilian: Whereas someone on the high assertiveness scale might say, the issue matters, it's the principle, it's what should be, it's what ought to be, and they will stand by it assertively.
Arabella Tresilian: And both of these priorities may have good intent. The person who wants the best for the relationship is serving the relationship. The person who is asserting for the issues is standing up for principle. They may both have good intent.
Arabella Tresilian: But intent and impact are not the same things.
Arabella Tresilian: And actually, if we're not aware of how our, sort of, priorities are showing up, we can have unintended impacts or unintended consequences, which may increase or level up
Arabella Tresilian: a conflict. So, let's see how these play out with 5 different conflict styles. You may already be asking yourself, am I more…
Arabella Tresilian: Higher or lower in assertiveness, higher or lower in cooperativeness? Well, let's start with somebody who is low on cooperativeness and low on assertiveness. And with Thomas Kilman, we often, in our
Arabella Tresilian: industry, apply some animals as well in a playful manner to help simplify what we mean. So…
Arabella Tresilian: let me introduce you to the first quadrant. So, someone who is uncooperative and unassertive
Arabella Tresilian: can be seen as being avoiding. That is the conflict style that we tend to use, an avoiding conflict style. They might say, least said, soonest mended. Don't bring it up, just pretend it hasn't happened, I'm not saying anything about it.
Arabella Tresilian: But the thing is that that can come across as…
Arabella Tresilian: An ostrich putting their hand in the sand, or a tortoise withdrawing itself.
Arabella Tresilian: And actually, that means that the person isn't necessarily standing up for the issue or for the relationship. And while they may say, I'm a person who doesn't do conflict, what this avoiding
Arabella Tresilian: conflict style is about is not engaging with the disagreement to resolve it.
Arabella Tresilian: So, let's move on to someone who is maybe much more on the cooperative end of things, but low in assertiveness. Well, they can be seen as being accommodating. They'll say, oh, of course, if that's what you want. They kind of…
Arabella Tresilian: Give up their own needs, or wants, or aspirations in favor of the other person, particularly if the other person is higher in assertiveness.
Arabella Tresilian: But that means that they can become like a chameleon, just kind of blending in to whatever color is around them, and not really bringing themselves. Or maybe we can see them as a teddy bear, just soft and squidgy and pliable, and kind of…
Arabella Tresilian: not strong in themselves, but just bending to whatever is needed. And that might be being done to serve the relationship, but sometimes it's being done to stay safe. We feel that there's a danger in asserting our needs and our wants.
Arabella Tresilian: Let's have a look at somebody who is maybe high in assertiveness.
Arabella Tresilian: But rather low in cooperativeness.
Arabella Tresilian: We can see that they might be seen as a racehorse, because this, quadrant here is called,
Arabella Tresilian: the competing quadrant, where the person says, it's my way or the highway. Now, the thing about this is, they may feel very principled and stand up for their beliefs, but they will canter off to the finish line.
Arabella Tresilian: Like a racehorse, getting this thing over the line at whatever cost, including leaving everyone else behind them. And the leaving everyone else behind them.
Arabella Tresilian: Is where the relationships get ruptured, or disrupted, or people get hurt, or offended.
Arabella Tresilian: And…
Arabella Tresilian: This kind of competing person can feel very strongly about their beliefs, but maybe they need to learn some better negotiation skills so that they can preserve the relationship while advocating for the issues.
Arabella Tresilian: So next, we have…
Arabella Tresilian: Something right in the middle, and you might say, isn't that what good conflict management is all about? It's about compromising.
Arabella Tresilian: In compromising, we say, I'll make you a deal.
Arabella Tresilian: And that's fair enough, because negotiation is really what it's all about. As a mediator, I… my job is to be a negotiation facilitator.
Arabella Tresilian: But the thing is…
Arabella Tresilian: that we can end up in a kind of lose-lose situation sometimes. Here we've got the wily fox, who makes a bit of a deal, and we've got the zebra, who's a bit of this and a bit of that.
Arabella Tresilian: The thing about compromising is that largely it sees both parties not quite getting what they want.
Arabella Tresilian: And this brings us to to the last of the conflict styles. What happens if we really
Arabella Tresilian: nurture and care for the relationship, and really stand up for and advocate for the issues. That's when we move into
Arabella Tresilian: the collaborating
Arabella Tresilian: management style, where we say two heads are better than one. And here we have the wise owl, who looks at the situation from afar and brings some wisdom, or the dolphins, who swim in a pod together and work well together and, communicate really well with each other.
Arabella Tresilian: And I must say that in mediation, this is what I see.
Arabella Tresilian: People come in thinking it's my way or the highway, or I can't stand up for myself, or I'm not here to make friends, or I'm not giving way. But actually, when people understand each other's needs and desires.
Arabella Tresilian: Both in terms of relationship, and in terms of issues, then they start to have better empathy for each other.
Arabella Tresilian: They start to see their common interests, and they start to come up with some really innovative ideas. It's a classic 1 plus 1 equals 3 situation.
Arabella Tresilian: So…
Arabella Tresilian: What you can see here is that my encouragement to you would be to think about how can you
Arabella Tresilian: Work in your relationships to create cooperation between yourselves, and also to serve the issues that are important to you and the other person.
Arabella Tresilian: So, often we're a mix of conflict styles. I have to say, I…
Arabella Tresilian: absolutely used to be an avoiding person. I really didn't like conflict, and at a real push, I would be
Arabella Tresilian: accommodating. In fact, over time, I was just managing a bunch of avoiding and accommodating.
Arabella Tresilian: I didn't feel safe or secure.
Arabella Tresilian: to necessarily advocate for the issues that were important, I thought it would rupture my relationships. Needless to say, then, from time to time, I'd get terribly upset, and probably move directly into competing. So, you can get into these strange little loops with your conflict styles.
Arabella Tresilian: The important thing is to be aware of them, and then very gently, you can start to make some small shifts to become a little bit more assertive, or a little bit more cooperative.
Arabella Tresilian: And equally, having established your pattern of conflict styles.
Arabella Tresilian: Maybe you can think about the other person.
Arabella Tresilian: Or people in your life. And say, hmm.
Arabella Tresilian: What might their conflict star be?
Arabella Tresilian: And here's the important thing. There are no right or wrong conflict styles.
Arabella Tresilian: There are only, new ways of approaching conflict more effectively.
Arabella Tresilian: So… Having reflected on your conflict style, and perhaps on theirs too.
Arabella Tresilian: Here's a task for you. What are some small.
Arabella Tresilian: Realistic shifts you could make in your interpersonal communication to support repair.
Arabella Tresilian: understanding, and human connection. Take a moment now.
Arabella Tresilian: To just write down some ideas.
Arabella Tresilian: What is it that will help you become more assertive?
Arabella Tresilian: To stand up for those issues that are important. And to perhaps, perhaps become more cooperative.
Arabella Tresilian: More open to listening. More open to…
Arabella Tresilian: Meeting somebody halfway, and then, even better, collaborating with them and coming up with really good ideas together.
Arabella Tresilian: So, I wish you all the best in owning your conflict style.
Arabella Tresilian: And I thank you for your time with me today.
Arabella Tresilian: Bye for now.