Intentions

Before engaging in a conflict it is important to clarify what you what out of the conversation. You probably are not ready to engage if you don’t know what you want, or you want two things that may be mutually exclusive (for example, “I want this conflict to go away and I want their boss to know how incompetent they are”).

In Let’s Have it Out, Arthur Hough (1991) suggests asking yourself five questions:

1. Do I want to hurt, injure, or put down this person?
2. Do I want to win over this person?
3. Do I want to establish who’s right and who’s wrong?
4. Do I want to make this person feel guilty?
5. Do I want to unload bad feelings from the past on the person?

I am sure all of us have answered “yes” to at least some of these questions in the past. Because we so often have these motives through our own hurt or injury, they are hard questions to answer honestly. However, none of these intentions will lead to a positive engagement about the conflict.

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, you will probably make things worse unless you can engage in an internal negotiation to find a goal for the conversation that the other person would also accept. For example, if your initial intention is that they understand me and how I see the situation, you might change your intention to having better mutual understanding. While this does not eliminate all of the challenges of the conversation, at least it makes it more likely you will get off to a good start.

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