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Conflict Style Analysis - Per (TKI)
Collaborating + Compromising
The context this analysis measures: Workplace and professional conflict handling: how you actually act when your goals conflict with the goals of another party
How to read this report: your primary style (Collaborating) is the focus of the sections below, and your backup style (Compromising) appears in its own section; read what is said about the primary as the usual pattern rather than an absolute, since backup behaviours may show up too.
This tool has not yet been calibrated on a sample of respondents, so there is no population norm and no comparison with other people here; the result describes only your own answers in the stated context.
Executive Summary
Your primary style for handling professional conflict is Collaborating: when your goal collides with the goal of another party, you lean toward looking for a solution that serves both goals rather than letting one of them win, and you accept spending extra time to understand what the other side actually wants behind the position they stated. You tend not to give up your own goal easily, yet you do not ignore the goal of the other person either.
This tendency helps with complex issues whose solution needs information from more than one party. It can cost more time and energy than a simple disagreement requires, and frustration may creep in when the other side does not return the same openness. This is a description of what you lean toward at work: it is not a judgment on the quality of your decisions or on your personality as a whole.
Detailed Interpretation of Your Style
The Thomas-Kilmann model describes two dimensions: assertiveness (pursuing your own goal) and cooperativeness (caring about the goal of the other party). The Collaborating style is both of them high together at the moment of conflict: you hold on to what you need, ask at the same time for what the other side needs, and look for a form that has room for both.
Suppose two teams need the same engineer in the same week. A compromising answer splits the engineer time between them, while a collaborating answer asks what each team needs from that person specifically, and may find that one needs a short review and the other needs sustained work, so a third schedule gets designed that neither side had thought of. That difference is what makes the extra time worthwhile when the matter is complex.
This style does not mean niceness or a wish to please people, and it is not weakness of position; you keep your goal and look for a route that serves it without wrecking the goal of the other. It is a method of reaching a solution more than a trait of temperament, and you may find it in a sharp-tempered person as well as in a calm one.
Your primary style is the highest in your distribution, not the only one in it. The percentages are the share each style takes of your combined scores across the five styles, so they set your tendencies against one another; they do not measure how strong any style is in absolute terms, and they do not compare you with anyone. A backup style is shown beside the primary style when its score reaches at least 70% of the primary score, a fixed display threshold that was not derived from any sample; if no style reaches it, the primary style is shown alone, which describes the spread of scores and not the absence of the other styles from your behavior.
The confidence indicator at the top of the page, which is your answer consistency, starts from how completely you answered and falls if you chose the same option for every item, if your answers were extremely close to one another, or if they contradicted each other on paired items. Reaching 100% therefore means only that these signals were absent; it does not confirm that the style shown is correct, and it does not make the gap between two close styles decisive.
The Internal Distribution of Your Style
An illustrative distribution for a displayed example, not a real user result.
Primary
Backup
Less present
Less present
Less present
Your primary style (Collaborating) is the one closest to your answers, and your backup style (Compromising) is the second closest; the backup may sometimes show up when the first does not move a situation, although the questionnaire did not measure behaviour under pressure, so read the two sections together.
Deeper Background
In the 1970s Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann developed a model that sorts ways of handling conflict into five modes, produced by the crossing of the assertiveness and cooperativeness dimensions. This analysis is inspired by that model and written specifically for this product; it is not the published instrument itself and not a substitute for it.
The Collaborating mode sits at high assertiveness and high cooperativeness, and it tries to achieve both goals instead of trading one against the other. It generally suits complex, multi-dimensional issues, long relationships that deserve the investment, and situations where a good solution is completed only with input from both sides. It costs more in a small disagreement that does not merit the time, in a situation that is tight on time, or when the other party does not join in the search for a solution.
The model presents each mode as a tool with its own place, and collaborating does not outrank the others automatically despite its positive impression. It needs two sides willing to be open; if you are the only one supplying information and giving up time, the process can turn from a shared search into a burden you carry alone.
Strengths
Solutions that join the interests of both sides
Because you care about what each side wants, you may reach arrangements that neither side would have proposed on its own.
Understanding the interest behind the stated position
You tend to ask why before you discuss the request, so it sometimes turns out that the dispute was about the means and not about the aim.
Quality of the solution in tangled matters
When financial, technical and human considerations intersect, your investment in understanding gives you a chance at a more durable solution than a quick settlement.
Combining protection of the goal with keeping the relationship
You may not see yourself as forced to choose between your position and your relationship, which may help you keep working channels open after a sharp disagreement.
Involving the parties in what concerns them
When people take part in shaping a solution, their commitment to carrying it out may rise, and your way of managing conflict gives them that opening.
Development Areas
Choosing the disagreement that deserves the full process
You may apply the same patient method to a dispute about the color of a presentation slide and to a dispute about the structure of a team, spending on the first what the second needed more.
Let the size of your investment follow the impact and complexity of the disagreement, not your habit of listening.
Dealing with a party who does not return the openness
You may offer information, explain your needs and ask about theirs, and get a curt reply or a fixed position, so you feel you are working alone and the frustration may turn into withdrawal.
Learn to notice the imbalance early and to name it calmly, instead of discovering weeks later that you were the only side moving.
Knowing when the search should stop
You may go on combining considerations even after it has become clear that the interests of the two sides do not meet, so you miss the delivery date or wear out the team in an effort whose conditions are not there.
Treat the search for a shared solution as a stage with a start and an end, not as open-ended work that finishes when you reach perfection.
Protecting the core of your goal inside cooperation
A concern for harmony may lead you to give up an essential part of your goal and then call it cooperation, when in truth it is surrender and not joint shaping.
Keep a clear distinction between what you actually need and what you merely prefer, and enter the conversation knowing the difference.
Explaining the value of the process to those around you
Some colleagues may read the long process as hesitation or weakness in deciding, especially when they do not know why you extend the conversation on this particular matter.
Tell people what you are doing and why, so that the time invested is understood as a deliberate method and not as slowness.
Reflection Across Life Domains
Workplace and Team
In complex decisions you may bring the team to a solution that most of its members accept out of conviction, and over time you may build a trust based on their objections being heard.
You may slow down a simple decision by applying the full collaborative method to it, so a team waiting for a quick answer is delayed.
Keep the full process for complex decisions with large impact, and settle the simple ones quickly after a question or two.
Relationships and Family (outside what is measured)
This analysis measures what you do in professional conflict, not at home; if the same tendency exists there, you may handle complicated disagreements in a way that leaves both sides feeling they were heard.
The conversation about a small matter may also run longer than the people around you can bear, and they may wish for a quicker decision.
If you notice the same tendency at home, ask the people around you: do you want us to look into this in depth or decide quickly?
Personal Decision-Making (outside what is measured)
If the tendency carries into your personal decisions, you may weigh several considerations instead of answering one of them at the expense of the rest.
Weighing the competing considerations inside you may also turn into a long search for a solution that satisfies every consideration, and the decision gets delayed.
Set a date for your decision before you begin weighing, then choose the best available combination when the date arrives.
Organizational Change Management
You may involve the team in designing the change, so the solution belongs to the people who will carry it out and is not a decision imposed on them.
Designing a change through participation may take longer than pressing deadlines allow.
In an urgent change, gather the most important input in one focused session instead of a series of meetings, then announce what was adopted and what was postponed.
Creativity and Problem-Solving
You may combine the ideas of the team into one design that is stronger than each idea on its own.
You may stretch the merging stage in search of a design that satisfies all contributors, and so miss a suitable window for implementation.
Set a date for closing the merging stage, and leave with the best available combination when it arrives instead of waiting for perfection.
Comparison and Context
This analysis describes what you do when your goal collides with the goal of someone else at work, and in the Collaborating style it joins holding your own goal with care for the goal of the other. It does not compare your result with anyone else, and the same behavior can have more than one reason: a search for a better solution because the matter really is complex, and a long conversation driven by a wish for all sides to agree, look alike from the outside.
The useful comparison here is with yourself: do you invest the same time in simple and in complex disagreements, and does your openness change when the other side is open and when it is not? The tool has not yet been calibrated on a sample, so the result is no basis for saying that you collaborate more or less than other people.
How this differs from a comprehensive personality analysis: Your Collaborating style describes how you look for a solution that serves both goals when they collide, and it says nothing about your general warmth, your empathy or your trust in people; comprehensive personality analyses describe those, and joint searching can sit alongside sharp or calm temperaments alike.
90-Day Plan
A stepped plan over three months: it begins by observing where your time goes in disagreements, then tries controlling time and route in real situations, then announces your method to the people around you. The activities here complete the ready-made exercises in the next section and do not repeat them.
Month One: Where Your Time Goes
To see, in simple numbers, how much you invest in each kind of disagreement and what you get for it.
- Weeks one and two: record five disagreements with the hours of discussion spent on each, the number of parties, and the outcome.
- Week three: pick out two disagreements where you over-invested and one where you under-invested, and write the reason for each verdict in a line.
- Week four: ask one colleague how they find the time your conversations take in disagreements, and whether the team gains from it or is bothered by it.
Sign of progress: a small table showing which kinds of disagreement earn a long investment from you and which do not.
Month Two: Controlling Time and Route
To try a faster route in simpler disagreements and compare the quality.
- Weeks five and six: choose two simple disagreements and settle them within one session after two questions, and notice whether the quality of the outcome changed.
- Week seven: in a complex disagreement, set a date for each stage of the search and tell the parties in advance.
- Week eight: write a short page titled “How I Settle Disagreements”, share it with your team and wait for their remarks.
Sign of progress: two simple disagreements settled quickly without complaint, and one complex disagreement that ran on announced dates.
Month Three: Announcing the Method and Protecting the Core
That the people around you understand why you sometimes extend a conversation, and that you confirm cooperation is not eating your goal.
- Weeks nine and ten: before each long process, tell the other party what the two of you will do, why, and how long it will take, then ask whether they would prefer another route.
- Week eleven: review three earlier collaborative agreements and check that what you needed in them was not left out.
- Week twelve: gather a summary of what you learned about where investment pays and where it is wasted, and rewrite your page.
Sign of progress: a stated habit at the opening of long disagreements, and three agreements that have been reviewed.
Applied Tools
The Three Screening Questions
To decide within a minute whether the disagreement deserves the full process or a faster route.
Ask yourself three questions: does more than one consideration intersect in the disagreement (money, quality and time, for example)? Will more than two parties be affected by the outcome? Do I have enough time before the deadline? If the answer is yes to two or more, begin the full process; otherwise propose a solution after two questions and present it.
At the start of any new disagreement
The Position and Interest Card
To reach what matters to the other party behind what they ask for.
Draw two columns: in the first, the position of each side as it was stated; in the second, its interest as you assume it. Then ask the other party: “what makes this matter important to you?” and correct the second column with their answer. After that write down what could serve both interests together and what serves only one.
In every complex disagreement, before solutions are offered
A Time Cap in the Meeting Invitation
To stop the joint search from stretching without end.
Write in the invitation itself: “we will set aside forty-five minutes to look for a solution that serves us both, and if we do not arrive we will go by the deciding rule we agree on now.” In the first minutes, agree on that rule (the manager, a trial run, or priority to the deadline).
For each meeting that settles a complex disagreement
Checking the Core After the Agreement
To confirm that what was agreed did not swallow what you actually need.
A day after the agreement, answer three questions in writing: which basic need of mine stayed in the solution? Which concession did I make, and did I choose it or was it slowly imposed on me? Does the other party say their basic need stayed as well? If the first answer is missing, go back to the other party to adjust the agreement.
After each important collaborative agreement
Strategic Recommendations
Choose settings that call for multi-party solutions
Your inclination to search for interests may find a natural place in tasks where many parties are entangled and need one consistent solution.
Think of tasks such as coordinating a project between departments or designing an agreement between partners; this describes a setting that may suit your inclination and is not career direction.
Choose a partner who settles the simple decisions
A colleague who decides quickly may balance the rhythm of your work, leaving you free for the issues that deserve depth.
Agree on a dividing line between what is decided quickly and what is examined in depth, and on who takes each side.
Announce a charter for how you work in disagreements
When your team knows when you use the long process and when you decide quickly, it is less likely to read your openness as hesitation.
Write half a page naming the disagreements handled through a full process and those settled quickly, and share it with the people you work with.
Assign a time budget to each category of disagreement
Fixing the time in advance protects the team from exhaustion, and makes your decision to continue or stop a deliberate one.
Give each category (simple, medium, complex) a written time cap, and review it every quarter in light of what worked.
Adopt a deciding authority for when reciprocity is missing
Some parties do not want a joint search, and insisting on it then wastes time.
Decide in advance who settles the matter (a manager or a committee) and tell the parties when the process begins, so they know the search has an end.
Closing Summary
Your Collaborating style in professional conflict is a tendency to look for a solution that serves both sides, and it is at its best when aimed at complex issues that deserve the investment: several considerations, long relationships, and a solution that is only complete with the input of more than one party.
The step that makes it a deliberate tool is controlling the size of the investment: speeding up the simple disagreements, setting a cap on the complex ones, announcing your method, and checking that the joint solution did not take from the core of what you need.
This report is a description of a tendency in a work setting, built on your answers today, and is not a final verdict on your personality nor a means of assessing employment. Take the analysis again if your role or team changes substantially.
Your backup style: Compromising
This section follows the closing summary and adds one layer: what Compromising may contribute when it is the second-closest style in your answers and its score reached the display threshold described in the section “Detailed Interpretation of Your Style”. It does not replace the primary style named at the top of the page, and the questions do not measure what you do in a particular situation or under a particular pressure; what follows are hypotheses to test in your own situations, not facts asserted about you.
Compromising may add to your primary style a leaning toward naming a clear meeting point instead of continuing to push or to search, and toward accepting that each side leaves with part of what it wanted. You may notice it when a disagreement drags on without movement and you feel an urge to say: “what is the closest point we can both accept today?”
It may cost you a disagreement closed at the first reasonable point before what matters to the other side has been heard, a run of middle offers that reads as a wish to end the matter and not as a balance, or the same disagreement returning weeks later in another form. The cost may be larger when the matter cannot be divided, such as the safety of people or a legal obligation.
Early signs worth noticing include middle offers arriving before the details of the situation are understood, proposing a split in the first two minutes of a discussion, or feeling relief merely because the conversation ended. If you notice one of these, ask yourself: is this middle a solution or an exit?
To get value from it with any primary style, set this description beside the primary style named at the top of the page and compare their positions on the two dimensions of assertiveness and cooperativeness. What Compromising adds to your primary style, use deliberately when your primary style is not enough; what pulls you away from your usual approach, name aloud to the person in front of you with a sentence such as: “I suggest we settle on a middle point now and review it in two weeks.”
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