Skip to content

Conflict Management Starts with Self

  • 9 min read

<1609 words>

Recipe for Conflict

A minimum of two people and an issue on which they disagree.

Add to the recipe the factors that the people each bring into the relationship:

Values, Culture & Triggers

Our values are what we judge to be important in life: our personal principles.  The rules we live by. They typically originate in our culture but over time our values may shift as our relationship with our culture shifts (e.g. young adults and their elderly parents may share a culture but have very different values as regards to how kids are raised; dealing with garbage; ethnic diversity, and so on).

“Culture is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others.”[1]

Triggers: What sets you off causes a quick change in your mood/attitude, rooted often in values or cultural practices you hold dear would be called a trigger.  For example a South African grandmother whose half-Japanese grandson slurps his tea.  Tea slurping is what one does in Japanese culture.  Not so in ‘polite society’ in South Africa.

Conflict Style & Skill Level

Read More »Conflict Management Starts with Self