Approaches to Intelligence Analysis All people and organizations experience conflict. More often than not we think of conflict as representing something negative because we associate it with broken relationships or failed ways of doing business. In reality, however, conflict offers opportunities to clarify relationships and to improve processes that can be taken advantage of if we look for them. One of the first steps in being able to exploit conflict for better rather than worse is being able to identify the dynamics behind conflict interactions. In the moment of conflict, we often react rather than think, which can cloud our ability to analyze what is going on behind the arguments and stress. At the organizational level, all groups have some sort of mechanism to manage conflict, even if they are informal or highly reliant on personal relationships within the institution. This lecture addresses conflict in the context of our work in criminal intelligence analysis first by examining the styles people use when they are in conflict, and second by exploring some of the considerations behind how organizations can design processes to mitigate the damaging effects of conflict while harnessing its capacity to reveal new solutions to old problems. It forms the theoretical background for the practical considerations we have already given to conflict management when we read Chapter 10 in our textbook, and when we produced the written activity in Week 4. Conflict Styles Conflict styles are approach strategies one party uses to participate in conflict. Research in the field of conflict studies has identified five primary conflict styles: competing, avoiding, compromising, accommodating, and problem-solving. Competing conflict styles are those in which one party attempts to exercise a coercive influence on the other in order to achieve the first party’s goals. Conflict styles characterized as avoiding are those in which one party attempts to neglect, delay, or deny interaction with the conflict because it has lower concerns for both disputant’s aspirations. Compromising conflict styles are those in which a party attempts to divide its aspirations and the other party’s aspirations to the point that the conflict between them no longer energizes either disputant. Accommodating conflict styles are those in which one party’s concern for the other’s aspirations overwhelm its concern for its own aspirations, causing the first party to give-in to the other.  Problem-solving conflict styles are those in which one party seeks an integrative solution that achieves both disputants’ aspirations (Pruitt & Kim, 2004). The most desirable conflict style in collaborative organizations is problem-solving, although we all must learn to work with people whose first response to conflict may be one (or more) of the other styles. A range of influences in varying degrees defines the characteristics of the five conflict styles: assertiveness, cooperation, disclosure, empow.

1. Approaches to Intelligence Analysis
All people and organizations experience conflict. More often
than not we think of conflict as representing something negative
because we associate it with broken relationships or failed ways
of doing business. In reality, however, conflict offers
opportunities to clarify relationships and to improve processes
that can be taken advantage of if we look for them.
One of the first steps in being able to exploit conflict for better
rather than worse is being able to identify the dynamics behind
conflict interactions. In the moment of conflict, we often react
rather than think, which can cloud our ability to analyze what is
going on behind the arguments and stress. At the organizational
level, all groups have some sort of mechanism to manage
conflict, even if they are informal or highly reliant on personal
relationships within the institution.
This lecture addresses conflict in the context of our work in
criminal intelligence analysis first by examining the styles
people use when they are in conflict, and second by exploring
some of the considerations behind how organizations can design
processes to mitigate the damaging effects of conflict while
harnessing its capacity to reveal new solutions to old problems.
It forms the theoretical background for the practical
considerations we have already given to conflict management
when we read Chapter 10 in our textbook, and when we
produced the written activity in Week 4.
Conflict Styles
Conflict styles are approach strategies one party uses
to participate in conflict. Research in the field of conflict
studies has identified five primary conflict styles: competing,
avoiding, compromising, accommodating, and problem-solving.
Competing conflict styles are those in which one party attempts

2. to exercise a coercive influence on the other in order to achieve
the first party’s goals.
Conflict styles characterized as avoiding are those in which one
party attempts to neglect, delay, or deny interaction with the
conflict because it has lower concerns for both disputant’s
aspirations.
Compromising conflict styles are those in which a party
attempts to divide its aspirations and the other party’s
aspirations to the point that the conflict between them no longer
energizes either disputant.
Accommodating conflict styles are those in which one party’s
concern for the other’s aspirations overwhelm its concern for its
own aspirations, causing the first party to give-in to the other.
Problem-solving conflict styles are those in which one party
seeks an integrative solution that achieves both disputants’
aspirations (Pruitt & Kim, 2004). The most desirable conflict
style in collaborative organizations is problem-solving,
although we all must learn to work with people whose first
response to conflict may be one (or more) of the other styles.
A range of influences in varying degrees defines the
characteristics of the five conflict styles: assertiveness,
cooperation, disclosure, empowerment of the self and of the
other, active involvement, and flexibility. Table 1 shows how
the conflict styles relate to the influences that evoke them. The
level of assertiveness, cooperation, and the empowerment of the
other, meaning the concern one party has for another’s
aspirations, establishes the five major categories of conflict
styles, while variations within those categories express the
other characteristics in accordance with more nuanced tactical
considerations (Folger et al., 2009; Pruitt & Kim, 2004).
When a party uses a competing conflict style it seeks to achieve
its aspirations regardless of the other’s wants. This focus leads

3. to a high level of assertiveness, low level of cooperation,
empowerment of the self over the other, and a high level of
active involvement with the conflict. When engaged in a
contending manner, a competing style demonstrates moderate
levels of disclosure and flexibility, but when engaged in a
forcing manner, it demonstrates these qualities to lesser
degrees. A person’s adoption of competing conflict styles
indicates he or she not only has little concern for the other
person, but also has little concern for his or her relationship
with that person (Katz & Lawyer, 1992).
1. Overall, avoiding conflict styles are characterized by low
levels of assertiveness and cooperation, and does not seek the
empowerment of the other. In its protective variation, it favors
low disclosure and high empowerment of the self, with a low
level of active involvement and flexibility. As the avoidant
person increases his or her disclosure from low/moderate to
moderate, it takes on the forms of withdrawing and smoothing,
respectively, with both these variations having higher levels of
flexibility (moderate) than protecting. Only smoothing,
however, also reaches a moderate level of active involvement.
The use of avoiding conflict styles may indicate that a party
doubts the survivability of his or her relationship with the other
person under conditions of higher assertiveness and/or active
involvement in the conflict interaction (Katz & Lawyer, 1992).
2. Compromising is characterized by moderate levels of
assertiveness and cooperation, and does seek to empower both
parties. Compromising styles have two variations, firm and
flexible, but they are moderately flexible in terms of how much
the person is willing to adjust his or her behaviors and
aspirations to reach a settlement. The distinction arises when a
person wishes to maintain a low level of disclosure but a high
level of active involvement in the conflict interaction, which
constitutes firm compromising as opposed to flexible
compromising and allows for more disclosure but lower
involvement. A person uses compromising styles when he or she
does not perceive the likelihood for a mutually satisfying

4. resolution and so tries to mitigate losses while maximizing
gains (Katz & Lawyer, 1992).
3. When a person uses the accommodating style, he or she
expresses little assertiveness but a lot of cooperation, seeking to
empower the other over the self. When yielding, the person
demonstrates a low level of disclosure, with a moderate level in
a variation of this style known as conceding. Conceding shows a
high tolerance for active involvement in the conflict but less
flexibility than yielding. A person will use accommodating
conflict styles when he or she is sees that only one disputant
will win and that disputant must be Other (Katz & Lawyer,
1992). This represents the opposite perspective from that of
competing conflict styles.
4. The problem-solving approach seeks the empowerment of
both disputants, and is characterized by high levels of all the
other factors that make up conflict styles, with the exception of
its level of disclosure, which a person may only express to a
moderate degree. When a person adopts a problem-solving
conflict style, he or she may be referred to as collaborator as he
or she seeks resolutions that fulfill both disputants’ aspirations
without any losses (Katz & Lawyer, 1992).
Because conflict styles are techniques people use in their
relationships with others to achieve goals, conflict styles
change over time, even when a person strongly favors one
approach over others and seems to have a limit repertoire for
dealing with conflicts. Styles often change over time, as people
learn new lessons or have new experiences that change their
levels of assertiveness, cooperation, disclosure, feelings of
empowerment of the self and of the other, willingness to be
active involved in a conflict, and flexibility.
These levels usually change through an awareness of the
communication process or the intervention of a third party
(Mitchel, 1981). They might also change in response to the
interactive nature of conflict as anevolving strategy to meet
goals. For instance, a person may engage in an avoidance tactic
because further interaction with another person produces

5. tension for which the person may have a very low psychological
tolerance. In a more passive manner, unintended disclosure of
information about a person’s interests in the conflict may lower
that person’s motivation to devote significant resources to
maintaining a low level of disclosure and facilitate its conflict
style’s transitioning to a style characterized by higher levels of
disclosure.
If we can first withdrawourselves from our negative feelings
about conflict and conduct self examination to determine what
our own core interests are, then we can then start to reframe
how we interact with others in conflict situations to cause shifts
in the factors that influence how they approach conflict, with
the ultimate goal of encourage both of us to move toward a
problem-solving conflict style.
Conflict Management Systems
An organization is a group of elements performing independent
actions towards a mutually dependent product. Fritz put forth of
model of structural conflict that occurs when competing
activities of the organization undermine its ability to produce,
describing conditions where a resolution to one tension evokes
another tension elsewhere in the system (1996).
Part of the difficulty of identifying structural conflicts
for effective intervention, which is clearly within the best
interests of the organization, is that members of the
organization by definition have challenges escaping their
internal understanding of its workings in order to conduct the
external assessment necessary to find the ‘joints’ and ‘levers’
that are candidates for treatment.
In their seminal case study on conflict management systems
design, Ury, Brett, and Goldberg outlined a model of three basic
conflict management systems (1988). Power-based systems are
those in which disputants are encouraged, either explicitly or
tacitly, toward coercive conflict styles where the conflict is

6. viewed as a zero-sum game and one party gives little attention
to the concerns of the other. The parties pit themselves against
each other to rectify grievances.
Rights-based systems orient the parties towards external
standards, laws, regulations, and other official frameworks for
an organization’s operations as the measures by which
resolutions may be developed. The parties’ grievances are pitted
against recorded guidelines. Interests-based systems explore the
needs that parties’ grievances symptomize and develop
solutions for the maximum benefit of all involved.
Power- andrights-based systems can lead to detrimental effects
on the organization because they frame the conflict as a
competition between two parties with few options for turning
resolutions to the overall advantage of the organization. The
organization becomes the stage on which the conflicts are
played out rather than the focus of investment in the parties’
energies.
Interests-based systems, in contrast, deal directly with the
underlying causes of the conflict, reflecting the discover of
resolutions towards the mutual interests of the parties’ and, as
key elements of the organization itself, the organization’s well-
being. From this model, Ury el al. and their predecessors have
encouraged organizations and conflict management systems
designers to analyze which system dominates the conflict
management behaviors of an organization’s members and
construct pathways towards interests-based mechanisms with a
recognition that conflict is an inevitable, though not necessarily
inevitably detrimental, aspect of all organizations.
Designing a conflict management system in conjunction with an
organization demands an understanding of the organization’s
integrated structure through a systems analysis approach.Each
part operates in tandem with others, which in sum expend
resources and produce outputs. Similar to the laws of biology,
organizations develop in response to their external
environments. Some are more susceptible to external pressures

7. than others, and often those pressures constitute an existential
threat to the organization itself (Silverman, 1970).
And similar to the law of physics, activities within the
organization produce tensions that repel and attract its elements.
When those tensions overwhelm the ability of the organization
to produce outputs, it stagnates or declines under the weight of
a decreasing return on energy investments (Fritz, 1996).
All organizations are in a constant state of change. The change
may be advancement or oscillation, using the terms of Fritz’
model, but the influences of an evolving external environment,
a developing institutional memory, the coming and going of
organizational members, the flow of resource inputs and
outputs, and other forces do not cease their shaping of the
organization, regardless of the appearance of stasis.
Organizations have attachments whose presence marks the place
within its life cycle where it currently is. Those attachments
should be explicitly incorporated in a system design, either to
support the attachments functions of moving the organization
into a next stage of growth or to provide space for separation
between the organization and attachments, which influence its
decline.
The Take Down
Last week you presented to Chief Heaton your assessment of the
most likely effects of taking down the El Movi brothel
organization. After careful consideration, he has authorized the
TPD to prepare a concept of operations for direct action against
the organization. Julia has already told us that Angél regularly
spends a day at the brothels on a rotating basis, but she does not
know his current schedule. Daisy has heard he will be stopping
by one of the brothels on Day 1 of Week 8, but she will not
know which one until that day.
So, the raid will take place on that day, as soon as they know
exactly where he will be. Ideally, Chief Heaton would prefer to
arrest Angél Martínez and all the brothel managers without
getting anyone hurt. In reality, we are faced with the problem of
having to pick whom we will go after and whom we will have to

8. let go for now. Even with JTTF support the TPD cannot take
down 17 brothels at once.
Scenario
Daisy has agreed to help with the raid in exchange for immunity
from prosecution and enrollment in a city-supported job
assistance program. Daisy will not be asked to testify because
of her value to counter drug operations and the risk it would
pose to her and her family, but mostly due to the fact that she
had less information than what Julia Simone can provide to the
court.
Daisy will arrange her grocery delivery schedule so that she
will be making deliveries to 10 of the brothels on the day of the
raid (she cannot reasonably handle any more than that). During
the deliveries, she will conduct basic elicitation to determine
where Angél will be that day. She will also get a feel for the
people in brothel to assess the risks of a raid.
As she leaves each house, an undercover patrol car will be
stationed to monitor the comings and goings at the brothels.
Between deliveries, Daisy will call her TPD handler to report
what she has seen. After she has completed all her deliveries,
she will return to a police safe house where she will stay until
the raid is over. This last step along with her agreement to have
her phone and her home internet monitored between now and
the raid were necessary to make sure she does not pose a
security risk to the operation and were mandated by the District
Attorney’s office as a condition of her immunity. At this point,
we seem to have two options:
Option 1
After the TPD has confirmed Daisy’s arrival at the safe house,
the undercover officers will call for support. Once the support
arrives, they will initiate raids at all 10 of the brothels as
closely synchronized as possible to prevent the managers from
warning each other. Timing is key here because El Movi’s
communications network is one of its strongest security
mechanisms. If one of the managers warns the others, then the
situation could become dangerous, especially now that we have

9. information the managers have at least one firearm in the house.
Likewise, the Police Commissioner will not authorize going into
a house in which a police informant has not been physically
present that day without an overwhelming concentration of
manpower, especially considering the presence of the brothels
victims inside. So if Angél is not in one of the brothels Daisy
visits, then the TPD risk his escaping arrest. They will,
however, be able to shut down 10 brothels in one fail swoop.
The others will likely follow in short time.
Option 2
Once Daisy informs her handler at which brothel Angél will
visit, the TPD will converge at that the nearest police station to
that location. After the TPD has confirmed Daisy’s arrival at the
safe house, they will launch the raid directly on the house where
Angél is located. It will be highly likely brothel managers at
other locations will be tipped off about the raid, and they will
likely flee the city.
Having Angél in custody, however, will be extremely important
because he has extensive information about the organization,
including its financing (they have to be laundering that money
somehow), public corruption (chances are someone in the local
government is on Angél’s payroll), human trafficking (we still
do not know a lot about the recruitment and transportation
methods), and any possible relationships El Movi may have to
gangs, drugs rings, or cartels.
Also, we had indications early on that Angél had relationships
with independently managed brothels of which we have not
found any substantial evidence so far. If they exist, we will
probably need his information to locate them, too.