When an individual is facing a conflict and struggling to deal with it, conflict coaching may be an excellent opportunity to learn about conflict resolution and master skills to make resolving the conflict a more ascertainable goal. Conflict coaching is a one-on-one experience where a professional works with an individual to help them manage and handle conflict.
Many federal agencies and large business organizations require that their supervisory employees undergo conflict coaching to help create a conflict-effective culture. Going through conflict coaching allows a person to feel more at ease when dealing with conflict, but it can also be used to help an individual deal with a particular conflict. Because of its usefulness in resolving short- and long-term disputes, organizations need to understand how conflict coaching can help.
This article explains the conflict coaching process so that anyone considering the option may understand how it works. It ends with discussing conflict coaching training and how to become a certified conflict coach.
Conflict Coaching Defined
As mentioned above, conflict coaching is an individualized approach to addressing and understanding conflict. It helps people feel comfortable responding to and working with others through conflict. The process teaches skills and teaching to help familiarize the person receiving the coaching with conflict management and the resolution process. It can be a general conflict management skills training or tailored to help a person work through a specific conflict.
When dealing with a generalized conflict coaching session, they will likely move through a process that addresses the individual’s needs. However, when assisting a party in dealing with conflict they are experiencing concurrently, they will often follow a procedure to help the client identify areas of concern and move past them and through the conflict.
Conflict Coaching Procedure
While each conflict coach has their unique style of moving through a conflict coaching process, when dealing with a specific conflict, many coaches will walk the client through the following process.
Step Zero: Conflict Arises
Before conflict-specific conflict coaching can begin, there needs to be an unresolved conflict. This can be a small or large conflict, but once it happens, the parties will have trouble resolving the issues, which can occur for various reasons that the conflict coach will help the client discern. The stalemate in the conflict often drives one of the parties to seek answers to resolve the conflict and encounter conflict coaching. The conflicts most frequently brought to coaching occur in invaluable personal or business relationships where the dispute needs resolution, but the parties have an issue with it.
Step One: Build Trust
For a party to feel comfortable with the process, the coach must build trust in themselves and the process. The client must feel like they have a space to discuss their conflict. The coach will often begin the first session with small talk, letting the client share their life and communication before examining the conflict. These conflict management strategies help the client feel comfortable discussing the dispute with the coach and genuinely heard.
It also allows the coach to see how to make the process more accessible to the client through their specific communication style. After the small talk, the coach will explain the coaching process to the client and answer any questions. This includes hearing about client expectations for the process and ensuring the client understands its limitations.
Step Two: Goals
After the client understands the process, the coach often asks them to identify goals they want to achieve. This includes goals for the entire process and the current meeting. One of the general goals is usually to talk about the conflict and identify ways to address or resolve it. This helps steer the coach toward topics and ideas that may be helpful for the client and avoid issues that may harm the progress they made. These goals are always changeable, as one discussion may bring up other problems that must be addressed.
Step Three: Empathize
After establishing the goals, the coach and client will often walk through the chain of events that led to the conflict together. This can be difficult for the client, mainly if the conflict involves a personal relationship worth saving. There are often strong emotions when clients describe the conflict. The coach will frequently ask the client questions about their feelings and why things affected them as they did.
After hearing and acknowledging the client’s perspective, many coaches will have the client speak about the dispute from the perspective of the other person or people involved. This process is often prompted by several questions from the coach that allow the client to see the other’s feelings and the motivations for their actions. If done well, it can shift the course of the dispute and possibly encourage resolution.
Step Four: Options
Once the client feels that they have sufficiently told their story and the coach thinks that they have fully considered the other’s point of view, they will begin to explore options for resolution. This step relies on the client to find possible solutions, and the coach helps them evaluate the options, often by helping the client identify the criteria through which they need to consider the possibilities.
After these conflict coaching sessions, the coach will guide the client through examining the options compared to the criteria and determining the most vital option. Again, the client comes up with solutions and the requirements to evaluate the solutions based on their perspective and experience, and the coach guides them to make those discoveries.
Step Four and a Half: Interim
When conflict coaching takes place over two or more sessions, this is often where the pair aims to be when they conclude their first session. Determining the best option allows the client to continue considering it and how it may work before acting. They will often take this time at the end of the session to set goals for the next session and establish where they would like to take the conversation.
Coaches may also suggest ways for the client to figure out how to execute their resolution strategy, such as coming up with everything they need to say to the other party when they meet. This will help encourage the client to consider the option and how to address the problem specifically.
Step Five: Practice
Once the coach and client have a plan of action, they will often practice how a conversation may go through role-play. The coach will invite the client to a conversation in which they pretend to be the other party hearing and responding to it. The pair will typically agree on how they would like to conduct the conversation—either the entire conversation to make it as accurate as possible or interrupting it to point out ways it could be better.
They will often run through the conversation a few times, brainstorming ways to improve the communication to ensure that the feelings of both parties are honored, but the necessary points are also made. By the end of this step, the client should feel confident in moving forward.
Step Six: Moving Forward
Once the coach and client have made a plan, they will often establish a course of action, such as when and how the client will invite the other party into a conversation or other options to resolve the conflict. They will also often make a plan to stay in communication while the dispute is being resolved and to provide updates after the client can address the conflict and has an update.
The coach will usually remind the client that they can assist in the conflict moving forward if any more help is needed and let the client leave feeling empowered to address the conflict effectively. If all goes well, the final step will be resolving the dispute.
Becoming a Certified Conflict Coach
If leading another person through the process above sounds exciting or if you are in a position where you need to deal with conflict among others often, it may be beneficial to become a certified conflict coach and help others with your expertise. It is not necessary to be certified to be a conflict coach, but many clients appreciate the knowledge that comes with being certified. While each agency that certifies conflict coaches has a different approach, the most common steps are usually a combination of training and experience with conflict coaching.
The process usually begins with the coach going through a course that teaches the candidate skills to use in conflict coaching and how to appropriately interact with clients to ensure that the client feels empowered to resolve their conflict by the end of the time. After training, the candidate will usually complete one or more coaching sessions with a client and record them for a trainer to evaluate.
Part of this will also include reflecting on the session and how it could be improved. Finally, after the evaluator passes the recorded session, the candidate will need to present evidence of good character and will then be certified. While it does require some training at the outset, getting involved with the alternative dispute resolution realm is more manageable if that interests you.
Conclusion
Conflict coaching is a beneficial way for people to gain skills and insight into resolving and addressing conflict in the future. It allows clients to talk through the process of resolving the dispute before they try to fix it to evaluate any areas that may need to be addressed and causes the client to empathize with the other party’s point of view.
Conflict coaching is invaluable in helping resolve conflict when only one side is committed to seeking outside help. It also allows the client to share their concerns and feel their emotions outside of attempts to resolve the dispute. Conflict coaching training provides a valuable path to conflict resolution and is worth considering if a conflict is plaguing your life.
To learn more about conflict coaching, conflict resolution, and more, contact ADR Times!
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