Conflict Management Starts with Self Management

About the Combination of Cooperating and Compromising in Storm

You scored high for both Cooperating and Compromising in Storm. This combination has a particular character you should be aware of so you can maximize its strengths and minimize its limitations. 

Strengths:  This combo brings together a key characteristic of Cooperating - joint exploration of problems and solutions - with the let's-make-a-deal pragmatism of Compromising. Both styles expect to work together with others to resolve conflict.  Cooperating seeks this through in-depth discussion to find a solution that gives both sides everything they seek. Compromising is a little less confident in talk and less willing to invest effort in it, moving quickly to find in-between solutions that require everyone to back off a bit from what they want.  

Limitations:  Since you favor both styles you are likely to function well where negotiation and problem-solving are major requirements. But the combination of Cooperating and Compromising has limitations you should consider.    

With such a strong orientation towards talk, you may over-use talk and negotiation.  Sometimes other responses are better! 

• Not all conflicts are worth the time and effort required to talk things through.  Sometimes it's better to delay or avoid conversation.  
• Sometimes duty or principle requires us to be non-negotiable.  Parents, leaders of many kinds, and certain professionals bear duties at times to command, protect and safeguard.
• Sometimes quick, decisive action is essential, in which case a Directing response might be more appropriate.  A surgeon can't deal with a crisis by negotiating with colleagues, nor, perhaps, the director of an organization in a budget emergency.   There are good reasons why emergency response organizations (fire, police, military, etc.) are vertical in their decisionmaking hierarchies and structured around Directing responses.
• With a strong preference for talk, you may may wear out people around you, or miss cues they want to just settle and move on.

How to benefit from the strengths and reduce your exposure to limitations:  If the above has a ring of truth for you, consider these ideas:

1. Study the Support  Tips for both styles, under the tab for each on the Support page.  Those are things others can do to support you. If you understand what kind of support you need, you can more easily ask for it.
2. Count the cost of discussion and dialogue.   Dialogue takes time and energy.  If you plunge heedlessly into intense discussion every time a challenge comes along, you'll live in heat but little light.  Tend well the garden of your engagements - prune and weed carefully so that you direct your time and energy to the issues and people you most want to engage.
3. Ponder the duties that your roles in life require of you.  When you are a parent or leader, you can't be negotiable about everything.  Others depend on you to use your knowledge and power wisely.  Sometimes it is your duty to respond firmly and set limits, and this will not please everyone.  If you struggle with this, seek out a mentor wise in the roles you must fill.  
4. Do careful process design.   Process design involves planning discussion processes before getting far into them.  You define the issues with care, consider whom to involve and in what role, agree on decision-making rules, decide on topics or activities to include and in what order, etc.  Process planning improves odds the discussion will come off well.
5. Consult about negotiation and decisionmaking as leader.  Your instinct for discussion and dialogue can be a gift to groups.  But check in regularly with others to review things.  You want participation but you don't want to drag discussion on endlessly.  Do they feel you are striking the right balance of being negotiable and firm as a leader? If it's awkward to frame this question narrowly around yourself, you could frame it around what "we" do as a group or a team - the implications for your own role will be clear.
6. Build time limits and breaks into discussion processes.   Your Cooperating/Compromising preferences give you unusual stamina for talk.  Others may need a rest sooner than you!