BY JOHN M. BUCKMAN
There are few skills the volunteer fire chief or officer must have more highly developed than that of handling conflict and negotiating positive agreements. I urge everyone who is in or wants to move into a position of leadership and responsibility to study, read, and learn about conflict resolution and negotiation practices and skills.
Conflict is neither good nor bad; it simply is. Our response to conflict through our interpretations and reactions is what identifies conflict as positive or negative. If a firefighter and I have conflicting interests, I can respond in several ways. The most extreme would be to arm myself for a knockdown, drag-out battle in which I vow to kill the opponent off or die trying. Alternatively, I could see the conflict as an opportunity to explore options that satisfy both parties’ interests in a highly creative, negotiated settlement. The first response is a negative fight; the second is a positive challenge.
Between these two are varying levels of response that can be explored and negotiated. The more positive the attitudes of the conflicting parties are, the more constructive the conflict will be. To paraphrase a popular quote: Conflict is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.
Conflict generates energy. The trick is to harness this energy for the good. I am always amazed when I encounter individuals or groups who expend mega energy unproductively when faced with conflict. I wonder what they think they can accomplish by focusing their time and energy on what’s wrong instead of directing this same energy toward finding solutions. Such a negative attitude creates a black hole of energy in which people get stuck blaming others, avoiding blame themselves, rehashing old hurts, putting others down, keeping score, trying to inflict pain on others, or desperately trying to protect their turf. Even the smallest amount of energy spent on any of these is wasted and unavailable for the tough work of finding a resolution.
A mutually acceptable resolution should be the goal. Too often, defeating the opponent (winning) becomes the goal of conflict. Burying or ignoring the conflict is more dangerous still. Understand that if any party involved in a conflict loses, no one wins. Only the goal of win/win can bring about an acceptable resolution. Even in minor spats, if one person loses, more energy may be lost as the loser searches for a way to get back at the winner or becomes depressed because he feels he is a bad person for losing.
Ignoring a conflict hoping that it will go away is not only naive but dangerous. Avoidance typically drives a conflict underground, where it simmers until it erupts on the surface at a later time to confound and confuse future interactions.
Uncover the real issues to resolve the conflict. If you are directly involved in a conflict, you must be clear about your own needs. If you are helping others resolve a conflict, you need to help them clarify their own needs. When needs are unclear or when they conflict (I want to confront Firefighter Jim, but I don’t want him to be mad at me), it is almost impossible to move toward settlement. Too many times, people fight over the peripheral issues or the symptoms instead of root causes.
One assistant volunteer chief asked for my help in getting her chief to make some needed operational changes. The assistant fire chief had come up with a list of reasons to justify getting her authority to discipline firefighters. Her biggest problem was that she lacked the confidence to present her thoughts in person to the chief. I affirmed that everything on her list was valid but challenged her to see that authority was not the real issue; fear, respect, and position were. She needed to respect her position and herself as a person; when she did that, she would act like a person who required the same from others.
The real conflict (the fire chief’s jealousy over the assistant chief’s popularity with volunteers and her administrative skills) might never have been addressed. Once the assistant realized what the base issues really were, she was able to put her energies into more productive solutions of resolving the conflict. It is critical to uncover real issues. You may have to do so by peeling back layers of screens that hide base concerns. To do so, there must be an understanding of the difference between issues and actions/responses.
An issue is a desire, a concern, a goal, a fear, or a need. A response is a solution to a problem or concern; it’s what you do or a stand you take. A response is something you choose, whereas an issue is the base reason that caused you to make that choice.
You provide volunteer firefighters with a list of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors while remaining a member on the job. That’s your response. You selected it because your issue or interest is ethical behavior in regard to other firefighters and the citizens that we serve.
When you understand people’s issues, you can move on to appropriate responses or positions. Sadly, when people do not understand what the real issue is, they can generate inappropriate responses. A word of caution: Never assume you know what another’s issue is; find out what it is specifically.
Solve the problem; don’t just make everyone happy. One very dangerous impediment to healthy conflict resolution for volunteer fire service leaders is that they often want everyone to be happy and like everyone else. For such people, conflict is not resolved until all parties hug and make up. If leaders are to rise to a new level of competency, they need to leave such goals behind. Not everyone is going to like and be friends with everyone else. Volunteer and career personnel can coexist in a parallel fashion, successfully interacting on common goals without being great friends or agreeing on every issue outside their common interests. One person can respect another’s expertise without liking him personally or agreeing with him!
Keep in mind in working with others that if it doesn’t matter, don’t let it matter. I’m not crazy about male volunteer firefighters wearing their hair to their waist, but that does not matter if a firefighter and I have the assignment to work together to complete a truck check/inventory. It really should not matter to you what they look like as long as they can do the job you ask them to do. Also, let go of the belief that for you to personally be successful in resolving conflicts, everyone must come out liking you. If that sounds too difficult for you to accept, keep in mind that people around you need you to be effective more than they need you to be nice. Stay focused on the problems to be solved, and do not stray into side issues that can actually inhibit effective conflict resolution.
NEGOTIATING FOR POSITIVE RESULTS
To reach satisfactory agreements, focus on creating common ground, breaking deadlocks, and creating specific expectations and consequences.
Create common ground. Whether you are trying to negotiate a resolution of a conflict or starting to work on a project with other groups, begin with what you have in common. No matter how divergent the positions, different the backgrounds, or hostile the parties, if you search widely enough, you’ll find commonalities.
After establishing this common background, look further to find a common vision. Vision is necessary when confronting conflict, one of the ingredients to resolving conflicts in a win/win situation. A facilitator of conflict resolution needs to be able to depict what the end result might look like when the parties get there.
Loosening deadlock. When people seem at opposite ends of a conflict, you will need to widen the area of agreement by breaking deadlocks and negotiating positive results. Here are several strategies:
1. Expand the win-win area. What do you have to offer that might be valuable to the others? What direct benefits might the opposition receive if they help you attain your goal? Find out what people need, and explore ways that you can meet those needs.
2. Cut others’ costs. Figure out what is behind the resistance of others. What do they believe their cooperation will cost? Look at the costs in time, energy, dollars, reputation, image, relationships, prestige, and so forth. Look for ways to reduce or eliminate such costs.
3. Compensation. In exchange for cooperation, how could you reward the opposing party? Consider recognition, acclaim, direct assistance, and greater support of a pet effort of theirs.
4. Small concessions. As you explore real issues, shared vision, and compensation, any tensions that had existed may be relaxed to the point that the parties may concede some smaller points.
5. Bridging. Find a middle ground that could satisfy a common vision and create a new option for resolution.
6. Take small steps. Sometimes a conflict is too complex or vast to be solved all at once. It may also be that a real issue is lack of trust between parties. Taking small steps toward resolution can help at such times.
7. Set objective criteria. If negotiation stalemates exist or people get stuck in a fierce win-lose position, you may need to step back and regroup thinking by setting acceptable criteria.
8. Compromise. This is a “let’s split the difference” solution in which no one gets all they wanted. Don’t jump to this too quickly. There is a story of two people arguing over the last orange. They immediately compromised by cutting the orange in half. They compromised too quickly by cutting the orange in half and never discovered that one wanted to eat the pulp, and the other only wanted the rind for grating. Had they explored real issues, they each could have had their needs met!
A SPECIFIC MEASURABLE AGREEMENT
When you have negotiated a resolution, it is time to specify what has been agreed on and what the consequences will be if the agreement is broken. You may even want to be specific about any fine-tuning or adjustments that may be needed later and how these will be negotiated.
JOHN M. BUCKMAN is chief of the German Township Volunteer Fire Department in Evansville, Indiana, where he has served for 27 years, and the immediate past president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). He was instrumental in forming the IAFC’s Volunteer Chief Officers Section and is past chairman. He is an adjunct faculty member of the National Fire Academy residence program, is an advisory board member of Fire Engineering, and lectures extensively on fire service related topics.
