The Accommodating Teddy Bear Teddy bears use a smoothing or accommodating conflict management style with emphasis on human relationships Teddy bears ignore their own goals and resolve conflict by giving into others; unassertive and cooperative creating a win-lose (bear is loser) situation.
How do you handle conflict?
Barred Owl Teddy Bear. Black White Swirly Tree Owl Teddy Bear. Raccoon, Owl and Fox Trio Teddy Bear. Brent O’Bannon, MBS Strengths Coach 115 S. Travis, Suite 303 Sherman TX, 75090 Telephone: (903) 819-0301 email protected.
Most of us use a variety of styles depending on the person, the situation and our stress level. How we deal with our spouse at home is likely to be different than how we deal with our boss in the workplace.
Here are some brief thoughts on the strengths and struggles of the 5 styles of dealing with conflict, adapted from Johnson, 1981.
1. The Turtle: Avoidance
The strength of this style is that this person can easily look past conflicts and realizes most conflicts will solve themselves. They are calm on the outside and help de-escalate emotions in conflict.
The struggle with this style is the tendency to minimize, deny, and avoid conflict altogether. Major conflict tends to grow worse when it isn’t addressed.
2. The Teddy Bear: Accommodation
The strength of this style is how likeable and lovable this person is in most situations. How could you be mad at them? They want and need harmony. They will accept blame just to bring peace to angry situations.
The struggle of this style is that a teddy bear may be taken advantage of, becoming a doormat. The can enable others by not allowing them to face and wrestle with conflict. Secretly, they tend to have a low self-esteem and use likability from others as a way to build their own self-confidence.
3. The Shark: Competition
The strength of this style is the ability to be strong, courageous, and bring a conflict out in the open quickly. A shark is a leader that can confront bullies.
The struggles are becoming too pushy, tactless, and hurting peoples’ feelings. Sharks can escalate emotions and create barriers easily.
4. The Fox: Compromise
Their strength is communication and a willingness to find win-win or lose-lose compromises. Often the fox is able to craft intelligent intermediate solutions.
The struggles are deceptiveness and manipulation. People may feel “outfoxed” and cheated by foxes.
5. The Owl: Collaboration
The strength of this style is integrity. Owls can build trust, respect and deeper relationship. They are not tied to their way and tend to have an open mind for pragmatic solutions that create a win-win experience.
The struggle is that owls must have two willing parties to collaborate. These parties must have high levels of communication skills and emotional intelligence. Some conflicts require quick solutions and this style may take too long.
Coaching points:
- How do you cope with conflict? Are you a turtle, a teddy bear, a shark, a fox, or an owl?
- What strengths and struggles do you face in your conflict management style?
- How do your top 5 strengths from the Strength Finders 2.0 influence your conflict management style?
Brent O’Bannon helps entrepreneurs and workplaces to grow stronger, work smarter, and live richer as the world’s 1st Gallup Certified Strengths Coach at https://brentobannon.com/ and https://strengthschampion.com/ .
Get more from every negotiation at work.
“In a negotiation, it is wise not to take anything personally. If you leave personalities out of it, you will always be able to see opportunities more objectively.”
Every day you encounter situations where you need to negotiate. Perhaps it’s the negotiation on the purchase of equipment, getting a customer agree to your offer, close a sale, or ask colleagues to help you on a project.
Understanding how to negotiate successful outcomes more often will bring you greater personal success and help you perform your job even better.
Teddy Bear And Owl Negotiation Meme
The half-day Negotiation Power training teaches you the principles of win-win outcomes – by learning the repeatable strategies for preparing and conducting negotiations. During the course you’ll be shown the 4-stage negotiation framework to identify your own interests and understand what your counterpart might need in order to say “yes”. Finally, you’ll unpack the four negotiation stages, including: (1) preparation, (2) probing, (3) proposing and (4) pack-up. If you negotiate at work, you’ll love what you’re going to learn during this practical training session.
- Principle versus Positional negotiating.
- How to develop a plan to prepare for any negotiation.
- The behaviours to adapt during every stage of the negotiation.
- The secrets to offering concessions and asking for reciprocity.
Morning Session
- What do you need to negotiate?
- Take the negotiation assessment.
- Why learn to become an more effective negotiator?
- What are the possible outcomes
from any negotiation. - Negotiation case studies
- Identifying the five major negotiating styles.
- What style of negotiator are you?
- Learning the pitfalls and benefits of each negotiating style.
- Meet the Shark, the Owl, the Teddy Bear, the Turtle, and the Fox
- Identifying the preferred negotiating styles of your counterparts.
- Understanding the difference between principled versus positional negotiating.
Teddy Bear And Owl Negotiation Worksheet
Afternoon Session
- The 4 step negotiation process: Prepare. Probe. Propose. Pack up.
- What do you want from the negotiation?
- Understanding your interests.
- Setting upper and lower limits
- Establishing your BATNA.
- The triple constraints.
- Laying the groundwork.
- Setting the time and place.
- Establishing common ground.
- Getting off on the right foot.
- What to share and what to keep to yourself.
- Discussing areas of mutual gain.
- Three ways to help others see your options.
- What do they want and what do we want?
- Building an agreement.
- Getting to “yes”.