Conflict Management Starts with Self Management
You Scored High in Compromising in CALM
This suggests that when ordinary, smallish disagreements arise, your instinct is to look for solutions at a halfway point between yourself and others. If everyone accepts less than what they want, the conflict will end and life can continue! Compromising has particular strengths and weaknesses that you should be aware of.
Benefits. Strengths associated with wise use of this pragmatic style include:
- Fairness and moderation. Compromisers don't push things to an extreme.
- Speed. An acceptable compromise can often be worked out fairly quickly.
- Familiarity. The idea that "you give a little, I'll give a little" is readily understood and brings out the best in people.
- Practicality. A compromise enables you to get on with things, without prolonged fuss.
But Don't Over-use It. Despite its many benefits, Compromising has downsides. If you respond to every conflict with "let's go halfway and meet in the middle" you'll encounter the limits of this style:
- Compromise of important principles or loss of important goals. There are situations where integrity or protection of people or resources requires you to take a firm stand and not to negotiate.
- Acceptance of half-solutions that don't address the real issues or that abandon too quickly the careful exploration required to come up with effective solutions.
- Wishy-washiness, inability to assert red lines, boundaries or principles.
- Difficulty in resolving future conflicts if there are no principles or goals to guide resolution of problems.
- Lost opportunities to engage others in-depth if you always make a quick compromise without looking deeply at things.
- Lack of commitment. Those involved may drag their feet at implementing solutions they don't fully support.
- Mediocre problem-solving efforts bring mediocre results. Quick compromises may hinder you from developing skills of in-depth problem analysis or stop short of the intense conversation necessary for building a deep relationship. Mediocre outcomes and lukewarm relationships may result.
Steps You Can Take to Maintain Balance. To diversify your conflict resolution skills beyond Compromising you can:
- Expand your conflict style repertoire. Aim to be good at all styles.
- Pay special attention to Cooperating. The Cooperating style shares similarities but differs from Compromising in its greater willingness to remain in uncertainty while exploring issues and options with others. Ask yourself: Is it important to get a quick solution? If not, Cooperating may be a better strategy since it is more likely to bring solutions that are creative and thorough.
- Consider sustainability of solutions. Does the compromise agreement address the real issues? Will key people support it? How will it feel a year from now?
- Consider values. Weigh whether compromise agreements are compatible with values you care about.
Support Strategies for Compromisers. The most difficult conflicts often come with those close to us, our partners and colleagues. The support strategies below are for partners who want to help you function at your best. Given your preference for Compromising as a conflict style, others should consider using these strategies with you when differences arise:
- Convey commitment to being fair, realistic, practical, moderate, reasonable. These matter to those who prefer the Compromising style. They respond well when others bring these values into a conversation.
- Offer to back off from your own position. This is a familiar and respected move to the Compromiser, who will often reciprocate.
- Use a two-step approach. With a Compromiser, this means: 1) Describe honestly what your first-choice solution would be. Without delay, then 2) Indicate your openness to considering something mid-way between your first choice and the Compromiser's first choice.
- Wrap it up and move on. Compromisers have a practical orientation. Don't drag the discussion on and on. Tell the Compromiser what you want, find a middle point both of you can live with, and then get on with things. This is especially important to remember if you prefer Cooperating and thus probably have more tolerance for long discussion than the Compromiser.
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