Conflict is never fun. Friction at work can lead to lower morale, deflated job satisfaction, and lower productivity. Arguments in your personal life can sap your emotional stamina, stress out your physical body, and lower your overall quality of life.
Avoiding conflict isn’t the solution. True progress comes from learning to resolve tensions and overcome relationship barriers. Here are three critical techniques you can use to defuse conflict and restore a sense of peace and harmony in every area of your life.
1. Start by Considering Your Relationship Goals
Investing in conflict resolution can feel unspecific. The goals are often vague and open-ended. You want things to get better with a relationship at work. You wish your home life wasn’t so tense. Or you don’t want to feel stressed every time you see a friend that you aren’t talking to right now.
If you want to effectively defuse an ongoing conflict, the first thing you need to do is establish what you’re trying to accomplish. In his book “How to Work With (Almost) Anyone,” best-selling author and coach Michael Bungay Stanier (MBS) puts a label on this process. He calls it the “best possible relationship” or “BPR.”
“When you commit to a BPR, you commit to intentionally designing and managing the way you work with people, rather than just accepting what happens,” MBS explains. “With a BPR you create relationships that are safe, vital, and repairable. That’s the foundation for happier, more successful working partnerships.”
BPR varies depending on the kind of relationship you’re working on. On the one hand, the BPR for a troublesome coworker will likely be relatively low. You need to get along, communicate, and ensure that you are both supporting one another on the job. On the other hand, a spouse will be much more committed to resolving tension with a partner that they intend to live with for decades.
Considering the BPR of a relationship gives you an end goal to guide you. It helps you maintain perspective as you seek to address conflict in your relationships.
2. Focus on What You Can Control
It may seem counterintuitive to focus on yourself when you’re in a conflict. But the advice here isn’t to be selfish. It’s to be practical.
Conflict is a two-way street. It’s difficult to have tension build, and tempers flare without contributions from multiple parties. This puts the responsibility for finding a resolution on everyone involved.
That said, whenever you find yourself looking for ways to defuse conflict, don’t fret over the shortcomings of the other party. Consider what elements you can control. How can you influence the situation?
For instance, writing for Psychology Today, Susan Biali Haas, M.D., suggests using kindness as a way to defuse conflict. The counter-intuitive infusion of a tense situation with unwarranted positivity can have a powerful effect.
Haas suggests deliberately speaking to someone whom you’re upset with or who is acting hostile as you would to a pleasant or friendly person. This can not only defuse a conflict. It can lead to a deeper connection.
“If a patient is terse, unfriendly, or disrespectful to me as I walk in the door,” Haas says, “I’ll do my best to keep it together, sit down at my desk, and continue as I would with anyone else: I smile and ask them the usual questions. I suspect there is something about this that is surprising and disarming. In so many cases…acting normally and demonstrating care leads to deeper discovery and connection.”
If you want to address ongoing conflict, don’t underestimate the power of a kind word. Treating someone with lighthearted respect can erode the deepest antipathy.
3. Learn From Failed Relationships
Finally, use past conflict to help with current relationship concerns. The truth is, there are times in life when you won’t resolve a conflict in quite the way that you wish you could.
MBS touches on this in his book (referenced above). He talks about “the Bad Date” and how it’s important to move on emotionally from frustrating relationships in your past. However, you don’t want to ignore them entirely. It’s worth taking the time to revisit and analyze failed relationships to consider what you can learn from them to improve future interactions.
Mo Seetubtim, the founder of The Happiness Planner, also emphasizes the importance of growing from the past. She lists several key growth areas you can benefit from with a failed relationship, including:
- Improving communication.
- How (and how not) to compromise.
- Learning more about yourself and your emotions.
- Cultivating peace, patience, and resilience.
Whenever you try to defuse a conflict, revisit it after the fact. Regardless of whether the effort was a success or failure, glean whatever life lessons you can from the experience. Look at them from the perspective of the BPR concept, figure out the most important takeaways, and then look for ways to apply these to present and future relationships moving forward.
Defusing Conflict and Improving Relationships
Relationships are a part of the human experience. Whether you’re making an acquaintance at a party, working with a new boss, getting married, or raising a child, there is no end to the kinds of connections that you can form.
While each relationship has its value, it can also negatively contribute to your life. When conflicts arise, it’s important to take steps to resolve the tension.
Consider the best possible iteration of the relationship, keep the focus on what you can control, and then learn from the outcome. If you can do that, you can begin to build healthier connections that can contribute to the quality of life of both yourself and everyone around you.
