Conflict Management training in LucerneConflict management: should you check priorities before seeking a compromise?
When two team leaders request the same resource, a manager may be tempted to split the difference. But do their stated demands necessarily reflect identical priorities?
1. What the literature establishes: allocation is not always zero-sum
Carsten K. W. de Dreu, Sander L. Koole and Wolfgang Steinel (2000, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) examine the assumption that one person's gain necessarily constitutes another's loss. Their experiments show that negotiators can revise this assumption when encouraged to process information more carefully. An apparent conflict over a resource therefore does not establish that all priorities are opposed.
2. A mechanism: understanding the other party's reasoning
Adam D. Galinsky, William W. Maddux, Debra Gilin and Judith B. White (2008, Psychological Science) distinguish cognitive perspective taking from emotional empathy in experimental negotiations. Considering the other party's reasoning helps negotiators discover possible agreements and mutually beneficial trade-offs; empathy alone does not deliver the same benefits. For managers, this suggests asking about constraints and preferences rather than simply acknowledging dissatisfaction.
3. The premature conclusion: there is always a win-win solution
These findings do not mean that every opposition conceals complementary interests. Some resources genuinely cannot be divided, and some obligations are non-negotiable. Checking priorities helps distinguish opportunities for agreement from decisions requiring arbitration, rather than making every conflict artificially consensual. (our executive and employee training programmes)
4. The limits: understanding is not guessing
The cited studies involve experimental negotiations rather than longitudinal observation of persistent workplace conflicts. Power relations, relationship histories and the ability to withhold information may affect how the findings transfer to practice. Imagining someone else's perspective should therefore generate hypotheses to check, not certainty about their intentions.
5. A practical check in Lucerne
In Lucerne, tourism, hospitality, regional financial services and industrial SMEs provide settings where short decision-making chains, often in family-run businesses, may encourage quick agreements without making priorities explicit. Imagine a hotel where reception and housekeeping simultaneously request additional staff: one might mainly need coverage when groups arrive, while the other needs certain rooms ready before that arrival. A possible exercise within SHR's “Conflict Management” programme is to ask each party to state its request, a non-negotiable constraint and an area of flexibility, then confirm whether the other party has restated these accurately. For subsequent disagreements recorded in a log, checking whether priorities were confirmed before the decision and whether the agreement was honoured by the agreed deadline makes the approach assessable without presuming success. To go further: explore the Conflict Management training in Lucerne in the canton of Lucerne, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Conflict Management in Lucerne
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