Jan 11
20
Dealing with Conflicts Online
“Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.” William James. You should use conflict to learn from each other in your relationships.
It is inevitable, no matter how easy going knowledgeable you are, that you will eventually have some sort of conflict in your online business relationships. The presence of conflict is not important. What is important is what you do about that conflict. The most productive and positive thing that you can do is to address the conflict directly and to learn from it together. That approach will undoubtedly strengthen your relationship with the other person and will lead to more substantial interactions and more business.
Conflict Resolution has been around for an extremely long time. In fact, it is a subject that is routinely taught in school. Children learn from a very early age that there there are certain ways to approach a conflict so that both sides end up being able to accept the outcome or resolution. There are different approaches to dealing with conflict. There is not one approach that is better than another. They are just different and you will choose which approach works best for you depending on who you are as a person and what works most effectively for you.
- Collaborating: This is an approach that works in most situations. With collaboration, you are looking at both sides carefully and you do your best to meet the needs of both parties. It works well because the opinions and feelings of both sides are considered equally important. In that case, there is a likelihood that nobody will feel that they have won or lost. There is a true equality that will have been achieved. The outcome is generally positive and your relationship will be strengthened. If you are able to identify the positive aspects of the other person’s viewpoint and build from there, you stand to really strengthen the bond between you on a long-term basis.
- Compromising: Compromising is a sensible approach as long as both people are giving up something that is not that important to them (or at least that they can live without). From an extremely early age, you were taught that if you wanted to get anywhere in life, you would need to learn how to compromise. That is true for personal relationships as well as professional ones.
- Accommodating: This approach does not necessarily work as well as collaborating because one of the two people is in a position of having to give up more than the other. The equality is missing from this approach. Needless to say, both people will walk away understanding that the conflict has been resolved but there is a guarantee that there will not be equal satisfaction on both sides.
- Competing: Sometimes, healthy competition is an excellent way to resolve conflict; however, one of the two people will walk away from the conflict feeling a great deal more satisfied than the other one. Competition only works if both people completely accept the idea that there will be one winner and one loser and that the person who loses must walk away without any resentment.
- Avoiding: This is the least recommended approach when it comes to resolving conflict. If you wait long enough, the conflict will seem as though it has disappeared. However, it is inevitable that another conflict that was similar to the first one will arise at some point in the future. If you don’t find a more effective way of dealing with it, you will continue to experience the same unsatisfactory results over and over again.
Conclusion
The common misconception is that conflict is always a bad thing, whether is it in your personal relationships or your business relationships. As long as you handle conflict constructively, it can be beneficial to you. Conflict, in and of itself, is not always a negative thing. You have the ability to turn it into a constructive, positive experience that will allow you to strengthen your online relationships and lay new groundwork together. You will see that your relationships will be harmonious and mutually beneficial.
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About the Author. Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications LLC. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies.
Mr. Cohn founded CompuKol Communications to help small businesses and entrepreneurs increase their exposure and reputation on the Internet. CompuKol consults, creates, and implements communication strategies for small businesses to monopolize their markets with a unique business voice, vision, and visibility.
Prior to that, Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company’s Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity.
His expertise includes social media marketing strategies; internet marketing; web presence design; business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.
Mr. Cohn earned a Master’s degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master’s degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.
Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).You might also like:
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