CONFLICT COMPONENTS - UNDERLYING NEEDS

WHILE WE ARE KEEPING SOCIAL DISTANCE AND HAVE A LOT OF TIME ON OUR HANDS, LET’S DO SOME CONFLICT RESOLUTION…

CONFLICT COMPONENTS - UNDERLYING NEEDS

Underlying Needs and Conflict

Human needs drive conflict

Our lives are made up of the drive to satisfy needs. From the human need for food, water and sleep to the need for fulfilling relationships and the need for meaningful work, we can trace our life history through the process of meeting our needs.

Does having needs mean I'm needy?

The language plays tricks on us in this case. Being needy has come to mean that we aren't self sufficient and it has a bad connotation. That's different than what we do all day, every day for 24 hours a day. We satisfy our needs.

Need for Connection--I'll call my sister. Need to quench my Thirst--get a drink of water. Need for Security-check that I locked the car door. Need for increased Comfort--Turn up the heat. Need for Rest--go to sleep. All those bold words above are needs. We are so used to how the day goes, we don't really notice them, but they are there.

Not just you, everyone else.

Its enough for most of us to just get through the day and strive to meet our own needs. Yet, right alongside all of us are other people in our lives and with whom we interact who are doing the exact same thing. Working to satisfy their own needs. And although we are all human and have similar needs, they don't always intersect gracefully. By you working to meet your own needs, you are impacting on my ability to meet my needs. So we have conflicts.

Look through the needs lens

It's helpful to start to think about the actions of others in terms of meeting needs. Just making use of this lens helps to open up a whole new way of seeing what others are doing--especially when they are in conflict with our own way of thinking. Here's the way to use this lens.

• The other person is doing/has done something with which I am in conflict (fill in the blank)______________

• What's my need?____________

• What do I think is the other person's need?____________.

Needs are not good or bad

This process doesn't work if you are going to then allow yourself to negatively judge other's needs. Needs just are needs. They aren't good or bad. Sometimes what seems like one need on the surface ends up being an underlying need that is something entirely different, and if we get up close and learn more about the other person, they are just trying the best they can to meet their own needs.

In the 1940s Maslow came up with the idea of the Hierarchy of Needs, meaning that there are some basic foundational needs and other levels that layer on top of those. Maslow thought it was a step by step process, but since then we have seen it can be much more random than that. See the image below for the basic idea of this.

Present public health crisis

Our needs quickly shifted a few weeks ago. We may have been seeking to meet our need for self-fulfillment and enlightenment and then with a swiftness we never expected, our needs today are more focused on the basics of food and safety. This moment is difficult for everyone and our coping skills are being put to the test. It may be a good environment for becoming more aware of the concepts of needs--your own and others.

Do this:

• Start to walk through your days using the needs lens. Here's a list of needs--many more than you likely thought of. Big list of needs.

• Read this short article reviewing the connection between needs and conflict. Underlying needs

• Video describing Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Maslow's hierarchy of needs video

WEDNESDAY SKILL: LEARN TO USE NEUTRAL LANGUAGE

WHILE WE ARE KEEPING SOCIAL DISTANCE AND HAVE A LOT OF TIME ON OUR HANDS, LET’S DO SOME CONFLICT RESOLUTION…

WEDNESDAY SKILL: LEARN TO USE NEUTRAL LANGUAGE

Language Matters:

Turn accusations into questions

Paulo Freire, Brazilian educational theorist, famously said "language is not neutral." Linguists agree with this, all language and vocabulary have some intention, shade of meaning, implication, cultural effect. So then should we give up on improving our language use? No way.

Turn accusations into questions

Even without much change in vocabulary, a really great way to create a better foundation for positive conflict resolution, is to reorient accusations. Turn accusations, even if you are pretty certain that the conclusion is correct, into an open and sincere question.

Here's some examples of accusations:

• You took the car even though you knew I needed it!

• I know you tried to undermine me and set me up with the boss!

• You always expect me to pay and you know I can't afford it!

• I know you are trying to steal my boyfriend, I saw how you looked at him!

Sound familiar?

How do you reorient an accusation?

Step One. Start with the beginning of the sentence. Look above at the list, they all begin with "You," "You always" or "I know." What happens to a person when they hear a statement that starts that way? We are generally on guard. Right from the beginning it seems to be setting up the weaponry to lob a missile--the other person gets ready to fight, defend or take cover. Not such a great way to begin to communicate, right?

Instead start with a few open-ended question stems:

• I wonder...

• I've been thinking about...

• I've got a question...

• Would you help me to understand...

These beginnings and many others, provide an invitation to the other person to communicate and participate.

Step Two--Tone and attitude

Next, let's remove the exclamation point, which requires a lowered tone. If you are initiating the conversation, the necessity is for calmness and openness and not rushing forward headlong. And to put your assumptions aside and be open to the possibility that what you are concluding might be faulty.

To lower your tone, you need to ask yourself, 'Am I trying to hurt the other person or am I trying to solve the problem?' If you honestly want to hurt the other person, take a break, re-evaluate, focus on why you want to ultimately preserve the connection. Then, when you are calm, try the next step.

Step three-- Revise

The third step is to reorient the accusation and turn it into a question. The statements above then become:

• I wonder if you took the car even though you knew I needed it? or I wonder why you took the car? Did you know that I needed it?

• I've been thinking about this...I know you tried it seemed like you were trying to undermine me. Did you try to set me up with the boss? or Did you think about how this would affect me with the boss?

• Would you help me to understand...You always it seems to me that you expect me to pay and you know I can't afford it? or Did you know that I can't afford it?

• I know you are trying to steal my boyfriend, I've got a question..I saw how you looked at him .... I'm wondering...what did that mean?

Remove You, You always and I know

Unless someone says "You are the most amazing person" (Say this more!) or "I know where some great dessert is" (Yum) or "You always have the best ideas (Thanks); work to remove these starts to any communication. They don't work.

It is so difficult to change habits, don't be hard on yourself. Setting up the intention to try a new way of talking is the first step--and every journey starts right there.

Do this:

• Think about how you start a difficult conversation. Are you setting up a war or conversation? Consider how you start things off. Put some effort into working to set up an invitation with your words and remove accusations.

• Search for accusations in your daily life. Try to see if you can use the tools above to transform them.

• Or read a related article on communication Intimate relationships or Workplace relationships.

There are a lot of further topics within this discussion. Look for future articles on Judgement, Blame/Shame, Pride, Defensiveness, Assumptions, Loaded questions and Better questioning among others. Do you have a topic, let us know.

Good luck with your journey.