Before and after the Conflict

If you want to make conflict truly productive, consider a few suggestions for preparing for the conflict and for using the conflict as a method for relational or group growth.

Before the Conflict

Try to fight in private – within the relationship or within the group. When you air your conflicts in front of others, you create a wide variety of other problems. You may not be willing to be totally honest when third parties are present; you may feel you have to save face and therefore must win the fight at all costs. This may lead you to use strategies to win the argument rather than strategies to resolve the conflict. Also, of course, you run the risk of embarrassing others, which will incur resentment and hostility.

Be sure everyone is ready to fight. Although conflicts arise at the most inopportune times, you can choose the time when you will try to resolve them. The moment when your partner comes home after a hard day of work may not be the right time for a confrontation. When a group is completing the company's most important project on a deadline, it may not be the wisest time to raise minor conflict issues. In general, make sure that all individuals are relatively free of other problems and ready to deal with the conflict at hand.

Know what you're fighting about. Sometimes people in a relationship or in a close-knit group become so hurt and angry that they lash out at the other person just to vent their own frustration. The "content" of the conflict is merely an excuse to express anger. Any attempt at resolving such a "problem" will of course be doomed to failure, because the problem addressed is not what really gave rise to the conflict. Instead, it may be underlying hostility, anger, and frustration that need to be dealt with.

At other times, people argue about general and abstract issues that are poorly specified; for example, a friend's or colleague's lack of consideration or failure to accept responsibility. Only when you define your differences in specific terms can you begin to understand them and thus resolve them.

Fight about problems that can be solved. Fighting about past behaviors or about family members or situations over which you have no control solves nothing; instead, it creates additional difficulties. Any attempt at resolution is doomed, because by their nature such problems can't be solved. Often such conflicts are concealed attempts at expressing frustration or dissatisfaction.

Consider what beliefs you hold that may need to be reexamined. Unrealistic beliefs are often at the heart of interpersonal and group conflicts. Such beliefs include ideas like "If my partner really cared, he or she would do what I ask," "If people really cared about the success of the group, they'd devote 100 percent of their time to the project," or "People don't listen to what I have to say."

After the Conflict

After the conflict is resolved, there's still work to be done. Often after one conflict is supposedly settled, another conflict will emerge – because, for example, one person may feel harmed and may feel the need to retaliate and take revenge in order to restore self-worth. So it's especially important that the conflict be resolved in such a way that it does not generate other, perhaps more significant, conflicts.

Learn from the conflict and from the process you went through in trying to resolve it. For example, can you identify the fight strategies that aggravated the situation? Do some people need a cooling-off period? Do you need extra space when upset? Can you identify when minor issues are going to escalate into major arguments? Does avoidance make matters worse? What issues are particularly disturbing and likely to cause difficulties? Can these be avoided?

Keep the conflict in perspective. Be careful not to blow it out of proportion – to define your relationship or your social or work group in terms of the conflict. Also, avoid the tendency to see disagreement as inevitably leading to major blowups. Conflicts in most interpersonal and group situations actually occupy a very small percentage of real time, even though in recollection they often loom extremely large.

Negative feelings frequently arise after a conflict, most often because unfair fight strategies were used – strategies such as personal rejection, manipulation, or force. Resolve surely to avoid such unfair tactics in the future, but at the same time let go of guilt and blame for yourself and others. If you think it would help, discuss these feelings with your partner, your group members, or even a therapist.

Increase the exchange of rewards and cherishing behaviors to demonstrate your positive feelings and to show that you're over the conflict. It's a good way of saying you want the relationship or the group to survive and to flourish.