Issue link: http://ihouse.uberflip.com/i/1010561
How do you like your conflict? I t's a silly question, right? Who likes conflict? But behind the question, there's a lot worth digging into. We might not like conflict, but we all have preferences for how we manage conflict, called "conflict styles." Understanding conflict styles, and how they vary across cultures, can enable us to guide our organizations toward resolving conflict more effectively, making us better leaders. Conflict style isn't a kind of diversity we're used to thinking about. At I-House we tend to think of diversity mostly in terms of national culture and geographical origins. Within the U.S. context, "diversity" often refers to layers of identity such as race, class, sexuality, gender expression, physical ability, religious beliefs, and countless others—a different, but related, sense of diversity, shaped by culture in ways that differ from national culture. Even though conflict style isn't usually front and center when we think of diversity, it's an important way in which people behave differently from one another. On May 23, 2018 the Robertson Center for Intercultural Leadership (CIL) hosted a workshop for members of the board of directors, I-House staff, and various CIL stakeholders and partners, entitled Managing Conflict across Cultures. is has been one of CIL's most popular workshops and we're excited to share some of the content and key takeaways with you in this article. We encounter conflict every day, whether or not we call it conflict. For the workshop, we define conflict in a broad way. Two things matter: (1) there is disagreement, and (2) the people who disagree with each other care enough to have feelings of some kind. When we encounter conflict, the brain, shaped by millions of years of evolution, senses threat, which tricks the brain into thinking that our literal, physical survival is at Conflict Style: A Different Look at "Diversity" 6 International House Times stake. is in turn leads to the "fight, flight, or freeze" response, making rational thought extremely difficult, if not impossible. How we behave when our brains react this way defines our conflict style. Conflict styles vary along two dimensions: (1) How directly do I communicate? and (2) How emotionally expressive am I? Depending on how we come down on these two dimensions, we are said to prefer one of four conflict styles listed below (Hammer, 2003): 1. Discussion (direct communication, emotionally restrained) 2. Engagement (direct communication, emotionally expressive) 3. Accommodation (indirect communication, emotionally restrained) 4. Dynamic (indirect communication, emotionally expressive) When we're in disagreement with someone who has a different conflict style, we often will see that person's behavior in negative, stereotyped ways. For instance, people who prefer Discussion style might view those with an Engagement style as overly emotional, or they may see Accommodation style as a passive-aggressive approach to conflict. In the workshop, we focus on the brain's tendency to make snap judgments like this, and we analyze the reasons for our reactions. Essentially, the brain notices a certain behavior (such as elevated voice pitch, a hallmark of emotional expressiveness) and decides in a split second whether it likes this behavior, based on what we care about most—in other words, based on our values. Finding Commonalities activity By Jason Patent, Director of the Robertson Center for Intercultural Leadership