One of the most common questions about using the DISC model is this: “How do I know another person’s personality style?”

Well, the short answer is: you can’t know another person’s style without assessment results.

You can, however, make an educated guess about their primary style (or at least how they are interacting in the current situation) by observing their words and behaviors and answering two simple questions (phrased in the language of the DISC model):

1. Are they more outgoing or more reserved? and
2. Are they more task-oriented or more people oriented?

Or, stated another way:

1. Do they speak more quickly, loudly and emphatically or more slowly, softly and monotone?, and
2. Do they speak in more factual, “thinking” language or in a more relational, “feeling” language?

Answer those two questions and you’ve got your starting point for connecting better with them.

If they are:

• Outgoing and Task oriented, use Dominant language.
• Outgoing and People-oriented, use Inspiring language.
• Reserved and People-oriented, use Supportive language.
• Reserved and Task-oriented, use Cautious language.

Related posts:

1. Communication Tips: Connecting With Reserved, People-Oriented People
2. Get Over Yourself To Develop Effective Communication Skills
3. Communication Tips: Connecting With Outgoing, People-Oriented People

In many cases, the path from conflict to resolution is like traveling down a dirt road in the country.

It’s a little rough. Dirt might get in your eyes so that you don’t see clearly what lies ahead. You have to go more slowly than you do in other situations. Once you are on the road, you have to keep going. It is too narrow to turn around and go back the other way.

At some point, you come to a fork in the road and you have to make a choice.

In the first few moments of a conflict situation, many of us (close to all of us) are prone to say and/or do things that make the conflict worse. When we perceive a threat, we go into “fight or flight” response and adrenaline takes over our brains. We do not act as calmly and rationally as we do at other times. This response often leads to an “I don’t know why I said that” experience.

When you have an “I don’t know why I said that” moment, you are on the dirt road.

You are on the dirt road before you even know what happened. You were in a conversation with someone, and, suddenly, the conversation turned and it got a little rough. You’re not really sure what’s going on.

Eventually, you regain your bearings. You start to realize that you’re now on a dirt road (under the influence of adrenaline). The adrenaline rush makes it hard to see and think clearly, but you are now aware of where you are.

Then, you come to a “fork in the road.” You reach a point in the conversation where you have to make a choice to stay on the road or to take the right fork that leads you back to the main highway of resolution and positive interaction.

The moment of choice might not happen immediately. It might, in some cases, take a day or so to calm down enough to realize that you can choose a different path in this relationship.

Even if it takes awhile, the adrenaline will wear off. When it does, you cannot continue to claim: “I don’t know why I said that.” You are no longer in the automatic and reactive mode.

After the heat of the moment passes, you can exercise your power of choice to act in better and more constructive ways. You can:

• apologize
• forgive
• explore alternative solutions
• listen
• engage in conversation, etc.

Human nature can make us prone to rationalize and justify our bad behaviors by blaming others and claiming that we had no other choice. The truth is that we almost always have a better and more positive option we can choose.

Remember to exercise your power of choice in conflict resolution.

Related posts:

1. Conflict Resolution Techniques: Question Your Assumptions
2. Snow Drifts, Driving Lessons, and Conflict Resolution
3. The 7 Deadly Sins of Conflict Resolution

As I read about, study, and work to apply effective conflict resolution techniques, I see one common and overwhelming problem develop in workplaces, families, and social organizations. I see the same problem develop just about everywhere I see people interact.

What is this huge problem?

People make assumptions about other people’s intentions.

Sadly, they often make wrong assumptions about the other person’s intentions.

This behavior is so common and so prevalent, I have written about it on at least two other occasions.

In one post, I told the story of how I started down the path of wrong assumptions in an interaction with my daughter.

In another post, I shared an observation I made about an interchange where one person based their entire interaction with another person on their assumptions about the other person’s intentions without ever asking for clarification.

Recently, I had the opportunity to observe another interchange between two people who got seriously engaged in a heated conversation because one of the parties took offense to what he believed to be the other person’s intentions. For the purposes of this post, let’s say their names are John and Joe.

In a small meeting setting, Joe raised a question about something John had proposed in a previous meeting. I heard Joe question the proposed approach to solving a problem. Apparently, John heard Joe question the necessity of solving the problem.

John’s body went almost immediately rigid as he turned to face and lean toward Joe. His voice tone grew sharp, and his volume went up. In all fairness to John, I don’t really know what he was thinking. I did perceive his tone and body language to become aggressive.

The conversation got progressively more heated as Joe and John spoke.

As they continued, John made direct, negative comments about his view of Joe’s intentions. He used words like:

• “You just said that because you want to…”
• “You didn’t have the courage to speak earlier about…”
• “I knew you would do this to me…”

In rapid succession, John manged to:

• Negatively label Joe’s intentions,
• Attack Joe’s character, and
• Express his view that Joe was doing something “to” him.

It only got worse from there, and it all began with John’s assumption about Joe’s intention.

John immediately assumed that Joe had a negative intention. His response followed the classic conflict escalation cycle almost perfectly. From this negative interpretation, he went to anger (my interpretation of his emotional state), and both parties found themselves locked in a negative conversational spiral.

Had John been willing to question his assumptions about Joe’s intention and then to engage in conversation and dialogue rather than in attack and recrimination, the situation would likely have gone in a totally different direction.

The next time you find your assumptions about another person’s intention leaning towards the negative, stop yourself for just a moment and question your assumptions.

• Did they mean that as an attack or simply as a statement of their opinion?
• Are they attacking my character or are they just trying to understand my approach?
• Did they mean what I think they mean?

I’m sure you get the point. Take just a moment to slow down and question your assumptions before you dive into the conversation.

Related posts:

1. Why Your Natural Response to Conflict is Probably Wrong & What You Can Do About It
2. Exercise Your Power of Choice in Conflict Resolution
3. Conflict Resolution Insights: Why Conflicts Escalate

As I watch and participate in conflict conversations and conflict resolution efforts, I notice patterns of behavior that consistently produce bad results. In a recent conversation with one of my coaching clients, we started to discuss these patterns of behavior. We jokingly began to call them “The 7 Deadly Sins of Conflict Resolution.”

The conversation stimulated my thinking about what NOT to do in conflict resolution.

Sometimes, knowing what NOT to do can be as helpful as knowing what TO do. So, I thought I would share the results of my conversation with you today.

Here you go…

The 7 Deadly Sins of Conflict Resolution:

1.  Continuing to talk about the past.

Other than looking at past behaviors to understand how you got into the current situation, forget about it. Talking about what has already happened just stirs up negative emotions and drives conflict escalation rather than resolution.

2.  Trying to “fix” emotions.

Emotions are simply the result of how we interpret and respond to the world around us.

We can control our behaviors.

We generally cannot control our emotions. We certainly cannot control other people’s emotions.

When we try to fix emotions, we sink ourselves in a conversation about things we cannot control. So, we get stuck in a negative conversation spiral that tends to make conflicts worse rather than better.

3.  Rushing the conflict conversation.

If a workplace conflict has grown to the point that it calls for a focused and intentional resolution conversation, it has become a business problem. And, this business problem is probably costing you more than you first realize when you consider the salaries of the involved employees, the value of work that is not being done, the cost of poor decision quality, the impact of poor information flow, etc.

Unresolved conflict gets expensive very quickly.

Since most people are conflict averse, they want to have a quick conversation to get the conflict resolved. They do not want to be involved in an emotionally charged discussion for very long. So they schedule 30 minutes to an hour for the discussion, and they send all parties back to work after the discussion in an elevated emotional state that makes them less able to do their jobs and make good decisions.

This is a bad plan.

While the specific time line for a conflict resolution conversation depends on many factors, most conflict conversations reach their peak of emotional energy at about 45 minutes to an hour. Most resolutions come after the peak emotional involvement. They rarely happen before or during the height of emotion.

If you want to resolve a conflict, make sure that you set aside enough time to get through the emotion and on to the plan.

4.  Continuing to blame others.

We all have our moments when we want to blame others for our behaviors. Sadly, focusing on blame only serves to make the conflict worse.

Blame shifts the responsibility for our behaviors from ourselves to other people. For example, “I yelled at you because you yelled at me.”  While it feels a bit like self-defense, it actually triggers conflict escalation.

Very seldom will anyone respond positively to you if you blame them. (It could happen. It’s just not very likely.)

5.  Trying to justify our behaviors.

Justification is blame’s evil twin. They often go hand in hand.

Blame is a form of justification and justification often leads to blame.

Justifying our behaviors might seem like “explaining our behaviors” to us, but it sounds like “making excuses” to others.

6.  Refusing to apologize or giving a conditional apology.

I often hear people say something like: “I would apologize if…

• “They would apologize”
• “They would stop doing _____.”
• “They would do _____.”

Since I rarely see any conflict where one party is totally at fault and the other party is totally right, I find it hard to believe that we cannot find something to apologize for in the interest of resolving the conflict.

Why make the apology conditional? Why wait for them to do something so that you can apologize for your contribution?

Don’t take ownership of what they did, and don’t apologize for anything that was out of your control.

Do apologize for anything that you did to contribute to the conflict.

7.  Refusing to forgive past behaviors.

Like apology, forgiveness is often offered in a way that is contingent on the other party’s behaviors. For example…

• “I’ll forgive them when they apologize.”
• “I’ll forgive them when they stop doing _____.”
• “I’ll forgive them if they will do _____.”

Forgiveness might be the offer that helps to deescalate the conflict. It certainly is the catalyst for helping you get your emotions back in line. And, it doesn’t work to resolve conflict when it is offered conditionally.

Neither you nor the other person can go back and “undo” a past behavior. When you forgive it, you move out of the past and into resolution for both of you.

Forgiveness is more about changing your own anger and letting go of the negative thoughts in your head than it is about bestowing a gift upon the other person. So, just forgive. Don’t wait for them to ask.

Some additional thoughts on forgiving:

• Be careful how you offer forgiveness. If you come across as patronizing, it will probably back-fire on you.
• Notice that I did not say forget. You can forgive someone for their past behaviors and have little faith or trust that they will behave honorably in the future. Forgiving and forgetting are not the same thing.

Watch your behaviors for signs of these “7 deadly sins.” If you see them creeping into your conflict conversations, take actions to get them out of your conflict repertoire and find a more suitable behavior.

Photo by debaird.

Related posts:

1. Exercise Your Power of Choice in Conflict Resolution
2. Conflict Resolution Techniques: Question Your Assumptions
3. Conflict Resolution Mistakes: Stating Opinions As Facts

Over the last few months, I’ve given some thought to what I consider to be the Top 7 Secrets for Resolving Personal Workplace Conflict, and I have recorded an audio program that is available now.

While the program is targeted at personal workplace conflict resolution, you can use the insights from it to minimize and resolve family conflicts as well. (After all, people are people. Only the context changes. The principles remain the same.)

Here’s what you’ll find on this audio program:

• Ways of looking at conflict that you may have never considered.
• How to apply powerful psychological principles in a practical way to help you control your response and develop influence with others.
• Two secrets that may initially seem contrary to what seems like the right thing to do. In fact you might do just the opposite of what these two secrets will tell you to do if you don’t know better.
• A secret that may seem obvious when you hear it, and you will be surprised how often people get it wrong in practice.
• Three secrets that are technique based. I’ll show you specific things you can do to reduce conflicts.
• Three secrets that are insights to how you should think about and prepare for your conflict resolution efforts.
• Powerful tips, techniques, and insights you can use immediately to resolve all types of conflicts in your life – specifically those conflicts that occur in the workplace

I am also working on a website to deliver content like this via download and/or streaming audio and video. That site should be ready soon. I’ll announce it here when I’ve finished developing the content to make it a useful relationship building and conflict resolution training resource. In the meantime, the Top 7 Secrests CD is ready now on this page.

Related posts:

1. Conflict Resolution Tips: Task Oriented People with People Oriented Individuals
2. Conflict Resolution Techniques: Question Your Assumptions
3. Conflict Resolution Tips: People Oriented Individuals with Task Oriented People

I can accept it is a fact that they have an opinion. I just struggle with accepting their opinion as a fact when all they have to support it is their assertion that it is true.

As I said in Why You Shouldn’t Take Conflict Resolution Advice From Politicians, this behavior would hit my top five list for mistakes to avoid in conflict resolution discussions.

Since this blog is about getting over yourself and learning to take a critical look at how your own behaviors might contribute to the communication, conflict, and relationship problems you face in life; I have to come clean. I am guilty of this behavior on occasion, and I hate it when I do it as much as I hate to see others do it. With that confession out in the open, let’s take a look at the problem.

Stating opinions as facts can be a subtle and insidious conflict conversation practice. It can sneak into your communication patterns in little ways. For example, you might state your viewpoint and support it with “I think everyone would agree that…” (At least that’s how it sounds when I say it. A more people-oriented person might say “I feel like everyone would agree that…”)

With that one little statement, we rope everyone into our perspective and we attempt to use the weight of majority rule to make our opinion a fact.

At other times, we might state our opinion and then follow it up with a “That being the case….” With one comment, we build a whole argument on our perspective.

I believe that each of us has a perspective and that each person’s perspective needs to be heard. It’s just dangerous to assign factual status to an opinion statement.

In my experience so far, I have never observed a conflict conversation that turned out well when both parties insisted on arguing their respective perspectives as if their opinions were facts.

If you want to win the argument, go ahead and state your opinion as a fact. If you want to resolve the conflict, carefully consider which of your positions are based in fact and which are based in your opinion or perspective.

It’s okay to have an opinion. I just encourage you to recognize that it is your opinion and not necessarily an objective fact.

Related posts:

1. “It’s cold in here” and Other Fighting Words
2. Conflict Resolution Techniques: Question Your Assumptions
3. Why You Shouldn’t Take Conflict Resolution Lessons From Politicians

I see leaders from all sides of the political process investing great energy in staking out positions and then defending those positions. I don’t honestly know what goes on behind closed doors. I can only comment on the results I see and what they say in public.

I don’t really want to get into an open-forum debate about the positions that our political leaders take. I just want to point to a set of behaviors I see as poisoning efforts to reach mutually beneficial solutions.

In a world ruled by parliamentary procedure and public opinion polls, maybe their behavior is to be expected. Nonetheless, how they typically approach problem solving is full of problems that poison the conflict resolution process.

Here are the top five problems I see in much political debate:

• Stating opinions as facts.
• Starting with proposed solutions rather than seeking agreement on the problem statement.
• Staking out positions rather than seeking common ground.
• Attacking the character or intent of the opposing party.
• Focusing on “winning” over “resolving.”

There are probably many reasons why these behaviors surface in political discussions. I suggest that we should avoid them in our personal and business relationships.

I don’t know that these guys are necessarily politicians. They do behave in a way that illustrates my point:

Related posts:

1. Conflict Resolution Mistakes: Stating Opinions As Facts
2. Snow Drifts, Driving Lessons, and Conflict Resolution
3. Why The Health Care Reform Debate Makes Me Sick