Principled Negotiation: Art of Conflict Management

Principled Negotiation: Art of Conflict Management

We come across conflict in business, organisation, personal relationships, and deal with it accordingly. We are somehow, knowingly, or unknowingly negotiating at different levels to deal with conflicts. If handled properly, we build stronger personal and professional relationships and if managed poorly, can cause significant damage to relationship and sometimes to reputation. Conflict is inevitable in human behaviour and is imperative to deal with it appropriately

According to Joyce Hocker and William Wilmot conflict is an “expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceives incompatible goals, scare resources, and interface from the other party in achieving their goals”.

It’s important for us to deal with the conflict in a better way to avoid damages arising out of conflict and to achieve mutual gains. Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann applied the various theories of conflict and developed five basic conflict resolution strategies considering the underlying human behaviour (i.e. assertiveness and cooperativeness) which can be applied at any level: personal, business, relationship, community even nations.

Conflict Resolutions Strategies:
Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann developed two-dimensional (assertiveness and cooperativeness) plot to reflect five conflict resolution strategies. This is based on the assumptions that how an individual attempts to satisfy his interest against an attempt to satisfy other party interest. Human responds differently to conflict, depending on their skills and behaviour.