00:01
Hi and welcome to analyzing a conflict, going
from
recognizing a conflict to analyzing the
conflict and reflecting
on what is happening.
00:12
In this lecture, you will get an
understanding of what is conflict
analysis. You will receive two approaches to
help you
undertake a thorough conflict analysis, and
you will receive
several tools in a step by step approach to
conflict
analysis. Conflict analysis at its core is a
systemic
approach. It is a process of gathering
information from all
sides and verifying some of our assumptions
about the conflict,
helping us to determine the limits to our
knowledge, and helping us
to focus right in on the action needed.
00:54
I'm going to present two tools for you.
00:57
One is a level of analysis called the
Conflict Triangle,
which I have introduced in other lectures,
and the other one is the four
step approach.
01:09
As I have said in previous lectures, the
conflict triangle
allows for change.
01:16
It helps us to understand the signals of
dissatisfaction on
three different levels the people, the
problem and the
process. Understanding the conflict through
the conflict
triangle helps us to focus on the three
levels independently.
01:35
The problem level focuses solely on
substantive issues
in the conflict and raises issues such as
how many options
are there really?
And from these options, how do I evaluate
them?
Which one is the best among all the options?
What is a win win formula to help us get out
of the conflict?
And how can I sustain the outcomes once they
are
done? In understanding the conflict
triangle, we want to also
focus on the people and what kind of
relational conflicts we
have. Sometimes good proposals are rejected
immediately
because the relationship is not very good.
02:20
The person feels insulted or somehow the
person just
shuts down when he sees or she sees the
other side.
02:30
Understanding the link between assumption
and conflict escalation will help us to
understand what kind of de-escalation is
needed.
02:38
We ask ourselves, Why do parties say no to
an
option that seems reasonable and actually
might be a win win solution?
The basis of emotion and misunderstandings
are essential aspect
of this lens.
02:54
How do we understand assumptions about the
options and what is the
nature of the conflict spiral?
In the third lens, we look at process and
process problems.
03:06
Focus on how people actually interact with
each other in what
order and at what level.
03:12
Designing interventions.
03:14
What kind of format?
Who speaks first?
What should come next?
Who should be involved?
Making sure that the people involved have
the right
decision making authority comparable to the
other side?
Within the process lens.
03:33
We have a couple of challenges.
03:35
First of all, how do you know what is a step
by step approach
to the conflict?
How do we get the right people at the table?
How do we keep an overview of the whole
process?
And how do we resist the temptation to
taking a shortcut and trying to
make the process shorter?
Now, in other lectures, I have mentioned
that there is a case study which you can
download here in this course called the
Regional Council
on Tourism.
04:06
I'm not going to go through the specifics of
it, but basically there are two colleagues
at work in conflict who are arguing over
recognition
status, project management.
04:19
One is younger, one is older, one is new,
one is old, one
is more career oriented, one is more family
oriented.
04:28
It sounds very stereotypical, but if cooler
heads would
prevail, we would see that they have
actually common
interests. Let's look at the conflict
triangle one more time through the case
study.
04:43
Under problem, we could see that the issues
would be things like resource
management, best practices in the tourist
industry.
04:52
How do we manage time in a team?
Through the people lens, we would understand
that these two colleagues have different
styles of negotiating, different assumptions
about the world.
05:05
They both are looking for respect and
validation.
05:11
Now, if we add the third lens, we look at
how our decisions
made. Who decides who is involved in the
project?
What information is being shared, and how is
communication
structured to solve the conflict?
I'd like to turn now to a step by step
approach to going deeper into the
conflict analysis.
05:33
I want you to imagine a circle.
05:36
And this circle has a horizontal line right
through the
middle. This division represents, on the one
hand,
the reality of having our feet firmly placed
on the ground and living
conflict in its total reality and some of
our
more metal level thinking about why things
happen and
what could be.
06:02
Within this circle, I want you to imagine a
vertical
line. And this vertical line divides between
the
past. And the future.
06:15
What happened to us or what happened to
somebody else and what could
happen by the end of the conflict resolution
process.
06:24
So we have this circle.
06:28
With a horizontal line and a vertical line,
and it divides the
circle into four quadrants.
06:36
In the first quadrant.
06:38
We think about the problem.
06:40
In the second quadrant, we think about the
reflections of
why and what caused it.
06:47
In the third quadrant, we think about
approaches,
possible approaches, and in the last
quadrant, we think about
actions. If we take the conflict triangle
and
we place it right in the first quadrant, we
begin to develop
information about facts, triggers,
history of the conflict, perceptions.
07:13
It is an information gathering process.
07:17
The quadrant itself does nothing more than
gather
information. Now, one of the biggest
challenges that we
have in the problem quadrant is
separating facts from assumptions.
07:34
Assumptions are things we think about or
believe to be
true, but we have no basis for it.
07:42
We've never experienced it ourselves.
07:45
We tend to ignore or block out information
or facts
on the ground that contradict our
fundamental assumptions
about the world.
07:57
Here's a tool that you can use to help you
assess some of the assumptions within a
conflict. There are six basic questions that
you can ask yourselves, and I'd like
to use the example that we are using in this
lecture to illustrate
how it works.
08:13
In the first quadrant on the left hand side,
you have the
question What does Party A assume about
party B?
In this particular case, Mrs.
08:24
Smith feels Ms. Gonzalez discriminates
because of her age.
08:29
If you continue to the next quadrant on the
right, you will see that the
question is what does Party B assume about
party A?
Ms. Gonzalez feels Mrs.
08:40
Smith does not respect her because of her
age, so they both
feel either discriminated or disrespected
due to their age.
08:50
In the next set of questions, we look at the
basis of these
assumptions. On the left side of the
quadrant, we ask ourselves, what
is the basis of parties A's assumptions?
Well, Mrs. Smith looks around and she sees
everyone's under 30.
09:09
On the other hand, Mrs.
09:11
Smith often criticizes proposals in front of
the team.
09:16
So we can see already the assumptions are
being impacted
by the experiences the two are having within
the conflict.
09:26
And the last set of questions we ask
ourselves what information
contradicts these assumptions and can we
think about a new
assumption? Well, we know that most of the
projects were
misconceived. Dallas is the leader.
09:41
Every single team member has recently
finished a training
on the use of modern technology and modern
problem solving.
09:52
On the other hand, Mrs.
09:53
Smith has actually intervened to help Mrs.
09:56
Gonzalez with the director on a project that
she felt strongly
about. So what can we conclude about these
assumptions?
Is there a new assumption that we can
create?
Well, there are two.
10:10
One is that Ms.
10:11
Gonzalez values, new and fresh thinking.
10:14
And the other is that once Mrs.
10:17
Smith is a convinced supporter of a project,
she gives herself
fully to the project.
10:25
So in quadrant one, we are firmly on the
ground.
10:30
We've looked at our facts.
10:31
We checked our assumptions and our
perceptions.
10:34
We have all the triggers and dynamics all
ready to go.
10:38
Now we have to do is we have to shoot up
into the theoretical world and we have to
think a little bit about what are the causes
of the conflict.
10:47
And we want to make sure to separate
symptoms of the of the
conflict from causes of the conflict.
10:56
One way to do that is to think about what
are some of the interests
involved? What are some of the needs people
have on the screen?
You see a tool that we can use to help us
separate the different interests of the
different parties within a conflict.
11:13
It is helpful within the table to divide the
interest assessment
between what are the positions, what are the
individual
interests behind those positions?
And then to go one level deeper of analysis,
what are group
interests? Group interests could be
professional general reflections
within a professional group, a social group,
an ethnic
community, a linguistic community, even a
managerial community.
11:45
All of them have group interests.
11:48
Once we've done positions, interests and
group
interests, we can think a little bit about
what are the common interests.
11:58
For example, in the case of Mrs.
12:00
Gonzalez and Mrs. Smith, success, reputation
and
project acquisition are going to be the way
forward.
12:10
Now, staying on the theoretical world, but
moving over from
quadrant two to quadrant three, we want to
think about
theoretical approaches to solving the
conflict.
12:23
One helpful way of doing that is to do what
we call the options
tool. You list the issues on the left hand
side of the screen
and you then decide to do option one, option
two, option
three. And we then look at the priorities of
the different options.
12:42
We want to identify at least two options
because we know that if
there are two people involved, they're going
to be two ideas on how to solve the problem.
12:51
But then we're going to look at whether we
can merge some options or develop
new options.
12:57
Once we have looked at, identify and
prioritizing the issues, we can
begin to create a possible agenda for
action.
13:07
Before we move to the next quadrant, we want
to think about one more thing.
13:12
What alternatives to people have to the
actual conflict?
Can they stay in the conflict or do they
have better alternatives?
One question to ask ourselves in the
alternatives tool is What will
the party do if the negotiations collapse?
What will they do to get ready to implement
this alternative,
and what consequences will there be if the
alternative comes to
fruition? Now, this has to be done for both
sides, not just one side.
13:45
The reality is most people never think about
what if the conflict
itself just collapses?
And finally, we come to quadrant four after
we have identified
the problem reflected on the causes of the
problem
and identified some approaches.
14:05
We try to move forward on pinpointing what
concrete
actions are needed.
14:12
Now on the screen, you see a simple tool for
action planning.
14:16
If the parties have not met, some of the
actions might be,
for example, a facilitated negotiation.
14:25
They might need mediation, or they might
need communication training.
14:30
However, in this particular case, both Mrs.
14:34
Gonzalez and Mrs.
14:35
Smith have actually agreed on a couple of
specific options.
14:40
So using the tool which is broken down into
actions,
responsible people, time frame
support and needed resources, we can see
that they have
agreed to information exchange.
14:58
Led by Mrs. Gonzalez once a month involving
the team
leader and no added resources are needed.
15:06
We can also see that they've agreed that
there would be a course on the
use of modern technologies.
15:13
Mr. Smith would attend in the next quarter.
15:16
The IT department would support her and they
would need some funding and some time
off to make sure Mrs.
15:22
Smith can do this.
15:24
And lastly, they've agreed to improving
their communication by
starting with some written communication.
15:32
Both sides agree to update each other weekly
and both are responsible and
no added resources are needed.
15:40
And lastly, no action plan will be
implemented if the parties do
not trust each other in terms of competence,
integrity,
predictability, reciprocity and well-being.
15:53
We see from the example on the screen that
the two colleagues have actually
levels of trust between low and medium in
the five categories.
16:04
Some suggested activity to build trust, for
example, in the area of competence is to
set tasks in specific projects in terms of
integrity,
to set deadlines and evaluations, in terms
of predictability,
to ensure that regular meetings happen and
in terms of
reciprocity, to take turns organising the
meeting if
all of these suggested activities take
place.
16:30
For sure, the level of trust in terms of
well-being and the wishing of
well-being towards each other will increase
at the end.
16:40
And finally, one of the things that we have
to keep in mind when we're doing the Circle
Chart is that most people are very good at
understanding the
problem and understanding what they want
done about it.
16:53
They're not very good at taking the time out
to think about the
causes, the assumptions and the problems
involved in developing an
approach. They are not always keen on
opening themselves up to the
possibility that there might be other ways
of seeing the conflict.
17:12
Even if Mrs. Smith would be willing to
entertain more modern
ideas about project management.
17:18
She would not be less vigorous in her
evaluation of those meetings.
17:24
Even if Mrs. Gonzalez could understand that
there is a value in traditional
methods. It would not change her tendency to
work at a higher
speed environment.
17:35
Conflict is much more complicated than that.
17:38
The question is to understand both sides and
see if there are some
areas where their interests might overlap to
generate
cooperation. I hope in this lecture you have
been able
to understand what is conflict analysis.
17:56
What are the approaches to conflict analysis
and what tools you can
use step by step to ensure a thorough
analysis
of the conflict?
I wish you well in your next conflict
analysis.