Clear and Accurate self-assessment
- Uses ‘best-practice' 16+ style model
- Identifies how conflict behaviour shifts under stress
- Profile includes comprehensive de-briefing material
- Full support material in the Facilitator’s Guide.
The 16+Conflict objective
To increase not only awareness about conflict management, but also to increase competencies and provide diagnostic tools for participants.
The 16+Conflict solution
The 16+ Conflict Style Profile, provided the questions are answered honestly, respondents will get a real value from the instrument.
The Profile uses 16 dimensions to identify Usual conflict style(s), as well as additional interpreting factors that give insights into:
- Primary motivation in conflict situations
- Open or guarded use of information.
Your participants will understand how they respond to stress and how this impacts on how they manage conflict situations. Being able to predict means being able to manage and to choose. This is a key competence for conflict management.
De-briefing and Action Planning
The 16 styles each have 1 full page of style descriptors, including the behaviour shift under stress.
Naturally, you need to be able to turn awareness into action, and the Profile contains a 6 page section that focuses personal improvement and action planning.
Theoretical Background
Much has been written on the subject of conflict management. Especially well regarded is the work of Kenneth Thomas ('Conflict and Conflict Management', 1976). In this work, Thomas identifies 2 dimensions which are identified as influencing conflict-handling styles. They are:
Assertiveness
The extent to which an individual attempts to satisfy his or her own concerns
Cooperativeness
The extent to which an individual attempts to satisfy the other person’s concerns.
However, these definitions of 'assertiveness' and 'cooperativeness' are not ones shared by most other major authors. A more common view of assertiveness is that of Ken and Kate Back ('Assertiveness at Work', 1982) who see it as having regard for both parties’ interests, not just self. Similarly, cooperativeness, or to be grammatically correct 'co-operation', is generally regarded (even by the Oxford dictionary) as being more closely aligned with the degree to which an individual is prepared to work with other people rather than necessarily for other people’s interests.
16+Conflict revisits and indeed builds upon the Thomas model and identifies 4 separate scales, each of which has a distinct and important influence on an individual’s approach to conflict. These are:
- The extent to which an individual is prepared to accept an idea without question
- The extent to which an individual is prepared to work with others
- The extent to which an individual is prepared to share any rewards with others
- The extent to which an individual is prepared to share information with others.
