Coaching practices for Creative Confidence During Conflict

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Creative Confidence During Conflict, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• Something’s genuinely wrong here and there’s no time to coax everyone to a comfortable yes
• There’s a real call that has to be made right now with no time to build consensus, and I keep softening it and hedging to keep everyone happy
• The moment an argument heats up I either shut down and flee or cave just to make it stop
• I came in hard because the situation called for it, but partway through the urgent part got settled and the other person clearly just needed to feel heard
• The moment we start arguing, any sense that I actually like and respect this person evaporates

Practices that may help

1. Creative Confidence, Made Practical
   Creative confidence, as defined by Tom and David Kelley of IDEO, is the belief that you can generate good ideas and act on them — and research on self-efficacy shows it is learnable, not fixed. The core method is accumulating small creative wins through guided practice, which rebuilds confidence that was typically damaged by early criticism or comparison.
2. Competing (assertive, uncooperative)
   Pursue your own position firmly when speed, principle, or stakes outweigh the relationship cost.
   The Five Conflict-Resolution Styles
3. Use Competing when speed or safety matters more than buy-in
   Competing — high assertive, low cooperative — is appropriate when the decision is urgent, high-stakes, and not open for debate.
   The Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)
4. Use fierce self-compassion to stay in hard conversations
   Stay present in conflict by meeting your own distress with compassion, so you don't flee or attack.
   Fierce Self-Compassion, Made Practical
5. Recognize when to shift modes mid-conflict
   The mode that’s right at the start of a conversation may not be right ten minutes in.
   The Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)
6. Protect fondness actively during and after conflict
   Conflict is the test of PSO — deliberately hold the positive frame while the negative one is loudest.
   Positive Sentiment Override: How to Build the Lens That Protects Relationships
7. Easy Manner: bring a light touch when appropriate
   Use humor, lightness, and warmth to remind both of you that the relationship is bigger than this conflict.
   GIVE: DBT’s Skill for Preserving Relationships During Difficult Conversations
8. Apply the Stockdale Paradox to teams and leadership
   As a leader or team member under pressure, model the simultaneous holding of faith and brutal facts — it is contagious in both directions.
   The Stockdale Paradox, Made Practical
9. Transform the relationship, not just the issue
   Use each conflict as an opportunity to raise the quality of the relationship itself.
   The Third Alternative, Made Practical
10. Reframe feedback from outcome to process
    After any outcome — good or bad — ask "what did I do well?" before "how did it go?"
    The Confidence–Competence Loop

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