TKI Report Reflection Essay Sample

The TKI report is an instrument set out to assess one’s behavior in conflicts. It is not a quiz or a test since there are no right answers. Furthermore, the TKI simply identifies two axes in which a person’s conflict resolution style would fall into. One axis is assertiveness, showing the extent one would go in order to have their wants and needs fulfilled. The other axis is cooperativeness, the extent one would go in order for the other party’s wants and needs to be fulfilled. Based on these axes, there are five conflict resolution styles, each with its own unique combination of cooperativeness and assertiveness. 

Avoiding is the combination of low cooperativeness and low assertiveness. One would be avoiding if he or she is not addressing the conflict or withdrawing from it entirely as their main tactic. Accommodation is a lack of assertiveness while having high cooperativeness. This person would forgo their own wants and needs in order for a resolution to be made. Collaborating individuals are both assertive and cooperative. A collaborating person would work hard so that both their own needs and the other party’s needs are satisfied. A competing person lacks cooperation but is very assertive. An assertive individual would be less likely to compromise and would fight for their resolution to be final. Finally, compromising sits right in the middle in terms of both cooperativeness and assertiveness. They often try to find a solution that neither party fully wins or loses, which leads to problems sometimes coming back in the future. 

My own TKI report shows that I showed a high level of avoiding, and moderate levels of competing, accommodating, and collaborating. I also showed just above what is considered to be a low level of compromising. What this essentially means is that while I use all five of these conflict resolution styles, I tend to favor avoiding while using compromising the least. The other three styles of conflict resolution are used moderately. I initially guessed that I would use avoiding more often than the other styles. However, I guessed that I would use competing less often than the report showed. I also thought that I wouldn’t be as accommodating as the report showed. With the understanding that each style has its own best use case depending on the situation, I feel like these results allow me to gain a better understanding of who I am and how I resolve conflicts. 

These results are not rules of behavior, they simply show what my preferences are when it comes to conflict. My high level of avoidance comes a place where the majority of conflicts that I face are deemed not worth fighting in at all. I tend to live a life of solitude. I spend 95% of my time alone, working on things that make me happy. When conflicts arise outside of that world, which they often do, I tend to avoid them. The outcome of that conflict tends to be unimportant to me, hence why I disregard my own wants and needs and the other party’s wants and needs. I simply do not care that much about the majority of the conflicts that I find myself involved in, and avoiding is a great strategy because it allows me to get back to the things that matter to me the most. Tying together my avoidance and my competitiveness, I feel like I will choose to avoid a conflict if the other party is very assertive as to not let them have their way. There is a conflict I’m in at the moment regarding an apartment mate wanting me to turn down my music. Instead of trying to cooperate in the situation, I tend to avoid the conflict and continue to play my music because that’s what I enjoy doing. I’m not saying that this is the best way to go about it, but this is simply how I’ve gone about the situation. 

I tend to moderately use competing, accommodating, and collaborating. These preferences tend to fall in line with my expectations and actions. The main use case of competing in my daily life is when playing devil’s advocate, which has probably not only solidified itself as a style of conflict resolution, but also a part of my personality. Whether I believe the contrary or not, I tend to bring it to fruition and have it heard. I do this because the contrary to what the majority are saying sometimes ends up being the better solution. And, I find it to be intellectually stimulating. I tend to be accommodating in relationships. When it comes to preserving a relationship in conflict, I take one for the team quite often. This stems from me being a naturally anxious person who overthinks things. Sometimes I get in a mindset that the relationship is brittle, so I become a pushover and internalize the idea that I didn’t get my wants and needs considered. I tend to collaborate on things that I genuinely care about regarding work or school. Since I care about these things, I accept the lengthy process that goes into fully collaborating since having both parties’ interests seen through to the full extent leads to the overall best results. I was recently working on a collaborative work of art that would both represent us, and we had stark disagreements about the nature of the project. I wanted something flashier, and he wanted something more traditional and plane. For something that could have been done in fifteen minutes had we both agreed on the vision, it took over three days and many revisions in order to finally reach a point where we were both fully satisfied. 

I showed a moderately low level of preference for compromising since I feel like it is not extremely productive. Since compromising tends to lead to subpar results, I’d much rather avoid the situation and save time or fully commit to the situation and get to a result I am actually happy with. I would use compromising in social situations where the stakes are low such as picking a restaurant for my friends and me to dine at. Spending a lot of time exhausting all options generally isn’t worth it, and competing just leads to hurt feelings in these cases. As long as neither party is strongly against the place to dine, then it is not a huge deal. 

One would go about learning from my biases in conflict resolution preference by looking at outcomes, and not only understanding how they could be better, but understanding the thought process that leads me to choose a style of conflict in the first place. I tend to bias being avoidant because I unhealthily live in solitude for the majority of the time. Granted, my priorities are set in such a way that the things I value most require me to be alone. However from an unbiased perspective on myself, I am extremely inefficient in the way I spend my time doing these things. If I were more efficient in these tasks I set out for myself that I prioritize, I would have more time to spend times with friends and collaborate on issues, leading to less tension. Furthermore, if I spent more time with friends, I would be less anxious about the fragility of the relationship, so I would be less accommodating. This is only one side of my analysis, however. 

Given the analysis provides by the TKI assessment, I can now understand going into a conflict that I am biased towards being avoiding. This understanding would help me become a more well-rounded person when it come to handling conflict. There are scenarios where I would naturally choose avoiding when maybe I should choose a different style. An example of a scenario would be the conflict regarding my apartment mate where I’ve been avoiding the conflict naturally because that passes me onto the next day. Recently, it’s been causing me a lot of stress. Fully understanding how I’m going about this situation has led me to make some changes, and I’ve actually started a dialogue very recently. It took the understanding of both of our conflict resolution styles to be able to see the bigger picture that it will likely only get worse. In this case, I am shifting over to compromising because I would feel more at peace knowing there is a mutual understanding between us even if that meant less time to play music. 

Addressing my unbalanced preferences may not be all the work that I must do. Just because my competing, accommodating, and collaborating are at moderate preference levels does not mean that I am using them properly. I need to understand that sometimes I feel powerless in conflict situations, specifically when I don’t feel like I’ve earned the respect of the other party or parties. Sometimes this is anxiety talking and sometimes it’s true. If that group of people that I don’t feel like I’ve earned the respect of is important to me, I need to spend more time with them. Then, I would feel more comfortable competing. Sometimes, I don’t discipline others enough considering my leadership position in my fraternity. I tend to accommodate too much resulting in no lessons learned and no progress made. If I took a step back and understood the disciplining as for a greater good and not a personal issue, I could have less of a hard time getting these types of things done. 

I feel like understanding my conflict style preferences and how they are very bendable after understanding why I use them motivates me to share this information and the TKI report to others. It genuinely gave me a lead as to why I feel anxious in some situations and why I feel like some relationships are brittle. I think if people were given the tools to understand themselves better, they could have an easier time becoming their best self.