Conflict is what we encounter everyday. And I just realized that I am a very conflicting person, especially when working in a team, I never knew until I came to Genesys tech hub for my internship. These conflicts may go on for days and sometimes, I even skip meetings. And when I am around, I make no contributions, probably because the last one I made was not accepted. An understanding of cognitive bias have helped me in resolving most of the problems I encountered in my team. Similarly, a good understanding of cognitive bias can also help you in solving the problems encountered in everyday life.
This article will provide you with all you need to know about cognitive bias and conflict resolution. These are my thoughts and they have worked for me in different teams where I have applied them.
The 21st-century workplace is team-oriented and in order for the team to be effective, the members should be able to manage conflict and resolve issues anytime it comes up while they are working together on a particular solution or problem. I have personally been in teams where we will have to stay for days without doing any work, just because of conflict, but with what I know now about cognitive bias, I will be different in my next team role, follow the article to see how you can be different too.
Concepts of conflict resolution According to Wikipedia, conflict resolution is the method and process involved in facilitating a peaceful ending. And this peaceful ending is reached by people making a conscious effort to see that the particular conflict is resolved. They can engage methods like force, reconciliation, mediation, etc. to resolve the conflict.
NAME | BLAME | CLAIM: The name blame claim cycle is a game that helps us to deconstruct our conflict. When the conflict is deconstructed, it helps us to get a better understanding of the conflicts we had or are having. A proper understanding of the conflict can lead to an easy solution.
Name (what do you name as the issue?) deals with what you were deprived of in the conflict.
Blame (who do you blame?) deals with who caused or is causing the conflict you are in.
Claim (what do you claim?) deals with what social norms the person has broken.
You can pause this reading, think of a conflict that you have with someone recently, deconstruct it using these three parameters it will help you have a good understanding of the problem.
THOMAS KILLMAN CONFLICT MODEL: This is a conflict resolution assessment that has lasted for a long time. A team in the workplace can have people from various levels, professions, and background and this may also affect the way they approach activities like decision making, negotiation, etc. in the team. This conflict resolution assessment makes you aware of how you and other people will react in a particular situation or when he wants to achieve a particular task.
Thomas Killman, conflict model
In the diagram above the AVOID deals with individuals who will avoid/withdraw from a task or will avoid making their opinion known when they are in a team. Obviously, they take whatever they can get or they are given from the team. The ACCOMMODATE are those individuals that always give in whenever their idea or opinion is questioned. They are good at building a relationship because they back down and let other people have their way. The COMPETE individuals want to win at all costs at the expense of the other person’s feelings. They win by any means available while the other person loses. COLLABORATIVE is seen as the best way as the person finds a level ground where he can be the winner and, at the same time, the other people have their way. In this kind of process, everybody is happy and the task is achieved. The last is the point in the middle, COMPROMISE. This individual, instead of looking for level ground, makes sure that he wins and the other people lose. Then, he waits for another situation where he may allow the other people to win while he loses.
CONTENTIOUS TACTICS: This is a process or tactic people use when they want to have their way in a particular situation or when they are working on a task with other people. There are various methods that people use to make people buy into their idea and I will list just a few.
Promises: This tactic is not the best because it doesn’t work all the time unless both parties always have something to exchange so as to strike a balance. The people that use this tactic often use promise as a means.
Persuasive argument: This individual uses constructive arguments to get his/her teammates to accept his own view when they are working on a particular task.
Threat: This tactic allows the individual to use a threat (or threats) to make other people agree to his own view.
There are other tactics that are also used by people to have their way with their teams when they are working with them, for example, ingratiation, shamming and physical force. All these methods and tactics have their advantage and disadvantage. In airing your view and getting people to accept your view, I think the best method is to have a DISCUSSION with the people involved and allowing them to make their input if they wish to. In that way, you are buying them off and it seems to be the most effective.
Every cognitive bias is there for a reason — primarily to save our brains, time or energy. If you look at them by the problem they’re trying to solve, it becomes a lot easier to understand why they exist, how they’re useful, and the trade-offs (and resulting mental errors) that they introduce — Buster Benson.
COGNITIVE BIAS: Cognitive bias, according to Wikipedia, is defined as the systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. This rationality can be in the form of perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment or illogical interpretation. It can also be said that it is people acting based on the predominant information that they already have. For example, Mrs. A went to a shop to buy soap and she was told that it’s sold for N100 but she didn’t have enough money. So she left and came back later and was told it’s now sold for N20. She didn’t ask questions and she bought it. Mr. A walked into the same shop and he was told that the same soap is sold for N20. He whined and ask if it could be sold at N5 for him. They both acted right and their action is based on cognitive bias and it’s actually the information they had.
COGNITIVE BIAS AND HOW IT AFFECTS CONFLICT
A proper understanding of cognitive bias helps us to have a proper understanding of ourselves and also we know when to take a step back and look beyond the conflict and try to understand the view of the person you are having the conflict with. Most times, when people argue for or against a particular opinion, they are not wrong. They are most likely to be working on pre-information they already had about that particular task or issue. Here are some of the cognitive bias that influences conflict.
Fundamental Attribution Error: In this concept, the individual tends to emphasize internal characteristics like intention or character in explaining people’s actions rather than external factors. In this concept also, people believe that other people’s action reflects who they are and not what the environment prompted them to do. So when people make suggestions in the team, this concept suggests that that suggestion is who they are and that it is not based on facts.
Belief Bias: This is when one’s evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by their belief in the truth or falsy of a conclusion. This is to say that the individual opinion is based on a concluded falsy or truth of something they believe in. Most times, it works because belief works with our mind and our mind has powers and can actually influence the things we do.
Hindsight: (Sometimes called I-knew-it-all-along effect). This effect never solves a problem and individuals whose argument is based on this are always complaining and even before they make an argument they assume and predict the other person’s reaction or answer.
Confirmation bias: In this bias, the individuals seek confirmation from people who are of the same view as him. They always reconfirm their ideas or opinion and they always stay away from people who are of different views or opinions with them.
BEST WAY TO GET THE OPINION ACCEPTED
The best way to get people to accept your opinion and at the same time avoid conflict is by getting people to know and see the reasons you are seeing in your opinion. This can be achieved using NEGOTIATION. Make them see the reasons with you. And for you to make people understand you, you may need to have a proper understanding of conflict resolution and cognitive bias. In that way, you can look beyond their opinion and strike a very good negotiation.