All starts with us and within us. No matter what is the situation or where it happens, people generally react in four different ways to problems even in the workplace. Being prepared for your own reaction and for the other person's reaction is one step agead of the game when a conflict arises.

1. Rodney King Doctrine
Some people pretend that there is no conflict trying to get along with everybody. For example, you don't like each other with your boss so what you do is pretend that nothing really important happens. After all you don't see your boss' face printed on your paycheck so all is ok. But what happens with the problem? The same thing if you close your eyes when somebody tries to slap you in the face? You close your eyes, and wait. You close your eyes and there is no problem. But, all too often - you get slapped. Simply said, the conflict free work place is a paradise place where everybody is in a perfect agreement with everybody else.

2. Run away technique
Some people react in a different way - they turn around and head to a different direction. The extreme example is - I don't like this place any more and I will change the company. What happens then? This lesson is remembered very quickly and in your next company you have this very useful exit strategy even before you apply. Most likely you will use it again. Why, because your conflict manegement lesson is: run away.

3. The Bush Doctrine
Others just fight. Workplace battlefield is the most interesting thing to see as an observer because no matter what nobody wins without bruises. This is usually where the conflict managers come and they establish new rules of communication in the hope that maybe the parties will start listening to each other more, will vent their anger differently and hopefully the things will get better. However, fighting in the workplace is an art. It is rarely upfront. Usually there are tactics, subtle machinations to slip the other person, secret allies. Even if the conflict is officially resolved the old grudges are there to stay. In the end the efficiency of the work done by the parties is to be questioned.

4. Rockefeller Approach
"I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity." This is the so called conflict transformation technique. Behind every conflict there is a fear. If you are in a conflict with somebody there is a part of you that is being challenged for not being complete and perfect: It can be accepting authority, ability for independent work, sense of significance, performance results, ability to connect with others. And all you need to do is take the oppotunity to address these issues and cope with them. When they are resolved - there will be no reason, no core for the conflict.

As Saul Alinsky says: " Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict."

Learn more about this author, Tsvetanka Petrova.
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