Competing

Video Transcription

Hi. I'm Julie Tietz, and welcome to Conflict Resolution-- Putting the Pieces Together. Today we're going to cover the competing style of conflict. So let's get started. We have our conflict styles graph here, and we see the competing style placed high in assertiveness and low in cooperativeness.

So let's define some of these terms on this graph before we go into more detail on the competing conflict style. Assertiveness is behavior in which a person confidently makes a statement without need of proof, affirming his or her rights without attacking another's. Cooperativeness-- behavior in which two parties work in concert to achieve their mutual and respective individual goals.

So going to our conflict styles graph, we see assertiveness and cooperativeness placed on the axes here, with varying degrees of low and high. All right, let's get into competing. And that's a conflict resolution style in which one party seeks to meet his or her own needs at the expense of another party's.

So going back to our graph here, we see it's placed high in assertiveness, and low in cooperativeness. So here we're not willing to work with other parties, and we're really assertive in addressing our own needs.

So the competing style of conflict, we are working to meet our own needs and sacrificing others' needs. And this can cause actual physical harm to the other party, but that is not true in all competing situations. Let's look at a couple of examples of the competing conflict styles in various situations.

Let's use the example of a debate. Here we're on either side of an issue, and that's our conflict. And the competing person is willing to sacrifice any of the others' needs so they can fulfill their needs. And it's kind of a winner and a loser situation here.

Another good example could be a conflict at work. Let's say you are trying to get a better position within the company, and you are willing to possibly lie or step on other people's chose to get to where you want to be within your job positions.

Again, this could also lead to physical harm or a physical fight in the competing style. But again, it is not true in all situations. With all of these conflict styles, there can be positive and negative outcomes when we use them. And a positive outcome is defined as resolutions to a conflict that a party perceives as meeting his or her needs, and/or reducing likelihood of further conflict. A negative outcome would be not meeting his or her needs, and/or increasing the likelihood of further conflict.

Moving along, here, to some examples of positive outcomes in competing [INAUDIBLE] is your needs are met. That makes you feel good. You're getting what you want, and you don't have to worry about the other person. You could also be seen as having the ability to make hard decisions. Sometimes we need a person to make a tough call, and it's good to have that person in certain situations.

Now let's look at some negative outcomes of the competing conflict style. You could be viewed as overly assertive, as brash, as even harsh maybe. And others' needs aren't considered, and when that happens then people could have a negative view about you, and it could look bad on your character. And again, a competing style can or may cause physical harm in certain situations-- but certainly not all of them.

Now that we have covered the competing style of conflict, let's go over some key points here. It's important to remember that people are capable of using all of these styles of conflict, but they tend to apply their preferred style in most situations. The competing style is where our needs are met at the sacrifice of others' needs.

And there are positive and negative outcomes of this. Positive is you can be perceived as being able to make a tough call in a hard situation. Negative is people may view you as being overly assertive and not willing to look at other people's needs. Thank you for taking the time out to view this tutorial, and I hope to see you again next time.