Zowie, workplace conflict is costly!

Dealing with conflict in the workplace takes up to 60% of human resource managers time, according to an article by Rachel Zupek on Careerbulder.com.   And, the number of incidents of employee violence has been increasing. 

Her article encourages a sensible approach to dealing with conflict, she gives a list of well researched, common sense ways to deal with conflict.    Check them out at cnn.com/living

The article really just skimmed the surface of the issue, of course. But if you really want to fully understand what is happening during workplace conflicts, you need to understand how the Cycle of Egocentrism works.

Conflict Resolution

One of her sources, Gus Stieber, national director of sales for Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, a professional services company says; “Avoid retreating to the safety of withdrawal, avoidance or the simplistic view that your co-worker is a "bad person." Zupek goes on to say “These are defense mechanisms that prevent the resolution of conflict.” 

The Cycle of Egocentrism

Here, Stieber is talking about the Cycle of Egocentrism.  It’s easy to think we are avoiding this kid of “defense mechanism” but most of the time we do it so automatically we don’t even realize it’s happening.  And avoidance is only one of the ways the Cycle of Egocentrism works.

Getting a full understanding of how the Cycle of Egocentrism works is key to managing workplace conflict, and well, any other kind of conflict.  When we understand how our brain tricks us into believing our survival is at stake in conflicts we can discover new ways to respond.  The Cycle of Egocentrism locks us into believing that there is a good guy, a bad guy and a rescuer in every situation.  This old game helped us manage to survive in our old primitive world, but it no longer serves us so well.  Most of the time we are not in those kinds of dire circumstances, but our brain fools us into thinking we are.  Then we get stuck in certain ways of responding that keep us trapped in conflictual and painful relationships. 

Learning how to apply the Cycle of Compassion, the opposite of the Cycle of Egocentrism allows us to have deeper, more meaningful relationships with ourselves and others. It changes everything.