Personality type and handling conflict. Suggestions for working with others when conflict arises. If you've taken the MBTI assessment before and participated in a workshop led by a certified MBTI practitioner, you may remember the Myers-Briggs assessment is designed to help identify inborn predispositions, better known as preferences, while many other personality inventories are designed to measure behavioral habits or traits.
The best way to think of preferences is to think about how it feels when you write your name with your dominant hand and then switch to write your name with your other hand. While you can likely write with both, you prefer to write with your dominant hand. And I bet your handwriting looks better too when you do that.
MBTI bases these inborn predispositions on four pairs of opposite preferences. Extroversion or introversion, or how we view the world around us. Sensing or intuition.
And notice intuition is represented by an N, not an I. Or how we take in information, thinking or feeling, or how we make decisions, and judging or perceiving, or how we plan and complete tasks. These four preference pairs generate 16 different MBTI type codes.
Research shows that it's the last two letters in the four-letter type code which has the greatest impact on how one manages conflict. These are known as conflict pairs and represent the combination of one's decision-making preference for thinking or feeling and one's lifestyle preference for judging or perceiving. There are four possible conflict pairs. Feeling and perceiving, feeling and judging, thinking and perceiving, and thinking and judging. To put this in perspective, you could be in a room with three other people having to work through a conflict.
Each person could have a completely different view on what caused the conflict and what the outcome should look like. Each of these four are also going to deal with emotions through this process differently, will view others roles in the conflict differently, and will have a completely different definition of what success will look like at the end. It took me a few minutes to process this, but once I gave it some thought, it's no wonder why working through conflict is so difficult. So let's take a look at each conflict parent's summary, and then I'll share some ways in which to work with each of these conflict styles. An individual with preferences for feeling and perceiving will be triggered when their values or something they hold dear is challenged.
During conflict, they are often appreciative of those who respect their values and ideas. They also deal with the emotions of others by being accepting of them. and they are seen by others as being inclusive of the values and concerns of others. The process is successful when a safe environment is established in which there is an opportunity to explore everyone's viewpoints. An individual's preferences for feeling and judging will be triggered in conflict when their belief system is challenged, slightly different to those with a preference for perceiving.
At the end of the conflict, They are going to want to see relationships among those involved to be able to remain intact. The emotions of an FJ can be intense and are likely to encourage others to share their feelings and opinions. People can tell that FJs want to communicate in hopes that it leads to harmony among the group with no lasting bitterness at the end. An individual with preferences for thinking and perceiving will be triggered in a conflict when they perceive their trust or their credibility is challenged. During conflict, TPs tend to want to progress through the issues and in doing so will exclude emotions in that pursuit.
This may be done without regards to others feelings and may result in the feelings of others if the TP is a contributor to the conflict. As success to a TP looks like clarification. they are often satisfied when they are able to analyze the outcome.
An individual's preferences for thinking and judging come into conflict when issues pertaining to authority come up. They typically want to have the conflict come up as soon as it arises. TJs often overlook emotions during that conflict as if they don't even exist, though theirs may shift several times throughout. TJs don't have to win the conflict, They are just satisfied simply when that conflict is resolved. You're not going to know the conflict pairs of everyone you're working with.
However, there is a process in moving through a conflict which honors the strengths of each preference and can in turn make the situation easier for all involved. This is done through the use of a three-stage conflict management model. Creating space, adding value, and seeking closure.
In the NVTI conflict style report, stage 1, or creating space, involves bringing the views, ideas, and opinions of all vested parties into the dialogue. This means taking time to gather relevant facts and check to verify assumptions. Here, it's essential to truly understand all points of view and explore what they might mean.
This requires active listening, suspending judgment or conclusions until all relevant data have been collected. This process is closely aligned. with those with the perceiving preference. In creating space, it's important to have the expectation that conflict is going to happen. Leanne Davey wrote a great article in Harvard Business Review and reminds us that certain groups within an organization should be designed to have conflict with one another.
Think about how many cringe a bit when they have to submit a request to finance. Justin Barzio of Inc. Magazine shares a strategy applied by Jeff...
Bezos in meetings in that they start with silence. People have the opportunity to read any materials provided and process what they've read. These practices can support active listening and help to ensure that all voices are heard later on.
In the MBTI conflict style report, stage 2, where adding value involves developing a deeper appreciation of how our decision-making preference, T or F, affects how we may act during conflict. Here we acknowledge the contribution of our natural preference augmented by the contribution of the opposite preference. Those with a thinking preference do well to see matters from a feeling perspective, and those with a feeling preference from a thinking perspective.
Individuals draw conclusions and make decisions in different ways, and it's important to understand the perspectives of others in meetings. Amy Lou Abernathy, Creative Director of Learning for AMP Creative, shares four steps the process of perspective taking. First, to seek understanding, which involves putting yourself in another person's shoes to determine how they see the issue. The second step, ideation, involves imagining all the possibilities. This step is actually facilitated through activities like the period of silence illustrated earlier.
In the third step, Hypothesizing drives us to narrow down all these possibilities from the ideation step and anticipate possible outcomes. The final step allows us to adjust our assumptions based on the first three steps to be able to connect and collaborate with those with whom we are in conflict. In the MBTI Conflict Style Report, Stage 3, Seeking Closure, involves recognizing when it's time to evolve, move on, by summarizing what's happened to date. and agreeing on the next and hopefully final steps towards resolution. The notion of closure is closely aligned with the judging preference.
Remember, closure looks different for each conflict pair. If done appropriately, the process of creating space and adding value will pave the way to closure for all. Make sure the next steps are carefully framed though and that all agree on what those steps are. I hope this has helped for you to have a better understanding of your conflict pair and how you can leverage your own strengths and weaknesses to manage conflict moving forward.