Gini Nelson’s Engaging Conflicts

What’s so engaging about conflict and business success? Think of what I call the psychology of business success — managing conflicts with clients and managing difficult client situations are major components in success. Here’s a quick example (without the statistics, which I don’t have at my fingertips at the moment, but I can still make the point): even in a conflict as serious as a medical malpractice situation where somebody has been seriously, physically harmed, how the conflict was handled on the individual, personal level is one of the key factors that determines whether a medical malpractice lawsuit is filed. A patient who likes her doctor is much less likely to sue, than one who is indifferent to her doctor, or dislikes her doctor.I believe that both effective conflict management and small business success are based on the following:

(1) knowing yourself and knowing how you are with other people — both your strengths and your weaknesses;

(2) knowing that other people often are normally and authentically different from you, and that they will hear you better and value your perspective more when you know to speak and present to them in the ways that matter to them (because of their differences from you), rather than primarily in the ways that matter to you. It’s easiest to speak to and be heard by someone who is like you — but, really, we aren’t all alike, and the differences matter!

3) having the skills and techniques the task at hand requires (e.g., active listening and reading nonverbal body language in conflict management, and doing or properly delegating such business skills as marketing and sales, financial management and human resources, in business success); and

(4) focusing on the relationship with the other person (in conflict and in business, and sometimes in both!), which in some ways brings it around back to #1, because your best relationships will develop when you know yourself and how you are with other people, well.