Maximizing Performance Through Applied Common Sense*

If you are going to resolve conflict, one of the first things that you need to do is define the problem, particularly with the person with whom you have conflict.  The way you do that is you ask them, from their view, what the problem is.  When they tell you, you listen and play it back and simply ask for clarification.  If there are more people with whom you have conflict, you ask them as well.  The more you ask, the more you find out, from their view, what the conflict is.  Then listen for the nature of the conflict in the form of a question as opposed to a statement.  So rather than saying, “The problem is we don’t get along.” say, “The problem is, how are we going to figure out to get along?” When you put it in the form of a question, you are much more likely to get answers and then you will get better results.  This is step 1 in resolving conflict.