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Instructions for Trainer Dashboard

The full dashboard is visible only to viewers with Dashboard privileges.  Purchase here.

Any user can see the Help page you are now reading. But to see the full Dashboard, you must be logged in with an account configured for Dashboard use.  You can purchase one in the Order as Trainer menu above.   To request a free demo account, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..   

After you buy the Dashboard, we configure your account accordingly, which may take up to a business day.  We will email you when it is ready for use.  To login, go to the Trainers/Dashboard item the top menu on the front page of our site or click here.  Login with the login and password you used when you purchased the Dashboard.   

After you log in, a Dashboard  menu will appear on the left.  (This is visible only after you have purchased the Dashboard and we have configured your account.) 

EDIT INVITATION TO YOUR USERS

In the Trainers menu to the left of the Dashboard is a button "Edit Registration Note".  When you click on it, you will find an easy-to-edit page already pre-filled with suggested text.  Edit this as you wish, including, if appropriate, instructions about printing out the score report and bringing it to your workshop. 

There are a couple sections of the registration note you can't edit:  The sentence with a clickable link for users to go to the inventory is not accessible to your edits.  Neither is the paragraph with the information for manual login.

If you want to add any special instructions to your users, this registration email is an easy way to communicate them.  For example, you might add: "When you have completed the inventory, please print out a copy to bring to class.   Please also take fifteen minutes to work through the first three items in the Tutorial (see menu at top of page when you are in the inventory) before class."

Save the Registration Note. Be sure to click the button at the bottom of the page when you are finished, "Save Registration Note Edits".  If you do not Save, the text will revert back to the default text.  At any time in the future you can revert back to the default text by clicking the "Restore text" button at the bottom of the page.  See below.

REGISTER USERS

Make sure you have new user accounts available.  To see how many user accounts are available to you, check the counter on the top right of the Dashboard.  You can buy more here.   (Academic and non-profit here.)

To register users.  There are two ways to do this:

Option 1: Register each user manually, one at a time. This is more intuitive for most users and faster if you are entering only a handful of names.  (But if you are entering dozens of names, it is worth taking a few minutes to read instructions and using option 2 below.)   

To enter users manually:

 Click on “Create User” to bring up a registration form.  Here's what you'll see:

You must enter all of the following:

• Name. Whatever you enter here will appear at the top of that user’s Score Report.  Eg: if you enter “John Doe”, at top of the Score Report it will say “Report for John Doe”. Spaces between names are okay.
• Password, entered twice.  Password can be any combination of six or more letters, numbers, or symbols. You can ignore notices that say you must have all of those.   If you are creating several users, you can use the same password for all, but remember that some users might figure this out and be able to access the score reports of their classmates.  Best practice would be diverse passwords.
• Email.  Our server imposes two rules regarding emails.  One, whatever you enter in this field must be in standard email format, that is, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..   Two, you cannot use the same email address twice, ie:, for more than one account.  A warning message will appear within a few seconds if you fail to observe either of these.  (If you delete someone's account and then want to recreate a new account with the same email address, you must remove them from the Archive first.   See instructions in the Archive section below.)

Click on one of the “Register” buttons at the bottom. 

Option 2: Enter user names in a .csv file and upload that file to the server.  See option in left menu, Import List of Users from .CSV for instructions. This is by far the fastest option if you are doing many users. (If 40 or less it might be faster to do manual entry as creating a CSV file and uploading takes a few minutes.)  The server is unforgiving in insisting that you create the CSV file in exactly the format described, but if you get this right, you can reduce registration time by at least 50%.   The server automatically assigns a password when you use this option.  If you have trouble loading a CSV file send it to us and we'll do it for you at no charge.  See the note about this in Import List of Users from .CSV. 

This option also gives you an extra data field for each user, a feature that is especially nice for profs with students in several sections.  You can easily group students by section on your dashboard with this field.  See the instructions at Import List of Users from CSV about how to do this.

DELAY USER ACCESS TO REPORT?

A few trainers want to give users their reports only at the time of the workshop and block access till then.  In the screenshot below, the third column is "Users can see report?"   By default, this setting is Yes, which sends the report to users.   By clicking on the Yes/No button and then Confirm, you can change that setting for any user.  Or you can change the setting for all users at once by following instructions in the grey row at top of that column.  

What do users see with the Yes setting?  With the No setting?  If Show Report is set to Yes, your users will see a Score Report and have access to the tutorial on our site as soon as they take the inventory.  If Show Report is set to No, they will instead see the screen below after they finish taking the inventory.  Either way, by default you will receive a copy of score reports of users as soon as they take them, sent to your email account.   (Instructions on changing the Copy Setting below.)

USER VIEW WHEN "SHOW REPORT" SETTING IS NO

Screen as viewed by users when Dashboard is set to Show Report to User/NO.   This setting sends a score report directly to the consultant and blocks user from seeing scores.

INVITE USERS TO THE CONFLICT STYLE INVENTORY

Now you are ready to send the registration email to the users in your dashboard.  You can send this to users one at a time by clicking the Send button in each row in your dashboard.  For many, it is much faster as a Bulk Operation - see instructions for this at the very top of the dashboard.   Important, when you send using Bulk Operations, the server sends only to those users visible to you when you click the Send button.  You can increase the number of visible users with the little setting in the middle at the top of the dashboard.   

how many   See the 2nd note in the "Important Notes" section above to learn how to change the number of users visible to All (in the lower right hand corner of the dashboard).  

Your users will receive an email like this:

That blue button has their login info embedded in it.  When your users click on it, they will be transferred to our site, logged in automatically, and land in the first page of the inventory.  If the blue button image doesn't display in the user's browser, the email contains info for manual login.

If you want to send different registration notes to two or more different groups of people, do it this way: 

1. Edit the note as desired for the first group (and save it)
2. Select the users from one group and send the note to them using Bulk Operations.
3. Re-edit the note as desired for the second group (and save it).
4. Select the users from the second group and send the note to them using Bulk Operations.

Tip: Text that you Save in the Registration Note will stay there until you change it.   If you use several different notes repeatedly, you may want to keep the text of these notes in a file on your computer so you don't need to re-enter the text everytime you change notes.  You can do it as follows: Click on the "show/hide" toggle on the web editor menu.  This brings up the underlying html code.  Use Control A to do a global select of the whole page of html code, then use Control C to copy it.  Open a file in Notepad and paste the selection into a file using Control V, and save.   Then reverse the procedure in the future when you want to use that text.  Ie: copy the text from the Notepad file, click on the show/hide toggle to turn on html mode on the web editor, paste the html into the page, and save the page.

Log of Registration Notes.  In the left menu of the Dashboard is a Log of Registration Notes to see a list of those users to whom you sent registration notes and when. 

MANAGE AND MONITOR THE DASHBOARD

ALLOW TIME FOR TESTING

It is important to test the setup at least a day and preferably more before you send a whole group through.  Give your login instructions to at least one “guinea pig” not familiar with them and ask this person to take the inventory.  (This is a gratis user, so far as we are concerned;  you need not count this person in the number you are paying for.  If necessary, send us a note about this and we'll add the number of users you request to your Dashboard.)  Chances are good you will discover something that to you seemed clear but was not to your user.   We are eager to help but cannot guarantee a response to questions in less than a full working day.

IMPORTANT NOTES REGARDING CHANGING SETTINGS

1. You must click Confirm after changing the Yes/No setting.   This applies to both individual and global changes.   If you do not, the new setting shows on your screen but is not in fact recorded on our site.   You will know the change has taken effect when a small notice appears after you click on Confirm to let you know you have been successful in changing the setting. 
   
   
2. If you use Global changes you must choose how many users you want to change at once. When you use the Global Select box in the gray top at the upper left of your dashboard, only the users on the page visible at that moment will be affected. So if you want to change settings for all users in your dashboard at once, you must first change the setting on the upper right corner of the dashboard to make All users visible on one page.   Just beneath the red letter text showing your user count, you will see "Number of Users per page"  Choose All or however many users you want to see on each page.
   
   Important: If you have 100 or more users in your dashboard, it takes several seconds to re-load the page after every action.   If the screen goes white, it's not a malfunction, you just have to wait till this huge page loads!
   
   If you leave the setting at 10 or 20 or 50, the dashboard will display that many users per page.  A change in this setting takes place immediately, and it does not have to be Saved.  You can easily change it back to previous settings.  If you have a lot of users in the dashboard, on many pages, you can see the number of pages on display beneath the dashboard and you can click on those numbers to navigate to other pages.
   
   
3. To change the order of the names in the list. By default, the list is ordered in the sequence names are added.  But you can easily change that.  Go to the top of the Name column in the dashboard.  There you can choose whether you want names to be displayed alphabetically according to surnames or by date of registration.  Be sure to click Confirm after you have chosen the setting you want. 
   
   

TRACK YOUR ACTIVITIES ON THE DASHBOARD

There is a LOG button on each user that records all communication with that particular user. There is also a Log of Registration Notes Sent in the left menu of the dashboard that tracks mass emails.   

SEND ADDITIONAL  COMMUNICATION TO USERS

In addition to the Registration function described above, you can easily send a communication  to all your dashboard users or those you select by using the Send Note function.  In the left menu, click on the Send Note menu item.  Enter your text there and Save it.  Then go to the Dashboard and click on the box beside those users you want to receive the note.  If you want all to receive it, click on the box in the top row and it will select all. (See Important Note 2 above - it sends only to the users visible on one page, but you can change that setting on the lower right of the dashboard.)   Then use the Multi-User button in the top of the Dashboard and select Send Note in the drop-down menu.   

MONITOR USERS AND SEE WHO HAS TAKEN THE INVENTORY.

To see who has taken inventory.  You can at any time see who has taken the inventory and who has not by going to the Consultant Dashboard.  You must be logged in, of course, to be able to view your users on the Dashboard.

In the "Report Status" column, you can see at a glance who has take the inventory and on what date.

Receiving copies of score reports by email.  A copy of all score reports from users in your dashboard is by default sent to you as owner of this dashboard, going to the email address you used in registering this account.   If you prefer not to receive these, you can easily change this yourself.  In the left menu, click on Autoforward Score Reports.   There you can switch off autoforwards or add an additional email account to receive copies of score reports.  This additional account may or may not be otherwise registered in the Riverhouse database.

Log of all interaction with a given user.  In the Name column, there is a small "Log" button for each user.  Click it to access a record of all events for that user.  Events recorded include:  Sending the user a Registration or special Note, Taking the inventory, Downloading the Score Report to the consultant, Sending a link to the Score Report from the dashboard to the user.

MANAGE USERS ACCOUNTS - ARCHIVE, DELETE, AND RESTORE

Users whom you Archive can be restored again to the Dashboard later by using the Restore function.   Users you Delete from the Archive are permanently removed.   

To Archive User:
1. Click in the box(s) to the left of the name(s) you wish to archive.
2. At the top left side of the Dashboard, under “One-Click Operation for Multiple Users,” choose “Delete” and then “Confirm.”
3. Name will be moved to the Archive but is still in the system. User cannot access their account when their name is in the Archive.

To Restore Archived User to Dashboard:
1. Click on “View/Restore Archived Names” at top right of Dashboard.
2. Click in box to the left of name you wish to restore to Dashboard.
3. At top left of Archive, chose, “Restore” and then “Confirm.”
4. Name will now be moved to Dashboard.

To Permanently Delete User:
1. Follow above steps.
2. Click on “View/Restore Archived Names” at top right of the Dashboard
3. Find the users name in the Archive.
4. Place a check in front of the name.
5. At top left of Dashboard, choose “Delete Permanently” and “Confirm.”
6. Name will be deleted from the Riverhouse ePress system.

Note: Permanently deleting the name of a person who has not taken the inventory gives you an additional user slot on your Dashboard.   If you want to delete someone's account and make a new one for them, you have to both Archive and Delete Permanently that person's email from our accounts.  The server will not allow two accounts to be established for the same email address.

GET HELP IN DESIGNING YOUR TRAINING WORKSHOP

Don’t miss our free Trainers Guide.  Download it now from the Riverhouse online shopping page.

GIVE US FEEDBACK

We love squeaky wheels!  Tell us what you think about this Dashboard.  Your complaints and praise help us improve the site.   This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  Or fill out a 60 second feedback survey of the Conflict Style inventory here.

Updates:
- October, 2015.  Updated info regarding new functions for managing, searching and deleting users.

- February, 2016.  Added info on Global Send function.
- March, 2018.  Updates about the simplified process for Registration notices. 

Ideas for Discussing Conflict Styles with Others

Click here to go directly to suggestions for partners and teams to discuss Style Matters reports.

People love to talk about conflict.  When we've had a quarrel, we tell the story to a friend. We get a feeling of connection when someone confides in us about a fight. 

Conflict engages us at every level - emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual.  We're wired for this.  For our ancestors, only those who paid attention to conflict and figured out choices supporting survival lived to pass along their genes and habits.   As their descendents, we inherit their knowledge that this is important conversation.

So conflict and what to do about it is one of the most interesting and energizing topics you can raise with others.  That is, if they feel it is safe to talk about it.  If you're :thinking about setting up such conversation:

• Think through power dynamics among people in the conversation. It's easier for people to feel safe with peers than with someone with a lot of power over them.  If there's already a history of trust and safety, then no worries about power dynamics.  But absent such a history, don't expect others to quickly open up.   They'll need to ease gently into the topic.   If there is a history of conflict among those in the group, do not expect people to share openly about themselves or their score reports, and do not ask them to do so without careful preparation.
• Put yourself on the line.   Whether you are a trainer or a peer trying to engage others, you may need to "go first" in sharing your struggles, questions and self-doubts regarding how you have dealt with conflict.  If you're leading a workshop, have some short illustrations of your own failures in conflict on the ready for the right moment.  I still remember how my trust in a workshop leader warmed after he told us a story of reacting in anger to his son and slapping him in the face.   If you're an individual hoping to engage your partner or team about conflict, be ready to share some examples of your own over-reactions.
• When people do share, make it easy for them to move to the role of wise problem solver.  If you're eager to be in that role yourself, others will step back for fear of being humiliated.  When people tell a story, resist the temptation to offer suggestions (unless directly asked).  Rather respond in ways that put them in the role of wise ones.   Ask, for example, "What did you take out of that experience?", or "If you could do things differently today, how would you handle it?" or "If you were advising someone in a similar situation, what advice would you give?"   You might also invite them to to a strengths/weaknesses analysis.   That is: "What are the things you feel you handled well in that situation?  Where do you think your responses could have been improved?"

Ideas for Opening up Interesting Conversations about Conflict

Here are questions that many people are happy to share about, in one-on-one settings, in workshops, or in small group discussions.   Many of these work well in "getting to know you" situations as well!

• What comes to mind for you when you hear "Conflict"? (Or what words come to mind for you when you hear the word "Conflict"?)
• On a spectrum, with "I move towards conflict" on one end, and "I withdraw when there's conflict" on the other,  where would you locate yourself?   Why?  How do you feel about that?  If you could change your habits and relocate yourself to a different place on that spectrum, where would you move? 
• Who is the best conflict resolver you've known?   What did he/she do that was so effective?   
• Who is the worst conflict resolver you've known?   What did he/she do that was destructive?
• Tell a story about an experience with conflict - between individuals or in a group setting - that was very frustrating for you.  Possible followup questions:  How did you deal with that situation?   Was your response unique to that situation or typical of how you deal with conflict?
• Have you ever had an experience when a disagreement or conflict turned out to bring good results in the end?
• How did your parents deal with conflict? 
• What were the family rules in your family about disagreeing or fighting?
• How did your location in your family affect the way you deal with conflict?
• What was your reputation as a child when it comes to conflict?  Was it fair/accurate?  Has it changed as an adult?  If so, how? Is it fair/accurate?
• What is one skill (or insight) for dealing with conflict that, if you could now, you would go back and give to yourself as a child?
• What values, attitudes, or skills do you have that help you be the kind of person you want to be in conflict?  That get in the way of that?
• Name an organization that seems to deal constructively with differences.   What's going on there that they are able to achieve that? 
• Have you ever had an experience of seeing other people (partners, groups, institutions, video documentaries, whatever) deal constructively with a conflict that seemed scary?  What made the difference there?   

Ideas for Discussing the Style Matters Personal Report

1. Discuss your scores from the inventory in pairs or trios. Do this in rounds.   That is, everyone responds to Round One questions, then everyone responds to Round Two question.  If you want to get a quick review of the conflict styles framework first, view this Powerpoint "Intro to Conflict Styles"

    Round One

• Share your score results, especially your highs in Storm and your lows in Calm.
• Briefly share an experience of conflict you’ve been a part of.  Comment: Do the score results fit your real-life response?

    Round Two

• What strengths come with your results?
• Where would you like to change or improve?
• Storm shift? If your numbers suggest a significant shift in style from calm to storm, are you aware of making such a shift? What factors are most likely to trigger this shift in you? How does the shift affect others?

2. Meet in small groups of similar-style people. For example, in one group is Directors, in another Cooperators, etc. If you have nearly equal scores in two styles, choose the style that seems to get you in difficulty the most. Discuss the information in the pages above about the style of your particular group. Go around the small group and give each person chance to reflect on himself or herself:
• Which strengths of the style do you see present in your handling of life and relationships?
• Which weaknesses or costs from overuse do you see?
• Which "partner support" suggestions do you find especially applicable to you?
When you reconvene as a whole group, with all styles present, have a reporter from each small group give a summary of insights from that group to the whole group, so others can increase their understanding of each style.

3. People who live or work together benefit greatly from conversation about their styles.
A suggested discussion sequence:
• Share scores with each other.
• Reflect on the scores, with each person responding to the questions in item 2 above.
• Recall a time when differences arose between you. Do the scores reflect how you actually responded?
• Each person can reflect aloud, in the presence of others, on the "Hot Tips" pages. Which hot tips would they particularly like others to use that would help bring out the best in the speaker?

4. Have someone who knows you well take the test "for" you, as though they are you answering the questions. To get a really comprehensive picture, have several people do this for you. Then compare your own scores for yourself with the scores given by others. Where do the scores agree? Where do they differ?   In organizations, you can do a "360 feedback" by having people above, beneath, and on par with you take it "for" you; this gives complete feedback from all sides.

5. People in teams and organizations will be rewarded by discussing the impact of styles in times of negotiation or decision-making. Each style has different preferences for how to go about things (e.g., how direct and open to be in stating preferences, how much relationship-building time to include in decision-making, how rapidly to make decisions, etc.) Discuss: What insights do we get about our collective decision-making processes from looking at these scores? About difficulties we’ve encountered? About how to improve decision-making in the future?

6. If there is no time or willingness to discuss the full report, partners or teams can do a useful exchange based only on the Partner Support section.  Each person reviews on their own the suggestions in the Partner Support section of their own score report.  They highlight suggestions they like, the things they would appreciate others to do for them when working together.  They edit and add to those as they see fit, creating a set of Partner Support suggestions for others.  They then share these, orally or in an email, for the benefit of others. 

This is more satisfying and impactful if done orally, face to face, with opportunity to ask clarifying questions and respond.  (If there is a history of difficulty among people in the group, there's no alternative.)

7. People in teams and organizations benefit by discussing difficult style combinations. A lot of conflicts escalate because the people involved have different style preferences and thus prefer differing approaches to dealing with differences. For example, Directors and Cooperators want to put things right out there and talk about them now, whereas Avoiders prefer to step back and think about things first. Each tends to assume that "good" people would use the approach they favor. As a result, there are now two sources of tension - one about the issues and the other about how to deal with the issues!

With others in your team or organization, identify particular pairings of styles that commonly cause difficulties. Think about recent conflicts. In what ways did style expectations play a role? What insights can people exchange about the needs of the styles involved that would ease future conflicts?

8. If your group has people from both individualist and collectivist cultural backgrounds (see Note 1 first on page 24), you can have an illuminating discussion. Separate into small groups of individualists only or collectivists only. Ask each group to create a picture showing a conflict someone in their group has experienced, using vehicles as a major part of the drawing. Have each group share with the larger group: What kind of vehicles did they choose for the parties and why? Who is driving the vehicles? Who else is in the picture and with what connections to the conflictants? What factors do conflictants consider in deciding how to respond to the conflict? When all groups have shared, reflect as a whole group: What insights do you gain about differences between individualist and collectivist conflicts?

9. Here is a discussion for group settings that inspires hope:
Select two people who work together and have different styles, but know and trust each other well. Have them talk in the presence of the whole group about their style differences, how they see each other, how they have learned to work with and respect each others’ unique patterns of dealing with conflict.

Free Online Resources

on Conflict Resolution and Conflict Styles

This page contains free essays and other web resources on conflict resolution and conflict style inventories. Some are on our site and some are on other sites.  Additional suggestions welcomed - send a note to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..   

General Info on Conflict Styles and Inventories

What is a conflict style inventory? This short introductory essay explains what conflict styles are and how knowledge of them helps in managing relationships.

Which conflict style to use? Go to a simple one-page summary of things to think about in deciding whether to confront or avoid conflict.

From the Program on Negotiation at Harvard, a blog with useful posts about negotiation skills.  Yes, it is very "Fisherian", ie: in the tradition of Roger Fisher, co-author with Bill Ury of the best-seller negotiation primer Getting to Yes.   That means there is a certain feeling in the essays that all negotiations are with Westernized urban professionals cutting deals over a boardroom table.  If you're dealing with protracted identity based conflict or conflicts over fundamental issues of injustice or with people from collectivist societies, the offerings soon get a bit thin.  That said, the Fisher and Ury tradition is excellent on certain fundamentals of negotiation and, especially if you operate in the corporate world, the PON is a good resource for basics.

Here is an excellent introduction to the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, addressed in particular to managers.   Since the Thomas Kilmann is based on the same logical framework as the Style Matters inventory (namely, the Blake Mouton Axis) most of what you read here holds true for both. 

Four page essay, "Addressing Conflict in the Family Business". Not extensive coverage but a decent intro. The last half of the essay draws on the Mouton Blake five style model used by the Thomas Kilmann and the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventories as a tool to suggest constructive responses.

Scholarly essay on conflict style inventories, "What Goes Around Comes Around: The Impact of Personal Conflict Style on Work Conflict and Stress", by Raymond Friedmann and Simon Tidd, in the International Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2000, pp32-55 . More than most people will want to know about conflict style inventories, but if you seek scholarly literature, with lots of references and some comparison among the inventories in use at the time of writing, here's a solid one.

Brief introductory essay to basic concepts of conflict style inventories, entitled "What is Your Conflict Style," from the Journal for Quality and Participation, Summer 2004, by Conerly, Keith, Tripathi, Arvind. The essay describes the five-style framework of conflict styles devised by Mouton and Blake in the 1960s, that underlies the most widely used conflict style inventories, including the Thomas Kilmann, the Jay Hall instrument, the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory, and others.

 This article examines use of the conflict style inventory as a tool in coaching people to improve their relationships. The essay is addressed to people working in higher education, but almost everything in it can be quite easily transposed to other settings. Of special interest to trainers will be the section which includes outlines of training sessions to train people in the conflict style inventory materials.

Training in Conflict Styles

Get a free Trainer's Guide by Ron Kraybill for leading a conflict styles workshop.  20+ pages of step-by-step instructions guide you in leading conflict styles workshop your group will love.  Keyed to Style Matters, but works fine with Thomas Kilmann as well.  Download now.

 See the section below, "Cooperating and Compromising as Conflict Styles".  Many training resources can be found in references there.

YouTube.com has useful video resources for learning about conflict resolution and conflict styles.   Here's a nicely done intro to the five styles, strong enough to use in a training workshop if a trainer wants support explaining the conceptual framework underlying the five styles.   Though we find the "me/you" language of the opening minutes of this dramatized presentation of the five styles by co-trainers simplistic, a trainer might find find inspiration to do something similar in a workshop.   Do a search on 'conflict styles" or "conflict resolution" on YouTube and you'll come up with enough hits to entertain yourself for an evening on the results.

A remarkable collection of quotes, cartoons, and stories about conflict and negotiation can be downloaded for free from the Program on Negotiations at Harvard. A full 61 pages by Joshua Weiss, PhD. It's really a treasure trove for trainers and writers on conflict and peacebuilding!

Example of how conflict resolution training is being used: Bus drivers in London trained in conflict resolutions skills?  Yup.  Trainers might find this a nice little example for the start of a workshop, to show how people in all walks of life benefit from preparation for dealing with conflicts.    

 The Program on Negotiation at Harvard has a decent short essay on working out conflict among work colleagues in their newsletter. 

Culture and Conflict Styles

People from "high context" cultures give more weight to things like age, social roles, and expectations of bystanders in choosing how to respond to conflict than people from "low context" cultures.    An essay on the Riverhouse site explains the difference between the two.   See the section on culture in the free Trainers Guide  (see beginning of training resources section above) for ideas on how to incorporate cultural awareness into conflict styles training.

 The cultural dimensions of conflict management style are examined in this essay entitled: "Conflict management style: accounting for cross-national differences" by: Morris, Michael W.; Williams, Katherine Y. Leung, Kwok, and published in the: Journal of International Business Studies v. 29 no4 (1998) p. 729-47. This scholarly research essay focuses in particular on the use of avoiding and competing as responses to conflict in Asia and the U.S.

"Cross Cultural Conflict Resolution in Teams", by John Ford, gives an excellent over-view of cultural issues in teams. Ford is a veteran South African mediator/trainer now based in California. He writes with the authority of one who has spent a lifetime navigating cultural differences. He gives a nice summary of the differences between individualist versus collectivist cultures, pointing out that although in America the majority culture is individualistic in orientation, in places like California nearly half the population comes from cultural backgrounds that have strong collectivistic influences. Users of the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory, which has users self-identify their own cultural background and gives differing instructions accordingly, may find this essay of particular interest.

A Thai team of researchers surveyed 198 law students in Thailand regarding their conflict styles and sought to determine whether gender and age are factors in predicting their dominant styles.   In their report, titled "Conflict Management Styles of Law Students in Thailand: A Study of Age and Gender", published in Journal of Global Business & Management, Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall 2010, authors Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, Chaowanee Chawavisit, and Pawinee Pattaratalwanichfind that Thais have a strong collaborative orientation and there is no significant difference between the conflict management styles of Thai law students based on gender and age.   They suggest that the Buddhist teachings regarding Dukkha (suffering), Anicca (impermanence), and Anatta may have an influence on the Thai preference for a collaborative style.

This blog is about living in India, but much of its content would be useful to any outsider living or working in a High Context culture (see this essay on our site to understand the meaning of that).  Blogger Neil Miller reflects insightfully on his experiences living as an expat in India in The Golden Rule for Choosing the Best Forms of Business Communication in India or Are All Indians Indirect? or How to Recover from Offending Someone in India.   Not the usual yada-yada of do this/don't do that, Miller's writings suggest deep understanding of and appreciation for Indian culture.   Worth a read even if you don't live in India

 See the entry in the Avoiding section below for description of a fascinating video by a Japanese American social psychology professor at at Nagoya University, Japan, reflecting on the benefits of conflict avoidance, and how to do it skillfully.

Gender and Conflict Styles

A woman who heads a consulting firm and teaches negotiations blogs about her observation that women often seem to be reluctant to go after what they want in negotiations.   She advises women to change their negotiation style to match the situation they are in.   This concept lies, of course, at the heart of conflict style management and holds for men and women.   Everyone benefits from an ability to confidently switch to a style that is assertive and persistent, when the situation calls for it.   

 The gender dimensions of conflict styles are examined at "Conflict Resolution Style and Experience in Management: Moderating the Effects of Gender" at http://murphylibrary.uwlax.edu/digital/jur/2002/sutschek.pdf

Another study on gender and conflict style, entitled, "A gender-based categorization for conflict resolution" by Sheryl D. Brahnam, Thomas M. Margavio, Michael A. Hignite, Tonya B. Barrier, Jerry M. Chin, suggests that women are more likely to use collaborative/cooperative strategies and men are more likely to avoid. Journal of Management Development, March, 2005, 197-208.

"Results of this study indicate that, when compared with their male counterparts, women are more likely to utilize a collaborative conflict resolution style and men are more likely to avoid conflict. As collaboration is generally considered more productive and avoidance more disruptive in the conflict resolution process, the study suggests that women may possess more effective conflict resolution attributes than their male counterparts." For more info.

"Predictors of women's workplace conflict management styles" is a PhD dissertation written by Gerald Dean Charbonneau, Wayne State University. The research sought to determine whether social characteristics such as feminism, race, age, single head of household status, religion, and social class explain differences in conflict management among women. Here is a brief summary of the dissertation.

"Lessons Learned of Mediation in Indian Country: Exploring and comparing transformative mediation process and theory and American Indian values and processes", by Kristine Paranica is an essay on the cultural dimensions of making peace among the Sioux, the Chippewa, and several smaller groups. The essay does not deal with use of conflict style inventories, but is a useful read for anyone interested in expanding their awareness of how culture shapes expectations of how to make peace.

Harmonizing as Conflict Style

"Give and Take: The Accommodating Style in Managing Conflict" by Dale Eilerman provides an indepth analysis of one of the five styles of conflict (called Harmonizing in the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory). Eilerman draws on the Myers-Briggs to add additional insights to this style.

Avoiding as Conflict Style

For input on Avoiding as a response to conflict:  A University of Wisconsin site offers a 3 minute video clip of a Harry Webne-Behrman, a facilitator/trainer, giving a lecture on barriers to negotiating in a cooperative style.  He describes three categories of barriers: personal, interpersonal, and structural or systemic barriers.   The lecturer says that because conflict is so uncomfortable, many people choose an avoiding response to conflict, leading to what he calls a "culture of avoidance."    Training tip: A trainer could screen this clip in a workshop and ask people to share examples of these barriers in their own lives.   Or a teacher might assign students to review the clip and come to class with such examples ready for discussion.

 Here's an entire doctoral thesis on conflict avoidance:  "Linking Goals to Avoidance in Interpersonal Conflict Situations: A Cognitive Approach" , by Qi Wang, who submitted this to the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, in 2006.  This is far too research-oriented to interest most trainers, but researchers may find the literature review useful, as well as the  six varieties of of avoidance Wang identifies, summarized on pp. 167ff.  Wang correctly points out that avoidance has received far less study than, say problem-solving, so her work marks an early effort to deepen scholarly understanding of avoidance as a strategy.  Someone planning to spend a lot of time in a culture that relies heavily on avoidance may find sections of the thesis valuable to get a fine-grained appreciation of the art of avoidance.

 This blog entry lists seven scholarly essays on the dynamics of avoidance and demands in marital relationships.

Jiro Takai, professor of social psychology at Nagoya University, Japan is a Japanese American who delivers a fascinating lecture on Youtube, "Rethinking Interpersonal Conflict Strategies: Is Avoiding really that Bad?"   Taki reviews Avoiding in the Mouton Blake framework (the underlying framework of both the Thomas Kilmann and our Style Matters inventories, and reflects on the Japanese preference for it in interpersonal settings.  He highlights its value as a conflict style and describes a variety of ways it is used skillfully.   This is a stimulating and thoughtful set of reflections by a well-informed scholar with feet firmly planted in two very different cultures.

Directing as Conflict Style

Blogger/trainer Susan Shearouse, founder of Frameworks for Agreement, describes the impact on one workshop participant of discovering that her conflict style in Storm settings was even more confrontive than in Calm settings.  "Get Over It, It's Just the Way I Am!"

In "The Secret to Winning an Argument is Ridiculously Simple", blogger Drake Baer summarizes a study that found that an effective way to get political extremists to soften their views is to invite them to explain how the view they hold could be implemented. In a study, when political extremists were asked to describe step-by-step how the policy they favor would be put into effect in reality, they rated themselves as less confident of their views after the conversation than before.   Those who were simply asked to give reasons for their views remained confident in them.   This suggests that rather than challenge a political extremist to defend their views, it may be more effective simple to ask them to describe in specific terms how their views could be implemented. 

Cooperating and Compromising as Conflict Styles

A group of Australian business managers set up a debate about which strategy is more effective in procurement and purchasing in the business world, a hard approach (the Directing Style in our inventory) or a soft approach (Cooperating or Compromising).   The soft approach won the debate, according to a news release, although participants agreed there are benefits to both.   The director of procurement for dairy giant Fonterra of New Zealand presented on behalf of the soft approach and argued "soft" negotiation "preserved relationships and left egos intact."   It also "reduced the risk of deadlock, produced faster, longer-lasting creative agreements and resulted in greater satisfaction for both parties."   

Psychotherapist Joy Marter offers fresh ideas for dealing with conflict constructively in her blogpost "Ten Tips for Effective Conflict Resolution".  An idea we like is: respond from a place of sadness, rather than anger.  Marter says that when we are angry, it is to protect our feelings of sadness.   But, to speak from the anger often damages relationships.  She suggests instead to "speak from our hurt", which means "we are sharing from a deeper and more vulnerable place of truth, and are not as threatening to others."   She offers three questions to ask ourselves before speaking in anger, plus numerous other ideas.

Blogger Larry Barkan offers a short sequence for asserting our needs with others.  In "How to Be Assertive" Barkan says:
1) Start with getting clear on what you want;
2) Ask permission from the person you are about to present a request to;
3) After receiving permission, pause until you have eye contact with that person;
4) Begin with the words, "Will you..." and keep it short.  The longer you speak, believes Barkan, the weaker your request;
5) Stop talking and wait in silence.

Yes, the approach is formulaic, and it reflects the individualist cultural assumptions of its author.  But in the right setting, with the right people, there is a lot of power in the quiet, clear, direct approach suggested here.   This essay is well-worth the five minutes it takes to read it.   People of all style preferences will benefit, but Harmonizing and Avoiders may find this particularly empowering.

The Negotiator's Bible: 100+ Tips and Tricks to Being a Negotiation God is a concise set of quotes from various people on negotiations, a significant number of which are useful when using Cooperating or Compromising Styles.   Like many web resources, some of these tips are "too cute".   Nevertheless, you can get a lot of helpful pointers here.

"Interpersonal Skills for Dealing with Conflict: Respect and Support in Action" by Tricia Jones, PhD, and Jessica Jameson, PhD is a 23 page Powerpoint presentation on topic of utmost important to anyone committed to responses to others that honor and support them.  This is a detailed, carefully reasoned, and sophisticated set of tools with discussion exercises to support them.   The language assumes a university level reading audience.

Blaming is probably the biggest obstacles to cooperative responses to conflict.  Blogger Carolyn Parr offers several useful suggestions on how to overcome blaming in "How to Stop Blaming Others".  Start with acknowledging your own errors, she says.  Don't assume you have an accurate picture of what is going on,  explore with an open mind.  Recognize that blaming is almost guaranteed not to achieve the result you want - change in the other person - because it invariably triggers defensiveness.   Listen, don't blame, she says.

 The Conflict Resolution Education Center has a superb library of web resources for teachers and trainers of peace and conflict resolution in general.

The School for a Culture of Peace, Belleterra, Spain, has a nice collection of training exercises in Spanish and English.  Nothing on conflict styles here, but for trainers wanting to go the next step and teach attitudes and skills for cooperation, this is a useful resource.  Each exercise is nicely summarized and has step by step instructions for trainers.  

Jessica Jameson and Tricia Jones pack a lot of concepts useful for personal communication in times of conflict into a twenty-three slide Powerpoint titled "Interpersonal Skills for Dealing with Conflict".  They go well beyond the useful but by now rather stale skills of "I messages" and Active Listening, and work with issues of saving face, identity needs, recognition and acknowledgement, etc.   They include several discussion exercises.  This is a fairly high-level presentation and a presenter could work with the core concepts here for many hours if supporting  discussion and exercises were created.   We got this from the CRE site which has a lot of other useful resources.

In "Why Negotiators Must Insist Their Opponent Makes A Profit", Forbes blogger Keld Jensen shows why helping sure that your opposite in negotiations makes a profit is often a smart business strategy.   That's the Cooperating Style, used in the business setting. 

There are limits to Cooperating and Compromising as useful strategies to deal with conflict.   In her essay Two Kinds of People You Should Never Negotiate With, blogger Judith White writes in the Harvard Business School Review that one should avoid negotiating with people who alternative between conciliation and provocation, or who "persist in seeing people in terms of absolute good and evil."   White says that in either case dynamics within your counterpart are likely to make it impossible to achieve an satisfactory solution through negotiation.

Neurochemistry and Conflict

Recent learnings about brain chemistry are bringing rich insights to many human endeavors, including conflict resolution.   In The Neurochemistry of Positive Conversations, June, 2014,  Judith E. Glaser and Richard D. Glaser highlight the fact that the chemical (cortisol) released during painful or frustrating interaction persists longer in the body than the chemical released during positive ones (oxytocin).  This explains why the bad feelings created by the former last longer than the good feelings of the latter.   They urge readers to think about the "chemistry of conversations", which means taking care to reduce cortisol-producing interactions and increase oxytocin-producing ones.   

Training Online or at a Distance

Noam Ebner and others have been discussing online negotiations training for some years.   You can view an abstract and download an August, 2014,  paper that summarizes their learnings here.   The paper "offers specific suggestions for getting started and fostering engagement in an online learning environment."  "While the focus of the article is on negotiation education, the considerations and guidance apply to other conflict and management topics as well."

Anger Management

In a blog post titled "You Make Me So Angry", Cinnie Noble writes insightfully about the false notion that other people make us feel certain emotions.  We make ourselves feel certain emotions in response to things others do or say, Noble says.   When we take responsibility for our own responses we then have an opportunity for self-discovery by exploring why we react in these ways.   Noble suggests questions for reflection in doing this.

Anger alters power arrangements.  Someone who is angry speaks more loudly, with greater intensity, in ways that impede others and demand a response.  Used in healthy ways, anger empowers people to deal with things that need to be dealt with.

But some people develop habits of careless use of anger's power.  They fly off the handle at small things, or routinely inject the show-stopping emotion of anger at times and places when nothing useful can result.   Rather than a force that gives life by ensuring that important things are dealt with, anger then becomes a threat and a burden in relationships.   Those living around such people often feel like they are "walking on eggshells", that they must make constant effort to avoid lest they trigger outrage.   Consciously or not, they may reduce their own space in the relationship, setting aside the meeting of their own goals and needs in order to avoid triggering hurtful outbursts.    Cinnie Noble says "we give a lot of power to people when we walk on eggshells around them and maybe they don’t own it."  In a short blog piece she offers a useful set of questions to think about regarding your own response to someone with poorly managed anger. 

Psychotherapist Joy Marter offers fresh ideas for dealing with conflict constructively in her blogpost "Ten Tips for Effective Conflict Resolution".  An idea we like is respond from a place of sadness, rather than anger.  Marter says that when we are angry, it is to protect our feelings of sadness and that speaking from anger often damages relationships.  She suggests instead to "speak from our hurt", which means "we are sharing from a deeper and more vulnerable place of truth, and are not as threatening to others."   She offers three questions to ask ourselves before speaking in anger, plus numerous other ideas.

Mike Fisher, founder of the British Association of Anger Management says anger is a defence mechanism against pain, and has produced a series of short, to-the-point free videos looking at anger from this perspective.   Some are for dealing with our own anger, some for dealing with other peoples' anger.  http://www.videojug.com/interview/anger-management-the-problem.

In "What to do When You've Made Someone Angry", Peter Breeman points out the difference between intentions and consequences.   Often when we anger someone and they confront us, we focus in a defensive way on our own intentions, which may have been quite good, whereas the angry person is focused on the consequences on them of what we have done.  This creates a large gap in understanding.  Breeman says that many conflicts between well-intentioned people can be reduced rather quickly if we focus on the consequences of our actions or behavior on others, and openly acknowledge these.

"Just Do It:  Dealing with Emotions in Conflict" makes the case for skills of listening and reflecting back what an angry person is saying.  Stop talking, breathe, and say "You...."  (not as in "You rascal" but "You want, think, feel...").  But to do that, you have to trust the power of these skills to turn things around, say the authors from Ridge Associates.