Two weekends ago, I attended the Toastmasters Division Conference in Alicante. Apart from a terrific organization for the whole day (amazing work from our friends from Toastmasters Alicante Speakers Club), and a high level in both Humorous Speeches and Table Topics contests (national level, respect!), these conferences add even some more extra value with a couple of seminars. One of them was provided by Tobias Rodrigues about Conflict Management.

It was just a 30 minutes speech with a couple of take-away pills to deal with daily conflicts in any aspect of our lives, either professional or personal, but where we became more aware of easy steps we can take to avoid, or reduce the conflict when it comes.

His recommendation can be summarized in the following motto: be Positive in beliefs, Proactive with your body and Practical with your words.

• Positive in beliefs means that whenever a conflict arises, you should be calm, clear and confident. The best way to do so, is by making sure all your thoughts are boosters (giving you energy), and be sure to discard all those thoughts that take you energy.
• Proactive with your body is based on the fact that it is easier to handle what your mouth says, than what your body says, and there is more communication in this latter, than in the words themselves. Hence, all good practices in terms of body language should be consciously applied to show an open and collaborative attitude.
• Practical with your words deals with what you say during the conflict. You shall not be emotional or the other person will feel attacked and conflict will arise. Hence, three (3 is the magical number in everything, especially public speaking) easy rules shall be followed: 1) Describe the situation (only the objective facts!!), 2) Assert your feelings (say why the situation is a problem for you, also from your perspective, don’t blame), 3) Name what you want (you normally want the other person to do something, say it clearly).