Conflict Resolution Techniques in Project Management

Soft Skills in Project Management has become a major area of focus for PM’s wishing to expand their technical skills into the areas of Leadership, Communication & Emotional Intelligence. By utilizing the tools and techniques of Neuro Linguistic Programming, the speaker will guide us through some specific techniques in how to deal with Conflict Management, one of the components of Soft Skill mastery. In most instances, Conflict begins with mis-communication. This mis-communication can then lead to a highly charged emotional environment. When emotions run high, intelligence and decision making ability lowers. So the key to Conflict management is to avoid mis-communication in the first instance.

The Speaker will show us four specific techniques that Project Managers can apply to their daily working environments to improve communication, reduce conflict and accelerate results.

1. The Agreement frame – One of the quickest ways to create conflict is to flatly disagree with someone. To maintain relations and keep channels of communication open, there are ways in which you can communicate a different message
2. Chunking – When discussing a project, some people talk about the big picture, while others are more concerned with the specific details. To maintain communication, it’s important that you can understand the level of ‘chunk’ the other person is describing. With patience and skill, you can guide them towards your desired outcome
3. Metaphor – tell a great story !! One powerful way to overcome resistance in another is to tell an interesting story. An effective story-teller will captivate his audience, which he can then gently guide towards a solution or outcome
4. Modalities – Most of us have a preferred way of ‘perceiving’ the world. When you communicate with someone in their preferred modality (visual, audio, kinaesthetic, Auditory-Digital), you will be ‘speaking the same language’ and you have far great success in communication.