Part III: Collaborative Competencies
Components of Effective Communication
Effective communication in collaborative conflict engagement involves attending to four components:
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- Content: What the conflict is about ‑ the substantive aspects of what we need to resolve e.g., budget, timeline, roles and responsibilities.
- Process: The way in which we structure or organize our engagement with each other as we try to resolve the conflict, e.g., how and when to meet, how we share information, how we make decisions.
- Relationship: How we treat each other, or how we demonstrate respect, validation, concern and positive intention toward the other (or not).
- Emotion: How we feel about the above components: content, process and relationship, either positively, negatively or both.
Ironically, when in conflict, we often focus on the substantive problems (content) to the detriment of process or relationship. This can create negative emotions regarding process and relationship that people will attach to content, regardless of their origin.
Achieving the balance between Content, Process, Relationship and Emotion, requires the following:
Management of self:
- Be aware of your own resistance and defensiveness.
- Use positive self-talk and self-regulation.
- Remain curious.
Communication skills:
- Facilitation:
- Non-defensive listening
- Questions and probes
- Empathic response, reframing, summarizing
- Assertion:
- ‘I’ messages
- Descriptive language
- Objective and specific language
Dealing with resistance and defensiveness:
- Focus on the other person.
- Acknowledge their feelings.
- Build trust and rapport.
- Identify underlying needs and motivators.