𝓔𝓻𝓲𝓼 𝓱𝓪𝓼 𝓪𝓻𝓻𝓲𝓿𝓮𝓭! 𝓦𝓸𝓻𝓴𝓹𝓵𝓪𝓬𝓮𝓼 𝓑𝓮𝔀𝓪𝓻𝓮!

"And hateful strife gave birth to hard work, forgetfulness, and famine; to tearful pains; to battles and fights; to murders and killings of men; to quarrels and lies; to stories and disputes; and to oaths, which cause the most trouble for people on earth when someone swears falsely while knowing it."

These are the exact lines from Hesiod's Theogony. These lines describe Eris. Eris is the Greek goddess and personification of discord and strife. She is not a well-liked figure in Greek mythology because she does bad things and makes trouble wherever she goes. Eris is the daughter of Nyx, or Zeus and Hera, and the sister of Ares, the Greek god of war, whom she often accompanied into battle, riding alongside him in his chariot. In the Iliad, Homer mentions her as being the sister of Ares, making her the child of Zeus and Hera. However, according to most sources, including Hesiod's Theogony, Eris was the last-born child of Nyx (the personification of the night). Eris had a lot of children of her own, and each one of them was a dark and harmful result of discord and conflict. These children were wretched work, forgetfulness, famine, torment, battles and fights, murders and killings of men, quarrels and lies, stories and disputes, and oaths.

Throughout Greek mythology, Eris is portrayed as a mean figure and a troublemaker. She is avoided by many of her fellow gods and goddesses. The only god who can tolerate her is her brother Ares, who often rides into battle with her and rejoices in the horrors of war alongside her. In the Iliad, Homer mentions that she often strides across the earth, spreading hate against both the Trojan and Greek armies. Unlike Ares, who eventually sided with the Trojans, Eris never took a side during the Trojan War. In Book 11, Zeus sent Eris to Odysseus' ship, where she cried out in her terrible and great voice, raising the fighting spirit in each Greek soldier's heart and effectively stopping them from sailing back home. At one point in the Iliad, Eris is the only one of the gods who stays on the battlefield to watch the battle, exalting in the bloodshed and entirely in her element. Hesiod presents an alternative Eris in his Works and Days, which is believed to have been written after his Theogony. Hesiod says in Works and Days that there are two Eris. The younger and secondary Eris is bad to humans and makes them have problems, while the older and main Eris is a good force that makes people want to compete instead of fight.

The Judgement of Paris, which is the start of the Trojan War, is the most well-known myth about Eris. The tale begins with the wedding of Peleus, the Greek hero and king of Phthia, and Thetis, a sea nymph, on Mount Pelion. The Olympians came to the wedding and gave the couple a set of golden armor and the immortal horses Balius and Xanthus as gifts. Eris was often left out of things because she was so troublesome, and this was one thing that stood out. Feeling angry over being left out, Eris decided to stir up mischief by causing conflict among the Olympians. While Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite were chatting arm in arm, Eris rolled her Golden Apple of Discord towards their feet. The apple bore the words "to the fairest." Not knowing to whom the apple was addressed, the three goddesses all claimed the apple and began to cause a scene. Zeus stepped in quickly as a peacemaker and told the goddesses to meet with Paris, a prince of Troy.

Here it becomes essential to understand who these three goddesses really are:

1. Athena: Goddess of wisdom, war, and crafts, and favorite daughter of Zeus, Athena was, perhaps, the wisest, most courageous, and certainly the most resourceful of the Olympian gods.
2. Hera: Hera is the wife of Zeus and queen of the ancient Greek gods. She represented the ideal woman, was the goddess of marriage and family, and was the protector of women in childbirth. Although always faithful herself, Hera was most famous for her jealous and vengeful nature, principally aimed against the lovers of her husband and their illegitimate children.
3. Aphrodite: Aphrodite was the ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty, desire, and all aspects of sexuality. She could entice both gods and men into illicit affairs with her beauty and whispered sweet nothings. Born near Cyprus from the severed genitalia of the sky god Uranus, Aphrodite had a wider significance than the traditional view as a mere goddess of love.

Paris awoke from a nap to find the god Hermes standing before him. Hermes presented Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite to Paris and asked him to choose which goddess was the fairest. Each goddess offered Paris a gift in return for his vote. Hera offered him dominion over the world; Athena offered him the glory of war, and Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in the world (Helen of Sparta). Not being able to resist Aphrodite's offer, Paris selected her as the fairest goddess. So, his search for Helen of Sparta, who was already married, and the start of the Trojan War.

Here the next question to ask is, "What happened in the Trojan War?"

The fairest woman in the world was a queen, and she was of godly parentage. Helen, the biological daughter of Zeus and Leda, was the most beautiful woman in all the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Naturally, all of the men from miles around came to ask her earthly father, King Tyndareus, for Helen’s hand in marriage. So many suitors were there that Tyndareus feared his kingdom would be split in civil war if he chose the wrong husband for his "daughter." He contrived a vow to be taken by all of the many suitors. If Helen or her husband came to distress, all of the other suitors were to come to their aid. All of the suitors agreed, and Tyndareus chose Menelaus to be Helen’s husband. He also made him king of Sparta. As Aphrodite had promised Paris the fairest woman in the world, Helen was fated to become Paris’s lover. One small problem with that arrangement was her marriage to King Menelaus. Paris journeyed to Helen’s home in Sparta, and while Menelaus was away, he took her to Troy. The abduction of Helen brought the wrath of Greece down upon Troy’s head, and the city would pay dearly for Paris’s romancing of a Greek queen. King Menelaus was hesitant to call Greece to arms against Troy. However, his brother Agamemnon saw nothing but opportunity in the entire situation. Agamemnon, who wanted to be famous on the battlefield, used the suitors' promises to unite their forces into a beautiful fleet that he used to attack Troy. Men had to leave their families and their kingdoms behind to join the Greek army. Some came reluctantly. One such man was Odysseus, the king of Ithaca. His wife, Penelope, had just given birth to a son. Odysseus had been one of Helen’s suitors, so he had to honor his vow. Achilles, who was Greece's most famous hero, was found in Lycomedes' court dressed as a woman.

Thetis, the mother of Achilles, was reluctant to send her only child into battle, so she dressed him up as a lady of Lycomedes’ court. Odysseus used his smarts to find out who Achilles really was, and then he made him join the Greek fleet. The Greek heroes had assembled in Sparta and were about to set sail for Troy when a terrifying storm rolled in from the sea. The winds howled and torrential rains drenched the land. Calchas, the Greek prophet, told Agamemnon that the goddess of the hunt, Artemis, was angry with the Greeks. In order to appease the goddess and end the storm, Agamemnon had to sacrifice his daughter to Artemis. Agamemnon lured his daughter to her death by telling her that she was to marry Achilles, the great Greek hero. Her father sacrificed her to Artemis, who in turn made the weather favorable for sailing. After the awful deed was done, the Greeks set sail for Troy. Odysseus, known for his eloquence, and Menelaus were sent as ambassadors to Priam, the King of Troy. They demanded Helen be returned. The first nine years of the war consisted of both war in Troy and war against neighboring regions. The Trojan War was approaching the endurance of a decade when the Greeks’ luck started to run out. The men were worn out and tired of fighting against the fortified city. Troy had been under siege for ten years, yet the walls of the city remained impenetrable. Battle weary and almost defeated, the Greek force was ready to call it quits. The Greek leaders were unwilling to turn back without the treasure of the city in the hulls of their ships, so Odysseus devised a plan full of cunning that was sure to get the Greek army inside the walls of Troy. Odysseus ordered a large wooden horse to be built. Its insides were hollow so that soldiers could hide within them.

The first stage of the plan called for the Greeks to stage a retreat by water. Then a Greek "traitor" would be left behind to tell the "victorious" Trojans that the horse was a gift for the gods and was not to be taken into the walled city, else the gods’ favor would fall upon the Trojans. Of course, the Trojans brought the huge horse into the city, breaking down parts of the wall to fit the enormous structure through the city gates. During the night, while the Trojans were celebrating their "victory," Odysseus and the others who had concealed themselves inside the horse dropped down from the horse and let the rest of the army in through the gates. Once all the Greeks were inside the city, mass destruction and chaos broke loose. The Greeks burned the city, including the temples, mercilessly killed all of the Trojan men; and enslaved the women. Menelaus found Helen. He drew his sword to kill her because of all the trouble she had caused, but the goddess Aphrodite protected her, and when Menelaus looked at Helen, he was so overwhelmed by her beauty that his sword fell to the ground. The Trojan Horse was ultimately the demise of the Trojans, and it still stands today as evidence that brains, not brawn, will often win the battle. With the sack of the city, the Greeks took everything from Troy, but mysteriously, the treasure of Troy was nowhere to be found! When the city started to burn, King Priam concealed the royal treasure in the wall of Troy, knowing that the Greeks would never think to look there. So the great Trojan treasure was not discovered by the Greeks.

Eris still lives amongst us in the form of discord and strife, which take place in our workplaces around the globe.

Conflict is an inevitable element of every place of employment. When interacting with people in your workplace, you are going to encounter disputes. Because conflict is a normal part of all relationships and can even be good for them, you need to learn how to deal with it in a healthy way. You will find that you will not agree with others about everything, all the time. The key is not to avoid conflict in the workplace but to learn how to resolve it healthily. Conflict does not have to be negative. If managed well, it can lead to increased creativity, understanding, and innovation. On the other hand, it can be detrimental to an organization. According to the CPP Global Human Capital Report, conflict is very costly to an organization. Some of the alarming statistics they cite include:

1. Nine out of ten employees have experienced a workplace conflict that escalated. Almost one in three said that a recent workplace conflict took a few days to dispel properly, but as many as one in six reports that a current conflict remains unresolved, having lasted longer than expected or becoming increasingly intense.
2. Over a quarter of employees report engaging in a workplace disagreement that led to personal insults or attacks, while a similar number of employees have seen a conflict that led to sickness or absence.
3. One in five employees has left their organization because of conflict. At the same time, 16% say that employees got fired, and one in ten even attribute a project failure to disagreements between those involved in the conflict.
4. Employees spend almost three hours per week dealing with conflict, which accounts for approximately $359 billion in paid hours or the equivalent of 385.
5. Employees with work-related conflicts will take 21 days off each year.
6. The majority of employees have not received any conflict-management training.

Conflict is a disagreement where two or more people feel like their interests, needs, or concerns are being threatened. Conflict at work is a complicated thing because it happens when one employee thinks that another employee, client, customer, or supervisor is against them. People's reactions to conflict depend on how they are different from each other, how the situation is set up, and what their own interests and needs are. In the workplace, you need to be aware of the causes of conflict. You may think that conflicts arise because two people can’t get along. In reality, there are many causes or reasons for conflict in the workplace. Experts usually say that a disagreement between two employees is caused by one or more of the following:

1. A lack of communication, including misunderstood remarks and comments taken out of context.
2. Differences in employee communication styles
3. Unforeseen conditions such as workforce slowdowns, mergers, acquisitions, and reductions in force
4. The mismanagement of organizational change and transition can lead to conflicts. Unclarified roles in the workplace and competing job duties.
5. Perceived inequities of available resources.
6. Employees often have differences in personality characteristics, perceptions, beliefs, cultures, and styles.
7. Differences in the ways that employees approach their work.
8. Differences in work ethic and job motivation.
9. While some employees work because they love their job, others see their job as just a way to earn a living.
10. Differences over work methods and goals, or differences in workplace goals.
11. Conflicting beliefs about operational systems.

Conflict in the workplace can be both good and bad. Conflict can have both positive and negative consequences for employees and the organization. Let’s look at both:

1. Positive Consequences: Although many employees try to avoid it at work, conflict is not necessarily destructive. Conflict can be useful for organizations because it encourages new ways of thinking, open-mindedness, and innovation. The key is learning how to manage conflict effectively so that it serves as a catalyst rather than a hindrance. You can significantly improve your organizational standing by learning to manage conflict.
2. Negative Consequences: When conflict becomes too intense, and you do not manage it well, it can lead to frustrated employees and dysfunctional teams. When not managed, minor issues often escalate into major conflicts, and conflicts can become increasingly complex and even harder to manage. Conflicts become destructive and dysfunctional because they are emotionally-based and focused on individuals rather than issues. When levels of conflict become extreme, conflict can negatively impact collaboration, innovation, team effectiveness, and individual performance.

It would be best if you were ready to deal with both small and big conflicts when they come up. You should keep the following facts about conflict in mind as you interact in the workplace:

1. Conflicts can be disagreements about small or substantial matters, reactions to something said, or a build-up of annoyances.
2. Conflicts occur whenever people disagree because of their values, motivations, perceptions, ideas, or desires. Sometimes these differences appear trivial, but when a conflict triggers strong feelings, a deep personal need is often at the core of the problem. The satisfaction of the needs of each person plays an essential role in maintaining a long-term relationship.
3. Conflicts are more than just disagreements. They are situations in which both people perceive a threat, regardless of whether the threat is real.
4. Conflicts continue to fester when ignored. Because conflicts involve perceived threats to our well-being and survival, they stay with us until we face and resolve them.
5. Conflicts arise because of a person’s perceptions of the situation, not necessarily because of an objective review of the facts. All people perceive conflict situations through the lens of their life experiences, culture, values, and beliefs.
6. Conflicts trigger strong emotions. If you aren’t comfortable managing your emotions in times of stress, you won’t resolve conflict successfully.
7. Conflicts are an opportunity for growth. When you resolve conflicts, it builds trust that you can survive relationship challenges and disagreements.
8. Conflicts have the potential to be incredibly destructive to a relationship. When managed incorrectly, conflict can lead to extreme differences between people that can quickly spiral out of control.

Eris's dangerous power is that she can make groups of people fight with each other and cause all kinds of chaos and hatred. Her powers are as follows:

1. Aggressiokinesis: Eris can cause the anger flowing in a person to be brought forth. Even the calmest person cannot resist and must let loose every ounce of anger.
2. Anger Empowerment: Eris can bolster her power through all forms of anger around her, and she can do this by using her other unique powers to stir up hatred and anger.
3. Chaos Embodiment: Eris was known for being insatiable for chaos and mayhem. Her personality makes her unpredictable. She can control chaos and cause it all around her, causing individuals to become disorganized.
4. Chaos Manipulation: Eris can cause groups to become disorganized and disorderly. In her crusade with Ares, she caused even the best general's conquest plans to fall apart and cause even more casualties than there needed to be.
5. Confusion Manipulation: Eris can distort a person's mind or senses by misleading them.
6. Discord Manipulation: Eris dearly loves to cause disagreements among groups like her, as she did with her mother and two sisters as she used the Apple of Discord to make them engage in a quarrel to decide who is the most beautiful and fairest, a choice that led to the Trojan War.
7. Immortality: Eris is over a thousand years old. She cannot age or wither. She can potentially live for a million, if not billions, of years.
8. Odikinesis: Eris can cause individuals to hate among themselves, which gives her the boost of using her discord powers to increase any hated rivalry and make it worse.

To counter Eris's powers in your workplace, using a conflict-management process can be helpful. It will resolve your conflicts, help you experience minimal stress, and save your relationships with others in the organization:

Step 1: Conflict occurs between you and someone else in the organization. You feel the need to manage workplace conflict.

Step 2: You develop interconnection by exploring your conflict-management style and learn about the other person’s style.

Step 3: You work to manage any emotions you experience in the conflict-management process.

Step 4: You prepare for the conversation that will occur in the conflict-management process.

Step 5: To keep your relationship with the other person going, you use real-world communication skills.

Step 6: You negotiate with the other person and brainstorm ways to resolve the conflict.

Interconnection is a skill that you can use in all of your interactions, especially conflicts. Puiman says there are a few steps you can take to use connections in your conflict negotiations:

Step 1: Accept that both parties can be right. Interconnection requires you to fully appreciate that both parties can be equally right at the same time. This principle works on the basis that because people have different perspectives, motives, and beliefs, other truths can exist.

Step 2: Connect to yourself. Interconnection allows you to focus on yourself and your specific conflict-management style.

Step 3: Connect with the other person. This step asks you to expand your energy outward toward the other person while connecting.

Step 4: Research conflict-management styles. The next section will help you figure out how you handle conflicts and, through empathy, how the other person does it too.

The dual-concerns conflict model assumes that all employees handle workplace conflicts in the way they like best. Blake and Mouton's original two-dimensional model of conflict showed five ways to handle conflicts with other people. These styles came from combining two dimensions: "concern for people" and "concern for production." Since then, other similar two-dimensional models have come up with slightly different ways to explain the worries behind conflict choice. Some variation of the following dimensions constructs more modern dual-concern conflict models:

1. Concern for Self: The "Concern for Self" dimension, also known as the assertiveness dimension, focuses on the degree to which employees are concerned with satisfying their own needs and interests.
2. Concern for Others: The "Concern for Others" dimension, also known as the "cooperativeness" dimension, focuses on the extent to which employees are concerned with satisfying the needs and interests of others.

One of the most popular ways to explain workplace conflicts, the Thomas-Kilmann Model, says that there are five styles of conflict based on these two dimensions:

1. Compromising: Moderate concern for self and others
2. Competing: High concern for oneself and low concern for others
3. Avoiding: Low concern for self and others
4. Accommodating: Low concern for oneself and high concern for others
5. Collaborating: High concern for self and others

You can utilize these conflict styles to identify and understand your own style. In addition, you can appreciate the style that the other person involved in the conflict uses. Dual-concern models of conflict are interesting because they say that employees choose how to handle conflicts based on how much they care about themselves and others. Different people use different methods to manage conflict, and most people have one or more natural, preferred conflict-management strategies that they use regularly. Using the two-dimensional Thomas-Kilmann model, you can figure out how likely you are to use certain conflict-management techniques.

The various conflict management styles are as follows:

1. Compromising Style: Employees with a Compromising Conflict-Management Style try to find solutions that will partially satisfy everyone. This compromising style is often called the middle-ground approach. Using this approach, you will negotiate and come up with a compromise so that both people feel satisfied. You may also be willing to sacrifice the compatibility of your relationship with others to reach an agreement. You give a little to get a little, and you believe that both sides should make concessions to achieve a resolution. You have discovered that it is important to back off from some issues to gain ground on others. Your objective is to find an expedient, mutually acceptable solution that partially satisfies both parties. In some situations, compromising might mean splitting the difference between the two positions, exchanging concessions, and seeking a quick middle-ground solution.
2. Competing Style: In a conflict, employees with a competing conflict-management style attempt to achieve their goals at all costs and as quickly as possible. You take a firm stand and know what you want. You usually insist that the other person let you have your way, regardless of how much it affects your relationships. You operate from a position of power and are usually more concerned with having your way than other people’s feelings. No matter what the cost, winning is the most important thing for you. The use of this style can leave people feeling unsatisfied and resentful. By using a competing style, you are assertive and uncooperative. You pursue your concerns at the other person’s expense. This style is a power-oriented mode in which you use whatever power seems appropriate to win your position, including your ability to argue, rank, or impose economic sanctions.
3. Avoiding Style: Employees with an "avoid conflict" management style are usually willing to give up their own goals to maintain relationships with other people. You would rather ignore conflict than resolve it. You may give up personal goals and display passive behavior even if you experience a loss. To do so, you generally avoid conflicts within meaningful relationships by physically removing yourself from the environment or not coming into contact with the person involved in the conflict. You often avoid others psychologically by not speaking to them or by ignoring them. In this way, the conflict often goes unresolved. By using the avoidance style, you neither pursue your concerns nor those of the other individual. Thus, you often choose not to deal with the conflict at all.
4. Accommodating Style: Employees with an accommodating style of conflict management usually give up personal and professional goals so that other people can achieve their goals. You usually value your relationships with others so much that you attempt to smooth over the situation and give others their way. For employees using this style, the goal is less important than the relationship. By giving in, you avoid the risk of a confrontation and can continue to get along with the other person. Employees using the accommodating style are unassertive and cooperative. You may even neglect your own concerns to satisfy the concerns of the other person. You are willing to sacrifice your needs and goals for those of others.
5. Collaborating Style: Employees with a collaborative style of conflict management want to meet the needs of all parties involved in the conflict. You can be highly assertive, but you are more than willing to cooperate effectively and acknowledge the importance of everyone involved. You are interested in bringing together a variety of viewpoints to get the best possible solution for everyone. You want all sides to be satisfied through collaboration, brainstorming, and creative problem-solving. When you collaborate, you work with others to find solutions that fully satisfy your concerns. You find yourself digging into issues to pinpoint everyone’s underlying needs and wants. When using this style, you begin by exploring the disagreement to learn from each other’s insights and find a creative solution that satisfies you both.

A key part of managing conflicts is being able to stay calm and focused in tense situations. If you can’t stay centered and in control, you might feel emotionally overwhelmed in stressful situations. Let’s look at some of the ways you may have experienced conflict when you were working. Have you ever:

1. Worked with someone who had a completely different communication style that led to misunderstandings?
2. Worked in an organization comprised of employees who see the world differently, and there was a lack of acceptance and understanding of the differences?
3. Worked in an organization in which employees fought for personal goals while ignoring organizational goals and organizational well-being?
4. Worked in an organization where employees felt they had to compete for available resources to do their job?
5. Worked in an organization where your team had differing personalities, which led to problems?
6. Worked in an organization where one or more individuals within your work unit were not performing, which led to conflict?
7. Worked with a team member who was disorganized and missed deadlines, which resulted in work not being accomplished and reflected on the team’s image?

The word "emotion" actually dates as far back as 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir, which means "to stir up." Emotions are an internal, conscious state that you infer in yourself and others. Once you know what you're feeling, you can calm down the energy that goes along with it and find a way to understand each other's differences. It's important to distinguish between emotions and feelings. While the two are interconnected, there are some significant differences:

1. Emotions: Emotions are ‘lower-level’ responses that help you become aware of your feelings through bodily sensations. Emotions developed to help you respond to environmental threats, much like our "fight or flight" response. Emotions have more physical grounding than feelings and are measured objectively through physical cues such as blood flow, heart rate, brain activity, facial expressions, and body language.
2. Feelings: Feelings come after emotions. Thus, feelings are reactions to the different emotions you experience physically. Unlike emotions, which develop from a generalized experience across all people, feelings are subjective and influenced by your personal experiences and interpretations of those experiences. Feelings are how you respond to emotions. Because they are primarily subjective, you can’t measure them the way you can emotions.

How you dealt with the stress and the bad feelings that came with it probably affected how well you were able to reach out to the other person, solve the problem, and keep the relationship going. Stress makes it harder for employees to handle conflicts because it gets in the way of higher-level thinking. Stress makes the brain make chemicals that hurt the prefrontal cortex, which is where higher-level thinking takes place. When you are stressed, you will find it much more difficult to calm down and think rationally about conflict. Managing and relieving stress at the moment is one of the keys to staying balanced, focused on the conflict, and in control. There are many different ways that you can express your feelings. Many people verbally lash out at others, sulk, throw things, or intimidate others. When you get into a fight, you should be aware of how you usually show how you feel. Here are some of the ways that people express their feelings:

1. Passive Aggression: In this style, you suppress your feelings until you can express them later. Rather than expressing your feelings, you decide to frustrate others in more subtle, passive ways.
2. Assertive: In this style, you experience your feelings while still considering others’ needs and feelings. You will stand up for yourself and your beliefs, but not get angry if others do not agree with you.
3. Open Aggression: In this style, you express your feelings through openly aggressive words and behaviors. When you are openly aggressive, you vent your feelings through rage, intimidation, explosive anger, criticism, bickering, and verbally fighting with others.
4. Suppressing: In this style, you hesitate to express your feelings. You have probably decided not to lower yourself to the expression of feelings. When conflict situations occur, you put on a good front and pretend not to feel anything. You stuff your feelings and hold them in until later.
5. Passive: In this style, you have a challenging time standing up for yourself. You tend to have low self-esteem and believe that other people are always right. You tend to have trouble expressing negative feelings. You will give up some of your wants and needs to avoid having others criticize you.

There are some emotional signs that you're too stressed to try to solve a problem. If you feel any of the following, don't try to solve a conflict until you figure out what's making you feel that way and deal with it:

1. You feel sadness or panic.
2. You are angry, irritable, or restless.
3. You feel overwhelmed, unmotivated, or unfocused.
4. You have thoughts racing through your head that trigger constant worry.

Emotional awareness helps you understand what you need and want. It enables you to build better relationships and deal with conflicts in these relationships. So, being aware of your emotions can help you explain them clearly, avoid or handle conflicts, and get past feelings that are hard to explain. The first step in learning how to manage your emotions is becoming aware of them. You are experiencing emotional awareness when you can recognize and make sense of your own emotions and others’ emotions. Emotional awareness is the key to understanding yourself and others in a conflict. If you don’t know how you feel or why you feel that way, you won't be able to communicate effectively or smooth over disagreements. Although understanding your emotions and feelings may seem simple, people often struggle to do so. But your understanding of how emotions work allows you to connect with people in a conflict. If you're afraid of strong emotions or only want to find solutions that make sense, you won't be able to face and solve problems as well. You have to be able to control your feelings and talk about them in a good way if you want to be able to solve a conflict. When you can control your feelings, you can talk to people about what you need without threatening, scaring, or punishing them. But when you resolve conflict in a healthy way, it increases your understanding of the other person, builds trust, and strengthens your relationships. Emotional awareness is the ability to accurately recognize and name your own emotions and to use your thoughts to deal with them.

Even though they are very complex, negative emotions and their subsequent feelings, can be managed effectively before and during a conflict-management meeting. Here are some techniques you can try:

1. Identify and label your feelings to better understand them. If you need to, develop a list of feeling words to understand your conflict experiences better.
2. Own your feelings. It is vital to remember that other people and events do not affect your feelings. You feel based on your interpretation of your experiences.
3. You express feelings as thoughts. It is crucial to develop an awareness of how your thoughts and your feelings are connected.
4. Know your conflict triggers. You need to be able to recognize what and who upsets you and triggers conflict. With awareness, you can prepare yourself to remain calm and plan your reaction to the person should the situation occur.
5. Try to clarify any misunderstanding or miscommunication that may be triggering negative feelings.
6. Never reply or make a decision when emotional. Never let your emotions cloud your judgment. Hold off all conflict communication until you are emotionally ready.
7. Be respectful and treat the other person in the conflict the way you like to be treated. You should strive to be firm and assertive without being aggressive.
8. Apologize for any emotional outbursts.
9. Take ten deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling slowly until you calm down. Instead, you could count to 10 to recompose yourself.
10. Use relaxation techniques. You can take a walk to cool down, listen to some relaxing music, or talk with a trusted colleague.
11. Excuse yourself from the conflict situation to get some distance, but reassure the other person that you will come back to deal with the matter.
12. Be mindful. Mindfulness helps shift your preoccupation with thoughts toward an appreciation of the moment. As you connect mindfully with your physical and emotional sensations, you gain a larger perspective on the conflict. Mindfulness calms and focuses you, making you more self-aware in the conflict-management process.

Conflicts follow a progression and will get worse if they are unresolved. Therefore, preparation is at the heart of any conflict-management conversation. When you mismanage conflict, it can cause great harm. When you handle conflict in a positive and respectful way, it can actually help both employees grow and get better. First, avoid thinking about the other person as the enemy. The best way to do this is to focus on the conflict at hand and not pay attention to differences in personalities. You will believe that your position is fair, reasonable, and right, but it’s likely that the other person will, too. You should avoid attacking your opponent personally. You should remember that when others feel threatened, they will defend their position and make collaboration more difficult. It would help if you worked to separate the person and the problem in your mind. This separation will allow you to be more objective. The next step in the preparation phase is to carefully evaluate the conflict itself. Below are the questions you can answer to think through the conflict situation. Before meeting with the other person in the conflict, answer the following questions:

1. What are your goals, positions, and underlying interests?
2. What is the best resolution you can expect?
3. What is a fair and reasonable deal, and what is a minimally acceptable agreement?
4. What information do you have, and what do you need?
5. What are your competitive advantages and disadvantages?
6. What are the other person’s advantages and disadvantages?
7. What is the minimum I can accept to resolve the conflict?
8. What is the maximum I can ask for without appearing outrageous?
9. What is the maximum I will be willing to give away?
10. What is the least I can offer without appearing to have outrageous demands?
11. What are some of the questions the other person might have?
12. What are some of the workable compromises I can bring with me to the meeting?
13. Are my expectations so rigid that they will hinder the conflict-resolution process?
14. What misperceptions do I have of the other person?
15. What are my goals for the relationship?

From the above information, you should understand the following:

1. You will know your strongest and weakest points related to the conflict. You should be clear about what is important to you, your realistic goals, and your real issues. This information will provide you with a competitive advantage.
2. You will know the strongest and weakest points of the other person in the conflict. You should also conduct research to view the conflict situation from the other person’s perspective. It will be to your benefit to remember that in most conflict situations, you will probably have a continuing relationship with the other person.
3. You will explore your needs and goals and be willing to break off negotiations if you feel like the other person is unwilling to compromise. When you do this, you adopt a "minimum-maximum strategy."
4. You will identify the best way to conclude the conflict meeting. Remember that it is essential to leave the session with both sides feeling good about the result. It is imperative that the other person doesn’t feel angry or frustrated. When other employees feel this way, they often lack commitment to the agreement or seek to retaliate.

It would be best if you sustained a positive attitude throughout the conflict-management process. Some of the components of a positive mindset include:

1. A Constructive Attitude: In conflict situations, an attitude of being totally and unconditionally constructive is not only useful but essential. A constructive attitude means that regardless of what the other person does, you act in a positive manner. It is possible that others might act in ways to get their needs met at your expense. Even in situations where others will not engage or use unethical techniques, you should adopt a constructive attitude throughout the conflict-resolution process. This type of attitude means merely behaving "as if" the others in the dispute will also be constructive. This attitude is infectious and assists in the process of gaining a win-win solution to the conflict.
2. A Focus on the Present: You should let go of any grudges you might be harboring based on past interactions with the person. These grudges can alter your reality of the current situation. You should stop assigning blame and focus on how you and the other person can solve the conflict in the here-and-now.
3. An Ability to Show Empathy: Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference. Empathy is the capacity to place yourself in another’s position. You can show empathy by putting yourself in the shoes of the person with whom you have a conflict. How does the other person see the situation? What does the other person believe to be the problem? Answering these types of questions helps you get to the root of the problem much quicker and easier.
4. An Awareness of Your Negative Thinking: You will have many negative thoughts during a conflict. You should try to turn negative thoughts into positive ones to maintain a positive mindset. Some of the negative thoughts you might have include,
5. "Conflict is bad."
6. "We will air terrible things."
7. "I will forever affect the spirit of my team."
8. "My co-workers will be angry at me."
9. "I will just have to live with things the way they are."

When you are in a meeting to resolve a conflict, please remember that emotions may run high. So, you should do everything you can to keep your mind and body in a state of attention and focus, mental alertness, and calmness that lets you work well even in stressful conflict situations.

1. Maintain a rational, goal-oriented frame of mind: Even if the other person verbally attacks you, you should never allow the other person to push you to react emotionally.
2. Emphasize win-win solutions: Even in what appear to be win-lose situations, you should always search for win-win solutions. You can do so by collaborating to reach alternative solutions, seeking concessions of value to the other person, and reframing options to appeal more to the other person.
3. Find common interests: You can try to understand the other person’s underlying interests and needs. By asking good questions and exchanging information, you can find commonalities and minimize the differences that seem to be evident. By finding common interests, you can open up the possibility of greater collaboration.
4. Use an objective standard: You should ensure that you and the other person use a mutually-agreed-upon objective standard in reaching an agreement. Make your negotiated decision based on principles and facts, not emotions or suppositions. You can suggest objective criteria that both parties can use to evaluate alternatives. An objective approach helps you avoid trying to please the other person and promotes assertive behavior and communication.

A BATNA represents the course of action that you will take if conflict-management conversations fail and no agreement is reached. There are several steps to exploring your best BATNAs:

Step 1: Decide what you want to get out of the conversation about managing conflicts, and be clear about it.

Step 2: Brainstorm all possible alternatives you can use during the negotiation.

Step 3: Evaluate each alternative to identify the best options. You can do this by conducting research and assessing each option carefully.

Step 4: Set the reservation point at which the negotiation will not be profitable.

When there is a conflict, you need to build rapport and keep it going until the problem is solved. You will find the following behaviors particularly helpful in building rapport:

1. When you are sitting, slightly lean forward toward the person with whom you are talking. Maintain open body language, with hands open and arms and legs uncrossed.
2. Look directly at the other person and remember the importance of eye contact. Give plenty of eye contact, but be careful not to stare and make the other person feel uncomfortable.
3. Be genuine, with both visual and verbal behaviors working together to maximize the impact of your communication.
4. Be receptive and smile.

In a conflict, you will get the best results when you are assertive. Assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive. When you are assertive, you say what you think in a clear, direct way while still showing respect for other people. Communicating in an assertive way, instead of in a passive, aggressive, or passive-aggressive way, can help you get more positive results without speaking on the spot. Let’s take a look at each of these ways of communicating in a conflict situation:

1. Passive: Passive communication exists when you put other people’s needs before your own. When you communicate passively, you express yourself timidly and weakly. When you communicate passively, you will not achieve your desired goals, and you will feel hurt, anxious, and angry. When you communicate this way, you will have difficulty expressing what you want and need due to the conflict.
2. Aggressive: Aggressive communication in a conflict interaction consists of harmful messages intended to inflict damage or harm. When you express yourself aggressively, you often feel better initially, but this feeling usually lasts only a short time and is replaced by frustration and guilt.
3. Passive-Aggressive: Passive-aggressive communication involves speaking in ways that are indirectly aggressive rather than directly aggressive. Passive-aggressive employees are resistant to requests and demonstrate this through procrastination, insults, and backhanded compliments. When you express yourself passive-aggressively, you often feel sneaky and without satisfaction.
4. Assertive: Assertive communication involves standing up for your own and other people’s rights calmly and positively. When you are assertive, you get your point across without upsetting others or becoming upset by others. By expressing yourself assertively, you can stand up for your needs and interests before losing control and speaking emotionally.

These are the ways in which you can stop Eris from damaging your peaceful workplace. But we need to learn some things from her leaving that will help us avoid conflict in the future. Let us understand what Eris is telling us:

1. Conflicts linger because the parties involved wait for the other party. All conflicts come from the same source, and when we are unable to identify the source, we inadvertently stoke the fire we are trying to put out.
2. We want to fix our children, change our spouses, correct our employees, and discipline those who behave disorderly. But most problems in life need more than a little correction to disappear. If your interaction with others is primarily to get them to change, you will not elicit change in them.
3. It is by living to help things go right, rather than simply correcting things, that you become a change agent.
4. In all our interactions, we are choosing to see people as either humans or objects. How we see others determines how we relate to them. When they are objects to us, we want to fix them. However, when we see them as humans, our hearts are at peace with them. They are no longer inferior, but equal.
5. When we act compulsively, we make our lives more difficult. Successful negotiators are those who understand the other side's concerns as much as their own. When your heart is at war, you will respond to objections raised by others in a hostile manner. This hostility will produce more hostility in an unending cycle.
6. It is a failure in our way of being that creates problems in our lives, not a failure of strategy.
7. Collusion differs from conflict in that it involves active participation, while conflict is passive. We attract failure when we have warring hearts. By seeing others as objects, we are asking them to make our lives difficult. We begin to provoke in others the things we say we hate.
8. When we gather allies, we develop a propensity to demonize others by lumping them into lifeless categories. Masses of unknown people become objects for us
9. You may believe you're on the right side of a conflict until you become open to how you might be mistaken at a much deeper level.
10. Our behavior or positions might be right, but we may be mistaken in our way of being. While your attitude or response may be justified, you need to ask if your perception of the people you're acting towards is correct.
11. We choose war when we act contrary to our sense of what is appropriate. This choice is an act of self-betrayal.
12. We don't always choose to do what we know is the right thing to do. Sometimes, we know we need to apologize to someone, but we choose to withhold that apology with an explanation to justify our decision. When we betray ourselves in this way, we create a new need within, a need to see others accusingly and to care about something other than truth and solutions. Then, we invite others to do the same in response. That need has to be justified.
13. When we see other people, we want to help them, but when we dehumanize them, we create a need to justify ourselves for violating the truth about our humanity. We inflate others' faults in our minds and hearts when we betray ourselves.
14. Our self justification styles vary from one person to another. The four most common styles of justification are as follows:

a. The "better-than" style of justification

b. The "I deserve" style of justification

c. The "need-to-be-seen-as" style of justification

d. The "worse-than" style of justification"

15. "Self-betrayal" is an act of violating your sensibilities toward another person to see them, yourself, and the world differently. Honoring a sense of duty to help someone does not mean you will ultimately be able to help them. However, the experience is different when you are unable to help because you are unwilling to help. When you're willing but unable to help, you start with a desire. But when you're unwilling to help, the desire disappears, and you enter any of the boxes to explain why you did not help. They stop making themselves victims and start inviting others to make the positive changes that they are making. When we surrender, we surrender to the lie that things cannot change. The justification wins. The way to go is to determine the change you want to see.

16. Where interpersonal conflicts are concerned, having a heart at peace and taking action to make things better will defuse the situation. Wanting others to change by correcting things that are inaccurate is not wrong, but insisting that they change when we are not willing to consider how we might need to change too is wrong.

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