Conflict Management - I don't get angry anymore!

By Daniele Giudici

Imagine.
Imagine you don't get angry when they do you wrong. Imagine not losing patience in an argument. Imagine getting what you want when they say no.
Impossible? For nothing. You just must learn to manage conflicts and your emotional reaction: you cannot avoid conflicts, but you can learn how to overcome them.

From the professional and personal experiences of Daniele Giudici (Project Manager PMP and Scrum Master), this book is born suitable for everyone, from top managers to people with hellish relationships with partners in real-life. Because we all have problems, but only few know how to deal with them.
Conflict management has never been easier thanks to many practical examples and solutions to the most common problems in order to better understand the various theories.
No more excuses. No more anger. No more suffer. It’s time to act. Now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aloha srl
• Release date: Dec 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9788885569126

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Conflicts and discussions surround us, and education and patience seem to have left the field to be right regardless, no one wants to be criticized, and the debate has been reduced to a minimum. «If you agree with me, well, otherwise, I will not answer or block you.» No one is willing to give in an inch, even when you are objectively in the wrong, with the result of endless clashes and frayed relationships.

I've been thinking about a book that could help manage conflicts for some time, but the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic pushed me to speed up writing. This problematic moment experienced by the whole world at the same time could be an opportunity to rediscover solidarity and education, and instead, we have witnessed the worsening of a trend that is now unstoppable: the wall against the wall. Everyone believes to be right, and discussions with other people cannot be an opportunity to test their beliefs and perhaps realize we have a limited vision; no, others are wrong, they don't understand, they don't get it, they are obtuse. The others.

Nobody is more willing to listen to others. We are so convinced that we are only looking for opinions and facts that confirm it and are not interested in changing it. It is valid in the most superficial discussions, and it is right in the most complex ones; it is reasonable in family relationships, in the office, with friends, at the bar, in the gym, on social media, anywhere, and when the dialogue ends, the moment of confrontation arrives, verbal or physical. Because if for me «My idea is better than yours,» the same goes for you, then either the debate dies down and ends in nothing (after a useless waste of energy), or it goes to the next level.

I am not a lawyer, nor a mediator, I am a Project Manager (PMP® certified), and in more than twenty-five years of my career, I have had to manage many conflicts in every field, and each of these has taught me something about human beings. I found myself working in the office until two in the morning (from eight in the morning) only because my editor-in-chief wanted to take revenge because the publisher had also entrusted me to a competing project, therefore used me for his struggle of personal power. I worked in newsrooms made up of people who limited themselves to the homework because superiors protected them or because they knew how to be seen very busy when the managers were present, only to stop as soon as they left. I have dealt with requests for raises, betrayals, exhausting discussions on the principles, and many other episodes that are commonly referred to as conflicts - those stormy moments of confrontation that could be avoided using only common sense.

This book is the sum of all the teachings I have received from studying conflict management and through my personal experience. I haven't always been like that, not at all. When I was a child, my own family called me bastian contrario (someone who is against everything you say), they took it for granted that I would resist whatever they said, and the typical phrase was: «You always want to be right. Okay, you won, the reason is for fools». Growing up, I often clashed with others, ready to keep the point on my ideas until I understood that something was wrong and that it could not conflict. I started a continuous education process at an academic, professional, and intimate level, and at the same time, I was putting these discoveries into practice both in work and everyday life.

My typical expression when I was a child.

Today I can say that I am no longer that capricious child who always said no, and I am no longer someone who seeks war at all costs, quite the opposite, I don't like screams because I understand that they are not needed (in most of the cases), I want to talk to find a solution that suits everyone. I am convinced that the important thing is to get a result and not a victory of pride, not to be right, just to be right.

All this is what I wanted to put in this book. Resolving conflicts while keeping calm means avoiding the escalation of aggression by increasing success rates and avoiding wasting time and energy that could be used in a thousand other ways. That's why I felt the need to write I don't get angry anymore: we live in times that stimulate our aggression and, therefore, conflicts. To not be overwhelmed (and thus lose them), we must learn to manage them patiently. Only then can we win them.

TO WHOM AND FOR WHAT THIS BOOK WILL BE USEFUL

This book is aimed at everyone because everyone has to deal with conflicts. Two partners arguing about not having sex anymore, residents in a building arguing over a parking lot, two family members pulling old grudges at Christmas dinner, the boss and employee of a company fighting for a raise, two groups who want to share a territory, each has its conflict.

It is useful to those who are personally involved in it and to those who find themselves in the position of having to mediate, to those who have to deal with people who are always ready to react as if everything were a personal affront, and to those who often hear themselves repeatedly «With you talking is allowed.» It applies to everyone, but I did not limit myself to making a manual ready for use, one of those that explain two rules and then goodbye, I tried to be as exhaustive as possible because behind the fight, there is a whole world, millennia of evolution that have led the human being to become what it is today. I could not avoid these issues because, at the base of everything, managing a conflict means, first of all, understanding this.

At the end of this book, you will be able to handle a conflict very easily because you will have a complete picture of the situation, and the techniques and more practical bits of advice that I will give you will take on a different relevance depending on the situation in which you find yourself. It's like a cookbook: I can explain the recipe listing all ingredients, but if I don't explain what it is and why it is crucial to sauté in certain dishes or why one type of cooking is used instead of another, you won't learn to cook. Of course, you would cook delicious dishes, but only because you would have performed a task, there is nothing of yours, you would not know how to create a dish from scratch using random ingredients. However, even if I have faced some anthropological, sociological, and psychological issues, I have tried to remain dry and not go overboard in other matters; the notions I have reported are related only to conflicts.

That's why I recommend you read the whole book, but if you want to go straight to the most practical and ready-to-use part, then you can jump directly to chapter 4 to understand how escalation works and to prepare effective strategies, or to chapter 8 with solutions in various situations: at work, in the family, in groups, and so on.

The book is structured according to these chapters:

Chapter 1: Let's start from the basics, from the meaning of the concept of conflict, and from the classification of the various types of clashes that we may encounter. We see some theories on social aggregation and at what stage the problems could arrive.

Chapter 2: Conflicts are between two or more human beings, and here we analyze our behaviors, personalities, reactions, motivations that drive us to act for something, and the four main reasons into which we can fit all types of conflict.

Chapter 3: In this chapter, we will deal with that fire that animates a conflict, that innate aggression that transforms a simple confrontation into a confrontation. We will see the main theories, and we will understand why, unfortunately, it is easier to react and lose patience than to manage self-control. We will see how we perceive the world and the errors of analysis and evaluation of our mind regarding everything that happens every day.

Chapter 4: We begin to get into a more practical and more inherent part of how conflicts work. In this chapter, we will look at the theories on escalation.

Chapter 5: When we are in the midst of a conflict, we see the confrontation based on victory and defeat. In the era of Big Data and measurable results, failure is easy to see and is not allowed, but what does failure mean?

Chapter 6: It's essential to be prepared. In this chapter, we will analyze what to do before we get involved, how we can intervene in ourselves, the environment where the fight will occur, and the other. We will see how to prepare an effective strategy so as not to be caught unprepared.

Chapter 7: Here, we will assume that we are in the middle of a conflict, and I will give you many useful tips to come out victorious.

Chapter 8: This chapter is purely practical. I'll explain how to behave and what is most useful in various everyday situations such as at work, in the family, in a community, in a car, with certain people, etc.

Chapter 9: I close the book by explaining an aspect that I have not covered throughout the book and that I left at the end just to make it more impressive for you.

HOW MUCH WE LIKE TO DISCUSS!

Society is objectively changing, we no longer have patience, studying is considered a waste of time, individualism and Mors tua vita mea (If you die, I live) are prevalent, and we have repressed anger because we can live as we want. Okay, but in my daily life, of my neighbor, my school friend, the question is: why do we fight? What do quarrels, clashes, and conflicts need? Can they be avoided? Wouldn't it be better if we all got along?

Sure, it would be better. In an ideal world, I have mine, you have yours, and we both learn something. In the real world, however, it doesn't work that way. Every person on the face of the earth has its own story, thoughts, fears, and social pressures, leading to broken reactions, giving rise to clashes with others.

It is good to be immediately clear; conflicts are inevitable for many reasons that arise from the very nature of man and are always around the corner; they can break out at any moment, even when we least expect it.

This book will also explain how to avoid them and deal with them, making you ready when they happen to you.

Have a good trip!

CHAPTER 1. WHAT ARE CONFLICTS?

In this chapter, you will learn: Let's start by clarifying the different meanings of the terms used when discussing conflicts. What is the conflict? Is it negotiation, or is there more? Is there only one type of conflict? No, and we will understand this by classifying them according to some variables. We will also see how relationships are formed in groups with a common interest and how stage conflicts can arise. We will close with the analysis of the reaction: not all discussions catch fire, it always depends on how we react to an attack of any intensity.

1.1 LET'S CLEAR THE IDEAS: WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

The conflict is, «I want something, I can't get it, and I fight for it.» In broad terms, this is the basis of every conflict, then there are a thousand facets, millions of different ways of expression, of causes and consequences, but in the end, this is it. If we get it, fine, otherwise we try to get it, and if we encounter difficulties, we come to the fight. Attention, I am not referring to a product or a material benefit (e.g., a salary increase), what I want could merely be right in a debate.

But let's start with the basics. What is the conflict? The Treccani dictionary gives a clear explanation:

conflict: 1. Combat, warfare, clash of armies. 2. fig. Collision, contrast, opposition. 3. In law, a juridical situation is characterized by contrasting and incompatible positions of different subjects, public or private, to the same juridical relationship in a broad sense (subjective rights, norms, powers), and for which the positive system provides adequate means of composition.

In practice, conflict is what you think: a clash, a dispute between two or more parties in opposition to each other, is the worst consequence of a discussion, that is, the more or less accurate examination of a question through the exposition of respective theses or reasons for concluding. It's achieved with negotiation, even if, from the dictionary, the negotiation has commercial or political purposes. In conflicts, these aims are not always there; think of two friends arguing over the holiday destination or two brothers who do not speak to each other for years after a fight over how to care for their elderly father; there is always an argument that does not find an outlet in a shared solution. However, this sharing follows the same commercial negotiation rules where the parties want to exit the conflict positively.

1.2 CONFLICTS IN HATER SOCIETY

Nowadays, we have the impression the world has become angrier and that now the confrontation is inevitable in almost all aspects, not only at the level of political or sports ideology, as in past years. Do you like trap music? I could ask you for information, let me listen to something and maybe find out that I like it. But no, I start immediately saying that it is rubbish and that nothing is better than De Gregori, Villa, Battisti, Tchaikovsky, Django Reinhardt. Do you like Ed Sheeran and me Michael Bublé? An endless discussion about who is better of the two starts. I gave the example of music, but I could talk about sport, cinema, cooking, literature, art, health, everything, and the debate mask yes, mask no born with the Covid-19 pandemic is the perfect example. There have even been discussions on the very existence of the virus. And I'm not talking about social networks where every topic is a reason for the division between multiple factions.

Unfortunately, the problem is much older and has to do with the very nature of man. None of us have a perfect life, and we all hide what we indeed are for quiet living. To be accepted by society, we have built a world based on a constant compromise whereby we never say everything we would like to and do not do everything we would like to do in order not to hurt others and not to be hurt by others because the consequence of these actions would be our exclusion. For this, at most, we allow ourselves to vent our most secret instincts in secret. For example, prostitution is widespread, and yet no man has ever spoken with a woman for a fee.

Being excluded means becoming the enemy: social groups have various glues, and one of the most potent integral aggregators is precisely having a common enemy, and it takes a moment to go from being part of a group to be its enemy. Do you know the movie The Purge - Judgment Day with Ethan Hawke? I'm not talking about its cinematic quality, but the idea behind it is exceptional: for one night, all the United States inhabitants can do what they want, also wanting rape, robbery, or murder, and without consequences. For one night, there is no police or control, all free. The cops themselves could also be thieves or murderers.

Here, think about it for a moment, for one night, you can do whatever you want, even destroying the neighbor's car that every day parks in the place reserved for the disabled and that answers you badly every time you point it out. Or going to the colleague who treats you smugly and snorts when you talk and make it pay for it. What would you do? Think about it very carefully and identify yourself with the situation: based on your response's severity, you can understand the degree to which civilization has tamed you.

When I attended meditation groups, in a particular meditation (Osho Dynamics), there was a phase of catharsis in which, with closed eyes, you could let off steam in any way possible: scream, sing, speak, offend, if you wanted, you could also punch and kick a pillow made available for this purpose. Here I have seen tranquil people explode both physically and verbally. Nothing dangerous, of course, because meditation is done in safe conditions with a certain distance between the parties, and no one can harm oneself; on the contrary, the sense of liberation and inner relief is powerful. For ten minutes, those who practice this meditation lowers their defenses, can let themselves go and realize that behind our education, tranquility, seriousness, serenity, there is something much more profound and usually hidden that connects us to the animal world, the one to we belong. Attention is not a fault or something to correct; on the contrary, it is only the first step to understand why clashes are inevitable.

Freud describes it in his essay The discomfort of civilization: the human being is like all other animals, it is instinctive, it is wild, and it was rough in the wild until it created a social structure with the primary function of domesticating and calming these impulses by building the basis of a life of peace. A system that he calls civilization, which allows us a peaceful and not self-destructive life (as a species), but it has a price, and that is to prevent us from the pleasures and enjoyment of our deepest instincts, which are therefore more or less repressed or sublimated in other forms. The result often succeeds, and everything goes well, but sometimes we explode with anger and aggressive attitudes. The web has done nothing but fuel this latter behavior.

Then there is the question of speed, and the I want everything, and I want it now typical of these years. We no longer have patience, we don't want to waste time studying, we want to be protagonists of our life right away. Following the example of the self-made men who built empires from scratch (Steve Jobs) or became celebrities (Gianluca Vacchi) without studying, we all want everything now. This also applies to minor things: in the era of streaming and binge-watching (all the episodes of a season of a TV series loaded simultaneously), it is unthinkable to wait a week and a specific time for the next episode of a TV series. This also applies to apps. I grew up with the first mass computers, from Commodore to Spectrum, and the first PCs and Macs, and I had to deal with a lot of games and software. How many textbooks did I read? Zero. Over the years, it has not gone differently, and with many attempts, I have managed to learn even complex software such as editorial graphic layout (Quark XPress and Indesign) or photo editing (Adobe Photoshop) but in what percentage? Maybe 60%, the essentials to use them. If I had studied the manuals at first, which I now usually do, I would have exploited their full potential. In this, I was a forerunner; today, we all use apps without a manual's slightest presence, at most a tutorial that almost everyone skips.

I must again recall Freud by citing his subdivision of a person's life into phases: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Specifically, the Oral Phase is divided in turn into passive and sadistic: the passive one inclines to victimhood, to want everything immediately, to possessive love, to believe in everything that is said, to the need to drink (also symbolically, or what you listen to), obesity, compulsive gambling, and addictions; the sadistic one tends towards verbal aggression, to get angry if it does not get what it wants, to the polemical attitude and verbiage. This is the first stage in a person's growth and corresponds to period 0-18 months.

Now, take this description to society. Does it remind you of anything? Freud denied living in a society built on the fantasies of omnipotence (I can do everything), his times were not like that and explained that the possible advent of this type of society would lead the world to regress to the Oral Phase, to that of the Everything and immediately. A hundred years later, we got there, we regressed. On the other hand, later in life can testify that society's description in the Oral Phase does not correspond to that of the last century's 60s or 70s.

1.3 CONFLICTS AS A CONSEQUENCE OF SCARCITY