Before we make difference between them we should know about some background.There are various approach to conflict and how to deal with it.
The logical conflict management approach
The logical conflict management approach rests on the assumption that people can and will make conscious decisions about how they will deal with specific conflict.The approach outlines modes of dealing with conflict. For example: avoidance, collaboration,compromise etc.
In this approach each of this may fit a certain situation better than the others. So one evaluates the conflict situation, analyze it, and decides on course of action.In this way of thinking it may be perfectly OK to avoid a conflict situation if it is determined that doing something other than ignoring it will be destructive.So in this model avoidance may be an appropriate good response in some situation.The difficulty with this approach is it treats conflict as something that occurs within tow computers that is easy to analyze and isn't heavily influenced by a person's emotional state.
Emotional models
At the other end of the spectrum is an understanding of conflict as involving emotional energy.They see conflict as emotional encounter. They also tend to believe that the suppression of the emotional energy associated with conflict is sweeping the problems under the rug.What's more important is that some feel that this is destructive that unaddressed conflicts fester and gets worse if neglected. So within this way of thinking, avoidance of the conflict or ignoring a conflict is damaging and dangerous.It's often these folks that do not distinguish between conflict avoidance and conflict prevention.
Difference between avoidance and prevention
To start with a basic analogy, is there a difference between preventing contracting AIDS by the use of appropriate precautions and avoiding treatment if one has contracted it.The idea of conflict prevention recognizes that conflict takes many forms. Like the logical conflict managers we recognize that there is some conflict that is destructive, some that is hopeless and can never be resolved.So we can talk about destructive conflict and constructive. Destructive conflict is that has a low probability of being resolved and is primarily personality driven rather than conflict that is issue based.
often issue driven conflict turns into emotion based conflict and that's one thing we need to make sure doesn't happen.Emotion based or personality based conflicts are very difficult to deal with and with a relatively low probability of resolution.That's why we use the term destructive conflict because perusing the issue will often make things worse.Sometimes one must leave the conflict as it is ans make the best of it because pursuing it will make it worse.We are always going to have issue based disagreements and conflict. Well intentioned people often disagree.What we need to do though is focus our attention on reducing the incidence of personality based conflict because there are techniques that can reduce its frequency.
So conflict prevention isn't about preventing issues based disagreements at all. It isn't about keeping our mouth shut up if we disagree. What it is about is reducing conflict that comes from behavior and ways of communicating that create unnecessary conflict.It's about learning to say things in a ways that do not get people's defenses up.It's about saying things so other don't get pissed because of your choice,tone,purchasing or body language. It's tool for the resolution of issue based conflict not a way of avoiding it.
The logical conflict management approach
The logical conflict management approach rests on the assumption that people can and will make conscious decisions about how they will deal with specific conflict.The approach outlines modes of dealing with conflict. For example: avoidance, collaboration,compromise etc.
In this approach each of this may fit a certain situation better than the others. So one evaluates the conflict situation, analyze it, and decides on course of action.In this way of thinking it may be perfectly OK to avoid a conflict situation if it is determined that doing something other than ignoring it will be destructive.So in this model avoidance may be an appropriate good response in some situation.The difficulty with this approach is it treats conflict as something that occurs within tow computers that is easy to analyze and isn't heavily influenced by a person's emotional state.
Emotional models
At the other end of the spectrum is an understanding of conflict as involving emotional energy.They see conflict as emotional encounter. They also tend to believe that the suppression of the emotional energy associated with conflict is sweeping the problems under the rug.What's more important is that some feel that this is destructive that unaddressed conflicts fester and gets worse if neglected. So within this way of thinking, avoidance of the conflict or ignoring a conflict is damaging and dangerous.It's often these folks that do not distinguish between conflict avoidance and conflict prevention.
Difference between avoidance and prevention
To start with a basic analogy, is there a difference between preventing contracting AIDS by the use of appropriate precautions and avoiding treatment if one has contracted it.The idea of conflict prevention recognizes that conflict takes many forms. Like the logical conflict managers we recognize that there is some conflict that is destructive, some that is hopeless and can never be resolved.So we can talk about destructive conflict and constructive. Destructive conflict is that has a low probability of being resolved and is primarily personality driven rather than conflict that is issue based.
often issue driven conflict turns into emotion based conflict and that's one thing we need to make sure doesn't happen.Emotion based or personality based conflicts are very difficult to deal with and with a relatively low probability of resolution.That's why we use the term destructive conflict because perusing the issue will often make things worse.Sometimes one must leave the conflict as it is ans make the best of it because pursuing it will make it worse.We are always going to have issue based disagreements and conflict. Well intentioned people often disagree.What we need to do though is focus our attention on reducing the incidence of personality based conflict because there are techniques that can reduce its frequency.
So conflict prevention isn't about preventing issues based disagreements at all. It isn't about keeping our mouth shut up if we disagree. What it is about is reducing conflict that comes from behavior and ways of communicating that create unnecessary conflict.It's about learning to say things in a ways that do not get people's defenses up.It's about saying things so other don't get pissed because of your choice,tone,purchasing or body language. It's tool for the resolution of issue based conflict not a way of avoiding it.
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