The Effectiveness of Conflict Coaching Compared to Other Dispute

Resolution Processes

A prospective client will more often seek a solution from lawyers or other coaches because some claims do not require a legislative process. The answer can be quickly found when both parties communicate effectively. Evaluation of the available choices sometimes requires a mediator to discuss resolutions with all parties involved in the dispute. There are multiple ways of resolving a client's dispute, and the popularly known aspect is conflict coaching. It is a dispute resolution procedure when the coach works with one party instead of all parties involved in a dispute. It allows the party to manage the dispute. With a skilled coach's help, a client may realize that by altering a specific behavior during the interaction. One may find a solution to solve a dispute before it reaches the point of the court proceeding or irreparable damage to a vital business or individual relationship. The paper will analyze the conflict of coaching effectiveness compared to other dispute resolution processes.

In many cases, a skilled coach is a person who has vast knowledge about conflict theory, has strong dispute resolution abilities, and is an experienced mediator or executive coach. It fits between lawyer-client counseling and therapeutic counseling. Legal counseling does not alter the client's thinking or offer maximum awareness or insights into personal life. Even when legal counselors have problem-solving skills, the final decision is only reached within the lawyer's legal competence.

On the other hand, conflict coaching aims to make a client understand the conflict's ground from many dimensions, including personal contributions to the conflict. A conflict coach is a combination of many skills such as being a trainer, adviser, and at the same time motivator. Conflict coaching does not replace therapeutic counseling because it is only limited to the dispute at hand. It is also not applicable to clients who have serious mental health challenges. Conflict coaching is mainly useful in workplace conflict, family business issues, estate problems, and other emotional issues. For instance, in family business issues, a client may feel disrespected by a parent's options of executing duties. When this situation arises, a conflict coach can help a client see how repeated ineffective counseling actions have led to disputes and allow the client to learn how to handle emotional upset when a dispute arises. One may make significant decisions and interact with other people in a friendly way to resolve a conflict at hand.

Emotions are essential aspects of conflict coaching. It does not get into history behind a client's sentiments like in therapeutic counseling but helps the client become aware of emotional responses. This aspect is essential because it enables a client to set aside emotions, take forward-looking perspectives, and search for a solution that meets a client's and other parties' interests. What makes conflict coaching useful compared to other forms of dispute resolution is that it can be used alone or connected with different kinds of conflict resolution such as negotiation, mediation, and many more.

Literature Review

As elaborated above, conflict coaching is a voluntary and confidential procedure that has unique coaching principles. In essence, it is a personalized method of assisting parties effectively solve a conflict. The remarkable phenomena about conflict coaching are self-determination and confidentiality. However, there are some proficiencies and skills that a conflict coach should possess. Those people who participate in conflict coaching do not focus on resolving a dispute but instead seek ways to handle disputes. The client aims to find strategies for preventing a conflict from escalating, enhancing conflict management competency, developing excellent communication skills for a challenging conversation, and other goals that are more often easy to manage than resolve.

Cinergy Model

A unique model that makes conflict coaching a useful tool for dispute resolution is the Cinergy coaching model. Cinnie Noble is the founder of the model and a respected mediator, author, speaker, consultant, and conflict coach. According to Brinkert (2016), the model's primary foundation is to offer personalized help for developing dispute competency. The model is designed to create or enhance the skills that will enable clients to handle disputes effectively. There are five elements of the model: clarifying goals, exploring the situation, considering other dimensions, utilizing conflict coaching as the initial step to mediation, and using conflict coaching for current and future requirements.

Regarding goal clarification, a client will set an objective that one wants to get out of the experience. Setting goals will assist a client in increasing performance and decreasing anxiety. Brinkert (2016) suggests that the coach must request a client to set boundaries and help him/her stay within them to achieve goals. In exploring a situation, it is an essential step to enable the client to explain the conflict. It is usually the considerable requirement that individuals in conflict have, and the conflict coach assists in constructively guiding the venting and assisting the party to explain the dispute in a comprehensive way rather than just aping around the system. This step is more of storytelling and getting into the values, needs, identity problems, and many more in the conflict center.

The third step is considering other perspectives. The main component of this procedure is assessing how the conflict looks through the eyes of the coach. It is often challenging to deal with a dispute in a workplace or negotiate shares in a family business. Suppose the problem can be seen from another perspective. Even if it is different from how the other party analyzes the issue, it will assist in an effective solution. When multiple perspectives are examined effectively, understanding the conflict will be easy. 

The fourth step of the Cinergy model is utilizing coaching as the initial step to mediation. Brinkert (2016) argues that with the right skills in place and perspectives, a conflict coach will be in a position to handle the dispute, state their case, and work with the party. The step aims to build confidence and foster a sense of empathy. These unique values will assist uncover the interests and optimism about the possibilities when the client and conflict coachwork towards a mutually acceptable solution. The last step is utilizing conflict coaching for current and future needs. Conflict coaching does not only assist a client deal with present disputes but with correct gained kills, one will be in a position to deal with any conflict more constructively and effectively in the future. Each argument has common themes, such as the root cause, trigger, and reaching. Gaining insights into these themes will help a client to handle and dispute throughout their lives.

The Comprehensive Conflict Coaching Model

The Comprehensive Conflict Coaching Model is a standard model that many conflict coaches utilized in their everyday lives. Wilkin and Belak (2020) define the model in multiple ways. They argue that conflict is about understanding the interpretations that result in a dispute and possible reinterpretations that can decrease or manage a particular argument. A client is usually aware of the communication behaviors and how they influence how they understand a dispute. However, the degree of comprehension does not change the fact that conflict is only knowable through conversation. The model has a unique assumption that argument is the creation and management of narrative even if they do not agree to a particular narrative strategy to other forms of dispute resolutions such as mediation. Therefore, parties in conflict have distinct histories of what has happened and what is occurring within their conflict playground and the reorganization. McKibben (2017) proposes that part of dispute management is developing a transparent narrative and sharing narratives with other people. If one party cannot narrate the story so that others can understand, one will not influence them to assist in efforts to reach a conclusion.

There should be preparatory interactions in a comprehensive coaching model, followed by the coaching procedures, just like the mediation where there is an intake process and the mediation. According to Dwan (2017), there are unique steps that should be followed in the model. The first step is the preparation for conflict coaching. This step is where the coach must know that coaching is appropriate. Preparation entails evaluating whether the client understands and wants to be coached or constructively engaging in coaching. Also, the coach should know whether the client is an appropriate choice or not. Preparation should be restated and revisited throughout the process because it entails the broader role of continuously managing coach-client relations.

The second step of the model is the initial conversation. Such involves managing expectations and ensuring that the coach provides a fundamental overview of conflict coaching, short elaboration of the process and values, a sense of time, and resource dedication. For instance, in a typical conflict coaching, a coach will discuss the befits of coaching, its effectiveness, present the model, and how long it takes plus all the expenses (Dwan, 2017). A client should understand all the answers before the concrete conflict coaching process starts.

The third step is evaluating the client's coachability. According to Fahed-Sreih (2017), there is usually a chance that a client is mentally incompetent or sometimes unable to participate in the coaching process. A coach should interact with the client or with other close people to allow the coach to understand whether the client can maximally handle the process. All these aspects can be achieved through initial communication, questionnaires, data gathering, and many more. A client who is an excellent candidate for conflict coaching should be free of substance abuse or psychological impairment. Other additional variables that should be considered are the client's tolerance to risks, willingness to try new strategies, emotional resilience, and motivation.

After assessing the client, the coaching process begins with discovering the story behind the dispute. This stage helps the client narrate the conflict's information and feelings from one's perspective and those involved in a conflict. The coach in this section concentrates on discovering the conflict and gaining an adequate understanding of the disputes, parties, and the context. The next step focuses on the initial story, whereby the coach asks general questions about the argument and listens as the client narrates the story. This stage will offer information about how the client consideration vital issues, people, and conflicts. The first story generally depicts characterizations of other parties, assumptions as well as actions. The next step is refining the story. In this phase, the coach and the client expand the story by adding more information and details. The refinement procedure's aspects encourage the client to offer additional information regarding how other parties may handle and feel about the conflict.

After all, stories have been exhausted; the client will explore perspectives such as identity, emotions, and triggers. Jones (2016) suggests that the coach should help the client comprehend the dispute's forces and analyze what to change and how to do it. The coach will help the client assess current perspectives and ways of altering these triggers to handle the dispute effectively. 

The two conflict coaching models clearly shows what makes the dispute resolution unique and effective compared to other methods. The client will gain conflict resolution skills that one may apply currently and in the future. A client will gain valuable tools to resolve disputes effectively and learn how to control anger and avoid negative tactics. Additionally, with excellent coaching skills, personal relationships become healthier. A coach will make the client understand that disputes are a normal part of any relationship. With this in place, a client will gain confidence and develop the ability to empathize with other people. Above all, conflict coaching has a way of sustaining long term relationships with clients. A client will be able to identify personal strengths and weaknesses, emotions as well as feelings. With conflict coaching, one will appreciate that other parties involved in a conflict will not alter a unique way of being permanent.

References

Brinkert, R. (2016). An appreciative approach to conflict: Mediation and conflict coaching.  Advancing Workplace Mediation Through Integration of Theory and Practice , 173-187.  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42842-0_10

Brinkert, R. (2016). State of knowledge: Conflict coaching theory, application, and research.  Conflict Resolution Quarterly ,  33 (4), 383-401.  https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21162

Dwan, R. (2017). A contingency approach to engaging with conflict in small and medium-sized organisations.  Journal of Mediation & Applied Conflict Analysis ,  4 (2), 578-591.  https://doi.org/10.33232/jmaca.4.2.9087

Fahed-Sreih, J. (2017). Conflict management.  Conflict in Family Businesses , 23-51.  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62852-3_2

Jones, T. S. (2016). Mediation and conflict coaching in organizational dispute systems. In Advancing workplace mediation through integration of theory and practice (pp. 89-110). Springer, Cham . https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42842-0_6

McKibben, L. (2017). Conflict management: Importance and implications.  British Journal of Nursing ,  26 (2), 100-103.  https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2017.26.2.100

Wilkin, L., & Belak, T. (2020).  From discord to harmony: Making your workplace hum . Springer.