Problem solving is taught in nearly all top education curriculum but conflict resolution and identification need to be mixed in.
If told “you need to do X, figure it out” people can think back to schooling and find an answer. What is harder is when it turns into a conversation between two people. When an issue needs to be resolved through communication and uncomfortable conversations, people seem to fail. Either they are performed poorly or avoided entirely. Those two parts need more emphasis in our education system.
Conflict Resolution – Two Parties
Problem solving is great and something everyone should work on. Conflict resolution, however, seems to be an even larger gap. When two people need to have a tough conversation, things can get tricky. Defensiveness, nastiness, need to win, manipulation, all drive progress into the ground. If person A asks that person B does their dishes and person B replies along the lines of “Why? The place reeks anyways with your unwashed laundry.” conversations go off the rails. That line is hard to recover from and needs to be taught out of our minds. This is avoidance and shows that someone is frustrated and feels unheard. Unknowingly, this person has now made it near impossible to resolve the conflict. While some people do enjoy fights, we could be much more productive as a society without this.
A simple ‘yes if’ could lead to a compromise. I’ll do my dishes if you wash your laundry. Easy peasy. No more 30 minute fight and night of frustration that you try to move past in the morning and hope each person becomes cleaner.
The avoidance trend
Conflict resolution is hard and people tend to avoid hard things. When issues like the above happen it is easy to simply bottle it up or make a comment or mention it to a friend behind someone’s back. All of these can happen simply because nobody wants to have conflict or doesn’t see the conflict. On top of being better at resolving conflict and listening to others, we need to do a better job at making people comfortable with conflict and identifying it. This can provide a space for level-headed and rapid resolution. What people are really afraid of is a fight and reputation/relationship damage. Bottling it up is worse in the long run but we are short term animals.
If we were instead taught and primed on ‘this is an issue, we should talk about it, this is how to have this conversation’ I believe we’d be able to achieve great things.
To see other psychological thoughts like this, click here!
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