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- Step One: Tell Yourself the Truth We humans build a wall around ourselves, a defense system that clicks into operation whenever we feel affronted in any way. In a moment of confrontation, either real or imagined, we escalate into the hottest negative reaction we can summon. At such moments, we need to slow down the process and seek personal clarity by asking the important question: What do we want? What's our bottom line?
- Step Two: Reach Out to the Other Side Ask yourself these questions. What is this other side's greatest need? What is most important to them? These questions are particularly important if the other side doesn't know their greatest need. Tip: You often don't know what you don't know. Get the facts, or the facts will get you.
- Step Three: Listen Attentively to the Other Side Listen to the other side and demonstrate to them that you have heard their concerns. Proper respect must be shown at all times, You must mean it. Attitude and words must be respectful and responsive. Power plays will not work at this stage, or later on for that matter. This is often the most crucial time in a conflict, when your actions can either spark escalation or initiate a cooling off period. Don't rush or push now. The more you dislike the other side, the more time and effort you must summon to prove that you are indeed listening, that you are aware of their needs. Tip: Don't try to deduce other people's intentions from your own fears
- Step Four: Prove You Are Fair When you propose a solution, prove that you are fair, by addressing the other person's interests first. Describe, in their language, how they can benefit. Then you can discuss the benefits of such a resolution to yourself as well. This is a way of showing proper respect.
It's important to keep this Roundtrip in your mind and to use it frequently in every skirmish that arises on the path to resolution. A Roundtrip will work because it teaches you how to go slow in order to go fast. What seems like an agonizingly slow process will prove to be a fast lane to resolution. Please spend enough time to get clear about the two most important factors at every stage in the negotiation: your most important need and the other person's most important need. By taking the time (the first two steps of the Roundtrip), you will get centered and accumulate the information necessary to formulate the correct approach to the situation. Then and only then, you can move more quickly.
The beginning of a conflict is the time to become sure of what you are doing, to slow yourself down to the point where you can be honest about yourself and empathic about the other person. After these two steps, you will find yourself calm and poised. You will know the other side's hot buttons, motivations, needs. What are they protecting? What is their image? What is causing them to be aggressive? What will make them feel better? By doing this work, you will be present, not locked behind your own wall. This will enable the other side to drop their defenses as well.
Here's an oval diagram you can use as a visual anchor. Use it to keep calm and on track with the four steps to resolution, no matter what the circumstances. Don't let the other side trigger a response from you. You and only you will choose how you will behave.
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Steps to Reaching Better Daily Agreements, by Kare Anderson
The following is a brief summary of the four steps. They are explored more fully in my book.