Conflict

Resolution and

Communication

Speaker: Sarah Walter, Licensed Professional Counselor

Tips to aid you in taking care of yourself, your practice and / or your staff:

Effective conflict resolution is a vital skill for every professional and can act as a catalyst to build a healthy work environment for both dental team members and your patients. Learning how to successfully navigate challenging work dynamics and creating long lasting communication skills will help a healthy work culture, increasing self-awareness and identifying personal areas of self-growth can help identify learning cycles of negativity and assist you with getting rid of them. When you identify and build healthy boundaries this can lead to increasing emotional awareness and areas of reactivity.

By learning your own conflict resolution style and those around you can lead to solving workplace challenges:

COLLABORATING: assertive and cooperative

attempts to work with the other person to find a solution that fully satisfies the concerns of both

ACCOMMODATING: unassertive and cooperative

neglects his or her own concerns to satisfy the concerns of the other person

AVOIDING: unassertive and uncooperative

does not immediately pursue his or her own concerns or those of the other person

COMPETING: assertive and uncooperative

pursues his or her own concerns at the other person’ s expense

COMPROMISING: is intermediate in both assertiveness and cooperativeness

find an expedient, mutually acceptable solution that partially satisfies both parties

Communication Hiccups:

Triangulation: a manipulation tactic where one person uses a third party to communicate indirectly which can lead to misunderstandings and emotional turmoil in relationships.

Complaint vs Criticism: Complaint there is no attack but rather a direct focus on the actual problem, ex. a person’ s behavior, or a specific thing, time, place. Criticism is a destructive attack on a person’ s personality, history or character and can be met with defensiveness.

Defensiveness: a defense mechanism in response to feedback you perceive as critical. Can cause responses to be snapped back, being sarcastic, giving the silent treatment or being critical in return.

Stonewalling: shutting down or walking away mid-talk. Can cause anxiety and blocks understanding making the other person feel abandoned.

NDC

Pennsylvania Dental Association

New Dentist Committee