Carefrontation

 

By: Duke Rohe  drohe@att.net

Overview: This is an essential communication tool to add to your tool belt.  We all know about confrontation.  To some of us, it is something we avoid.  It’s a show of power; it pits us against them.  It establishes a boundary or even pushes back. ‘Carefrontation’, a technique learned from my corporate coaching friend, John Lovitt, has help me several times.  Here is how it goes.

Purpose: Resolve conflict when a personal boundary has been crossed with a solution where both parties achieve a win-win satisfaction.

Participants: Yourself and one who has crossed a personal boundary of yours.  Where there is an area of agitation between you and another and you want to find a mutual solution which diffuses/removes the differences; with both parties saving face.

Materials: None

Time: 20 minutes

Procedure:

  • Acknowledge the fact that if you are agitated, it is your problem; not theirs. If it were theirs, they would fix it. Own this fact, whether you are in the right or not. Without owning it is your problem a) you are fooling yourself and b) you have no, or very little control over it. Owning places more of the power to change in your hands.
  • Tell the other person that you have a problem and ask them if they are willing to help you. Most people want to help. If they qualify their help with having to know the problem first, your chance of a mutual solution just dropped. If they are willing to help you, you are on your way to success.
  • Tell the person the ‘situation’ that causes you agitation. If this can be done in metaphor form, great. “When such and such happens, I get frustrated and become ineffective.”
  • Get them to know it’s not personal. It’s not isolated to them. “If anyone did the such and such, then it would frustrate me. It wouldn’t matter who did it.” Note that it is still your problem, they just play a part in it.
  • Check to see if they understand your problem. Verbal validation is best but a confirming expression will do.
  • Offer a solution that includes an agreement to help change the ‘frustrating behavior or thing’. “If I detect myself getting frustrated, how about if I give a word ‘prompt’ which means I need help. Would you alter such and such for me? If that won’t work, do you have another suggestion that will help?”
  • Again, check to see if they will help or try to help employing the mutual solution.

Debrief: Review the areas of agreement.