By Barbara Babcock

When you experience, deal with and manage conflict, who are you, what do you notice going on inside of you and what is your style? These were some of the questions posed at a recent workshop on how coaching can make a difference to conflict in the workplace.

Other questions at the workshop sponsored by the UK International Coach Federation (ICF) with Coaching Development on 22 November included: ´´What are you assuming about yourself and the other person?”; “How do you prevent and resolve conflict?”, and “How do you turn conflict into an opportunity, into greater awareness and choice? The overarching theme for the day´s three sessions was how we are with ourselves in body and mind when we experience and deal with conflict, how we notice that and what we do with it when working with our clients and in our own situations.

Philip Brew of Coaching Development focused on the prevention of conflict and how that comes down to the individual – how we stay whole in the face of change, difference and challenge and stay connected and available to ourselves and others. One way to do this is to use our ability to contract
with clients – co-designing the relationship to create awareness and choice – in other aspects of our working lives, he suggested.

Ed Modell, ICF president elect 2011, and Merle Rockwell spoke about how to handle conflict. A starting point for ourselves and managers we work with is recognising our own conflict management style. Simple techniques for a manager as coach to have a courageous conversation can start with the question, ‘Something is on my mind?’ or ‘Is now a good time?’, followed by empathetic listening, brainstorming by asking questions and drawing out the employee’s best way of dealing with the issue.

Aboodi Shabi, of Newfield and founding co-president of the UK ICF, focused on how to manage yourself when you are dealing with conflict. The delegates learned this by coaching someone else in dealing with conflict, noticing what was going on inside themselves and reflecting that back to their client.

Barbara Babcock is a coach and a member of the UK ICF chapter