What is Conflict Resolution and Why is it Important?

Conflict resolution is a skill that benefits professionals across all types of career paths. What makes this true? Simply put, interpersonal conflict can occur in virtually any setting, from office jobs to in-field work. 

Understanding how to deal with interpersonal conflict, reconcile emotions and reach an understanding are valuable practices that boost well-being and productivity—and all of these techniques are learned through conflict resolution.

Conflict resolution is more than just a single technique for understanding the difference between mediation and arbitration. This complex skill set can lead to a rewarding career. It's more than just navigating difficult conversations. Read on to learn more about what conflict resolution is and why it’s important.

Conflict Resolution Overview

Before we can discuss the importance of this practice, we must first address this question: “What is conflict resolution?” 

Conflict resolution is the process of ending a dispute and reaching an agreement that satisfies all parties involved. Since conflict is an essential part of being human, effective conflict resolution is not designed to avoid disagreements. Instead, conflict resolution skills are used to facilitate discussions, increase understanding and control emotional responses. 

Some of the most common cognitive errors that lead to unproductive or unresolved conflict include:

• Self-serving fairness interpretations

This term refers to the process of one or more parties deciding what is “fair” from a biased point of view. In workplace conflict resolution, you’ll learn skills that help you discuss conflict from a more neutral stance. 

• Overconfidence

Overconfidence when arguing or disputing a matter can lead to undesirable outcomes. While overconfidence in a personal disagreement may simply cause embarrassment, this cognitive error can be even more detrimental when dealing with legal issues—particularly when you are ill-prepared for the argument at hand. 

Overconfidence also prevents one or more conflicting parties from seeing the other’s perspective, which is an issue that workplace conflict resolution aims to resolve.

• Escalation

Escalation tactics can prolong a dispute for longer than necessary, thus making an agreement even more difficult to reach. In a personal dispute, escalation may involve one party raising the stakes of the argument, or bringing in additional issues that exist outside of the situation at hand. In legal terms, escalation refers to increasing charges or spending more money on litigation. 

• Avoidance

​​​​​​​Avoidance is the practice of circumventing conflict. Examples of avoidance may include bottling up emotions, changing the subject when an issue is brought up, or physically leaving the situation altogether. 

• Blaming

​​​​​​​Blaming refers to the tactic of one or more parties ridding themselves of responsibility for a disagreement—thus placing all the faults on the other party. When blaming is used during a conflict, it can be difficult to get both parties to agree on how they played a role in the situation. When one party looks down upon the other from an inaccurate moral high ground, a real resolution is virtually impossible.

• Emotional volatility and insults

​​​​​​​Finally, we have one of the most common and destructive cognitive errors found in conflict resolution: emotional volatility, often expressed through insults. 

When one or more parties resort to inflicting emotional (or even physical damage) on the other party, the chances of reaching a calm and reasonable agreement decrease drastically. Not only does emotional volatility make for a hostile discussion environment, but insults can also lead the other party to withdraw entirely. 

How Does Conflict Resolution Work?

The practice of conflict resolution involves a number of different methods. Resolving conflict may be done privately through negotiation between parties, or through the use of a neutral third party, such as a counselor or mediator. 

Conflict resolution techniques commonly used in conflict resolution situations include:

Active listening

​​​​​​​At the heart of every conflict resolution strategy is active listening. Active listening refers to the practice of focusing on what the other party is saying, then including their message when making your own statements. Having active listening skills not only facilitates discussions and increases mutual understanding, but also allows each party to feel heard.

Here are some examples of active listening skills:

• Stress management
• Managing emotions
• Articulation
• Negotiation
• Decisiveness

“I” statements

​​​​​​​“I” statements are used to prevent blaming and unfair accusations when arguing. This is because each party may feel like the other has done something, but they cannot prove this to be true. Instead of claiming that the other party acts or feels a certain way, instead, the party will approach their statement by speaking from their own experience. 

Emotional regulation

​​​​​​​Emotional regulation is used to prevent volatility and insults when managing and resolving conflict. By leaning on emotional intelligence and putting the right expectations in place, and utilizing anger management skills, both parties can reach an agreement calmly without letting emotional reactions influence the outcome.

Here are some examples of emotional regulation skills:

• Staying calm
• Stress management
• Empathy
• Sincerity
• Handling difficult personalities
• Understanding
• Patience
• Self awareness

Communication

Effective communication skills are the foundation of conflict resolution (and every healthy relationship). Not only does clear and proper communication help resolve personal and professional problems, but it can also prevent similar situations from happening in the future. 

Here are some examples of essential communication skills:

• Verbal and nonverbal communication
• Articulation
• Persuasion​​​​​​​

Assertiveness

Although it may seem counterproductive, reasonable levels of assertiveness can be beneficial when performed calmly. This is because assertiveness pushes people to address their feelings and voice their expectations of the other party, rather than avoiding conflict altogether.

Here are some examples of essential skills:

• Decisiveness
• Fairness
• Self control
• Management
• Voicing and accepting opinions

Apologizing

When necessary, the final step to an effective conflict resolution process is knowing when to apologize. It’s important to note that successful conflict resolution will bring both of the involved parties to fully understand what they’ve done and why an apology is needed—rather than simply going through the motions to end the conflict.