Personal Empowerment & Leadership Skills

Celebrating Life:
Art & Creativity

Local, Bioregional & Global Outreach

2b. Facilitation Skills: Decision Making and Conflict Resolution
The Art of Facilitation	How to Make Good Decisions	Understanding and Learning from Conflict

Attitudes Toward Conflict

The following table shows the most common attitudes toward conflict. A person may show different attitudes depending on the role she plays in the conflict —this person will behave differently in a conflict with her mother, her partner, a workmate or with a stranger. These attitudes come from the two-dimensional model of conflict developed by Neil Katz*, with two major axes: Interests and Relationship. For instance, a competitive person is more oriented toward defending her own interests than caring for her relationships, while an accommodative person prioritizes the relationship over her own interests.

Although we might be inclined to think of the collaborative model as the most desirable, none of them should be idealized. The attitude or strategy we adopt in a conflict will depend on many factors that will likely condition our true response.

Relationship is not very important	Interests are important		Relationship is very important
	COMPETITION	COLLABORATION COMPROMISE
	AVOIDANCE	ACCOMMODATION
	Interests are not very important

* Katz, Neil H. & Lawyer, John W., Conflict Resolution: Building Bridges, Corwin Press, 1994