Mastering the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

As I was assembling all the materials I’d ever created about the Thomas-Kilmann Instrument (TKI) and conflict management, I knew I had to develop a meaningful sequence of chapters-from first presenting the basics of the TKI Conflict Model and the TKI assessment tool, all the way to USING that model and tool effectively for approaching the most devastating conflicts on this planet: civil war and international war.

At the start, I discuss the TKI Conflict Model, it’s two underlying dimensions, the five conflict-handling modes, and the three diagonal dimensions that enable a deep interpretation of your or anyone else’s TKI results. Then I cover the eight key attributes of a conflict situation (e.g., the level of stress, the level of trust, the relative importance of the issue to both parties, etc.), which determine when to choose-and how to use-each one of the five conflict modes: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. Next, I demonstrate how to conduct an in-depth interpretation of six very different TKI Profiles. Afterwards, each person can then use their personalized TKI results to significantly improve their conflict-handling behavior.

For the purpose of demonstrating how the TKI Conflict Model and the TKI assessment tool can continue to evolve into new forms and applications far beyond what was initially envisioned way back in the early 1970s, I discuss the first new TKI product to appear in a few decades: the new TKI TEAM Report (as distinguished from the long-standing TKI INDIVIDUAL Report).

I next discuss one of the most novel and profound applications of the TKI Conflict Model and the TKI assessment tool: How you address your INNER conflicts plays a major role in how you address all your OUTER conflicts. In my experience, the focus of virtually all discussion in conflict management concerns the variety of OUTER conflicts that people face in life; yet we can utilize the same conceptual model and use the same assessment tool to address four INNER conflicts: (1) Are you a physical body OR an energy body? (2) Are you governed by your ego OR your soul? (3) Is your SELF (as some combination or synthesis of your ego and your soul) separate from your surrounding systems OR are your systems integrated with who you are? (4) Have you resolved your primal relationships OR have you (whether consciously or not) chosen to spend the remainder of your life being emotionally drained and mentally disorganized by your unresolved wounds from the past?

I conclude my TKI Book by discussing the most disastrous conflicts that were ever created by and for the human species: CIVIL WARS and INTERNATIONAL WARS. I purposely left this topic for last, since it necessarily makes use of everything that came before (all the prior chapters) and much, much more. In particular, to fully appreciate the CAUSES of WAR, I introduce the progressive stages of human consciousness, with particular emphasis on the ethnocentric stage (also called tribal consciousness) that rigidly locks two different homogeneous tribes into sustained conflict (and/or war) with one another. To enable humanity to thrive as well as survive on this planet well into the distant future, human beings must move beyond their prior conditioning that compels them to only be comfortable and mindful with other people of the "same kind," what has been called, ethnocentric or tribal consciousness. Instead, human beings will be best served by fully embracing worldcentric consciousness ("we are one"), so they can eventually expand to spiritcentric consciousness ("we are everything everywhere all at once").