The Three P’s for Successful Conflict Management

By James T. Brown, PhD, PE, PMP

People often falsely assume conflict management just deals with the situation at hand…the heated discussion…the
e-mail volleying…or political posturing. This is part of conflict management but it is just the tip of the iceberg. What happens before and after the real-time conflict situation often determines successful outcomes.

In the book Conflict Resolution, Daniel Dana states up to 42% of an employee’s time may be spent engaging in and/or resolving conflict. Project managers have many opportunities for conflict management due to the complex nature of projects. Unresolved conflict or intense conflict sows the seeds of future conflicts. Thus it is imperative that you are skilled at managing conflict.

Three elements will enable you to manage conflict effectively. They are prevention, passiveness and persistence—the three P’s for successful conflict management.

Prevention
The more conflict you have the more opportunities there are for additional conflict to be created. Thus prevention of conflict is key. An important aspect of prevention is to humanize the circumstances.

If you have driven an automobile in traffic, odds are very high that you have been cut off and had another driver jump right in front of you when they could have just as easily gotten behind you. Imagine the same behavior if you were standing in line for a movie or a restaurant when the line cutter had to look you in the eye. Someone being that rude would be very rare because in the movie line you are seen and respected as a person. When the other party sees you as a person their behavior is more respectful and understanding.

As a project manager, you must take every opportunity to humanize the relationships between your stakeholders to increase respect and understanding. If you don’t take initiative, stakeholders may just view each other and you as the enemy. Humanization creates trust and this reduces the likelihood of conflict. When conflict does occur, it is more easily resolved. The best way to humanize situations is by developing relationships among stakeholders and ensuring they understand each other’s perspectives and challenges.

Passiveness
Even with prevention, sometimes conflicts occur. During a conflict, it is important for you not to lose your temper under any circumstances. You must remain in emotional control. This does not mean you will not have emotions, it means you must manage emotions. Consider the quote from 17th Century author Baltasar Gracián written over three hundred years ago:

“NEVER ACT OUT OF PASSION. If you do all is lost. You cannot act for yourself if you are not yourself, and passion always drives out reason...”

Additionally, if others have lost emotional control, it is more important for you to stay engaged in the discussion. Often your calmness will cause them to come to you for assistance in resolution. In heated circumstances take or create the time to let emotions settle.

Persistence
The resolution of a conflict is not always a quick fix. This is where persistence is important. Often the conflict is a symptom of a much deeper problem that must be understood and effectively communicated to all parties. The solution is often a course of action that should be broken down into a series of small steps for major conflicts. 

In the book Eight Essential Steps to Conflict Resolution, author Dudley Weeks, PhD, defines “doables” as concrete steps toward conflict resolution and improvement relationships. Just as closing out a project sometimes seems to be as difficult as the entire project, resolving a conflict to where the relationships are strengthened is also difficult.

Developing the conflict management tactics of prevention, passiveness and persistence will result in the ability to prevent and more effectively handle disagreements and simultaneously increase the strength of your team.

Dr. James T. Brown is president of a project management training company, SEBA Solutions Inc,  and of a web-based provider of professional development units (PDUs) for PMI credential holders, OnePdu.com. He is author of The Handbook of Program Management published by McGraw-Hill and a keynote speaker on Project Management topics. He will be conducting the course Conflict Management for Project Managers on September 16, 2010 for the PMI Dallas Chapter.  Please send your questions or comments to Dr. Brown.