Introduction
Learn how to take effective action to deal with conflict in your group in Chapter 6 from the Guide, Working with Conflict in our Groups: A Guide for Grassroots Activists, by European Youth For Action; Seeds for Change and Navigate.
This guide is aimed at people and groups working for social change who want to develop an understanding of conflict and how to deal with it. There are sections on what conflict is, the benefits of addressing it, and tools to work though conflict and maintain healthy and effective social change groups.
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In this section we suggest some tools and techniques to help your group resolve conflicts when things are hotting up between people and the conflict is approaching crisis. It has probably taken time to reach this stage, it will also take time to resolve it.
Tips for facilitating a meeting between people in conflict
- Stay as neutral as you can;
- Make sure everyone gets a fair chance to speak;
- Don’t give advice or solve the problem, instead support those in conflict to find their own solutions to the problem;
- Facilitate good communication, encourage ‘I’ statements;
- Help everyone feel heard, encourage empathy and good listening;
- Help them identify feelings, wants and needs;
- Help them find common ground and ways forward.
Informal Mediation
It can be really helpful to people in conflict to have a person who is outside the conflict facilitate a meeting between them.
Whilst we might not always be able to retain our cool or have the courage to speak up, having a supportive independent person present can really help us to listen better to the person we are in conflict with and give us courage to speak up about our own needs.
Mediation means coming between the parties in conflict and helping them to resolve it. You might mediate in a very informal way. For example, if a conflict or difference of opinion arises in one of your regular meetings, you might use your skills to help improve the communication between those in conflict without anyone noticing that you are ‘mediating’. In a slightly more formal way you might organise a meeting with the small group of people most involved in the conflict where you are the agreed facilitator.
Or you might facilitate a meeting of your whole group if everyone is to a greater or lesser extent involved in the conflict.
Are you the right person for the job?
At whatever level you take this role, there are some questions you might ask yourself.
- Do all the people involved in the conflict see you as a neutral person?
- Will the conflict bring up emotions in you that might affect your facilitation?
- Are you comfortable with other people expressing strong emotions?
- Can you avoid giving advice or trying to solve the problem for them?
If you launch in with your own opinions and thoughts on the situation, you could well make things worse. Our experience is that even if you don’t feel very confident of your mediation skills it can still be very helpful to those in conflict if you can help them create a space where they can really listen to each other.
Helping Others Listen
This is a useful tool if the people in conflict seem to be having trouble listening to each other in normal conversation or difficulty empathising with the other person’s perspective on things. You might want to introduce this tool to the people in conflict as a way to help them gain a deeper understanding of the other person’s point of view.
1. Encourage Person A, or ‘Anna’ in the conflict to speak for a few minutes about the issue, and ask Person B, or ‘Bob’ to listen carefully, then summarise what he’s heard at the end. If Bob interrupts, remind him that now is his chance to listen – his chance to speak will come after.
2. Bob actively listens and then summarises what he thinks he’s heard.
3. Anna says if anything was missing from the summary.
4. You might also want to add any underlying feelings, wants or needs that you heard and think were missed by Bob in his summary. 5. Ask Anna if she wants to say more about the issue. If she does, continue the listening and summarising process. When Anna is done, switch and hear from Bob, whilst Anna actively listens.
Mirroring
This technique is similar to active listening, however instead of summarising, the listener repeats the exact words the other person has used.
This can be useful when the person who is speaking is in a lot of emotional pain and you want to help the listener to really hear that or when the listener seems to disagree completely with what the speaker is saying and is having trouble listening, or has misunderstood what has been said.
Encourage the person who is listening and mirroring to avoid sarcastic tones, or adding in what they think the speaker means or any editorial comments. Anna in our example, speaks about the issue, Bob actively listens and then restates as closely as they can exactly what Anna said. Anna says if anything was missing.
A Simple Step by Step Process for Conflict Resolution
This set of questions can be used in a whole group or between two people in conflict (with or without a facilitator) as a framework for discussion.
1. What do you see happening? (Observations)
2. How do you feel about it? (Feelings)
3. What do you want to happen? (Requests)
4. What can we agree to do about it? (Agreements)
Invite each person in turn to answer the first three questions, then you summarise and reflect back their answers to help the speaker feel sufficiently heard and to help the other person(s) really hear what is being said.
Clarify if necessary, then ask to help them to explore possible solutions together. “What can you agree to do about it?” You could also add in a step for people to share their unmet needs – use whatever system works for your group.
(Adapted from Tree Bressen, Innerwork: Working on Your Issues with Someone (Whether or Not They Come Along)
Conflict Mapping
Use this tool when your group wants to get a clearer picture of the issues that are underlying the conflict situation. It helps your group to map out the underlying needs and fears of each person involved in the conflict and to find common ground.
It encourages people to go below the level of their positions, to share their own interests and needs and to hear what others’ needs are. Its a structured way of moving forward in a conflict that is much easier to facilitate than an open discussion, especially in a group where people are struggling to speak to each other in a civil way.
This tool could be facilitated by someone in your group, including someone directly involved in the conflict (as long as they feel able to stay neutral when encouraging others contributions), by a neutral friend or external facilitator.
Materials: a large piece of paper e.g. flip chart or a roll of wallpaper and some marker pens.
Step 1: What’s the issue?
In the middle of the paper write down what the issue is. Aim for neutral and unemotional language and try to keep it an open-ended statement.
So if it’s a problem with someone not doing their fair share of housework in your housing co-op or shared house, write down “household chores” rather than “Sam’s not doing a fair share of the housework”.
Step 2: Who’s involved?
Decide who the people involved in the conflict are and draw lines on the paper so that each of them has a segment of the paper, e.g. in the above problem all the people who live in the housing co-op would be on the map. If the conflict seems to be between two members of the household, then give each of these people a segment of the paper. Also give one segment to the other members of the coop together, provided they have substantially the same needs in this situation.
Step 3: What do they need?
What do they fear? Ask each person in turn what their wants, needs and fears are. Discourage others from interrupting. Write the wants, needs and fears down on their segment of the paper.
Sometimes it’s difficult for people to change their perspective from their positions to think about their interests (what they want, their values, the things they care about) and needs, and they answer with solutions, “Sam should do more housework”.
Try asking questions like: “Your solution to the problem is to do… What needs of yours will this meet?” to help people get to these underlying interests and needs.
The answer might be a clean living environment.
Getting to the level of needs can help us to see more easily that there is more than one solution to the problem.
The list of needs will be more helpful if the words or phrases are specific, so words like “respect” or “understanding” need to be qualified. Ask questions like “How will you know when you have respect?” Fears are concerns, anxieties or worries that someone has that are relevant to the problem eg being judged or criticised, fear of failure, doing the wrong thing, loss of face.
Step 4: Reading the map
- New perspectives
Invite everyone to look at the map and consider others’ wants, needs and fears that they hadn’t taken into account before. Mapping the needs helps us to see what it’s like to be in another persons shoes. - Common ground
The map may also show where the common ground is within the group with some values and needs showing up in each segment. The map can also help start a conversation to build new areas of common ground, for example where one person has mentioned a need that others have not mentioned during the mapping, but can also share, e.g. a harmonious and happy household. - Conflicting needs and concerns
We often think its dangerous to make visible any clash of needs between people, but concealing the problem is often more risky than exposing it. Revealing the problem often helps new options emerge.
Step 5: Looking for new solutions
You’ve created the map and seen everyone’s needs, now comes the creative part, looking for solutions that meet those needs. After the more analytical mapping phase you might want to play a game or move to a new room or change seats before you start this step. Use an ideastorm to collect ideas. This is a quickfire creative thinking activity designed to gather as many ideas as possible. It also allows people to spark off each other in an uncritical environment.
How to run the exercise:
1. Give people a few minutes to reflect on their own. Ask them to think of potential solutions that would meet everyone’s needs.
2. Ask people to say their ideas for solutions that will meet everyone’s needs. Let them know that all ideas are welcome, however silly they may seem.
3. Write all the ideas on a large sheet of paper (flipchart, wallpaper etc).
4. Remind people that this isn’t the space for critiquing the ideas – you’re just gathering them now, and assessing them will happen later.
5. If the group runs out of steam, rephrase what you’re looking for and give them a chance to come up with more ideas – there’s often a second wind, so don’t be afraid to ride out the silence.
Step 6: Choosing the most suitable option
When you have some possible solutions, bring the ideastorm to a close. Help the group find the best solution. It may already be clear that one solution fits the bill.
If not, see if it helps to rate each of the solutions using this scale:
1. very useful;
2. lacking some elements;
3. not practicable.
Other questions to explore might be:
- Is it feasible?
- Is it enough to solve the problem?
- Does it satisfy everyone’s needs adequately?
- Is it fair?
- Do you think you can live with it?
Sometimes if the problem seems huge, you might not be able to find a solution for the whole thing, but you can solve parts of it. It doesn’t fix it, but it helps make it more manageable.
Step 7: Implementing the plan
It can be easy to come to a decision and then forget to work out how you will make it happen. Questions to ask include:
- What has to be done?
- Who will do what?
- When will each task be completed?
And then timetable in a review to check that it’s all happening.
(Adapted from: Conflict Resolution Network, PO Box 1016 Chatswood, NSW 2057, Australia, Website www.crnhq.org Ph +61 2 9419 8500 Fax +61 2 9413 1148. Email [email protected])
When do you need outside help? When do you need an external facilitator?
Your group might benefit from a neutral outsider, to help do the conflict mapping exercise or to support you to actively listen to each other.
Make sure everyone is happy with the person you’re asking. Your facilitator might feel more comfortable doing the work if you can clearly define what their role is.
When do you need a mediator?
If you think the conflict might approach crisis point without some help, or if you’re already at crisis point, we recommend getting support from a trained mediator.
The mediator’s role is to support those in conflict to find a way through – mediators aren’t there to offer solutions or tell you their opinion on the conflict. For mediation to work, all parties need to be willing to give it a go, and be genuinely interested in finding a solution that works for everyone.
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Seeds for Change are a workers’ co-op of experienced campaigners. They offer training, facilitation, online resources and other support for campaigns, community groups and co-operatives.
They offer many guides which are designed to help you be more effective in your campaign, co-op or project. The ideas, examples and tips in their guides are based on working with many different groups and projects, both as campaigners and as trainers. All Seeds for Change guides are anti-copyright. Feel free to copy, adapt, use and distribute them, as long as the final work remains anti-copyright.
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