The TKI conflict assessment — formally the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument — is the most widely used conflict assessment in the world. Developed in 1974 and published by The Myers-Briggs Company, it maps how you handle conflict across five modes: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding, and Accommodating. In roughly 10–15 minutes, the TKI gives your team a shared language for tackling the disagreements that drain productivity, fracture trust, and push good people out the door.
If you’re an HR or people leader watching talented people clash, disengage, or quietly quit over unresolved conflict, the TKI is a research-backed place to start. But here’s the part most people miss: the assessment is only as good as the facilitation behind it. At OptimizeTeamwork, we’ve delivered 4,000+ workshops and coached 30,000+ leaders. Dr. Rachel Cubas-Wilkinson, former VP at The Myers-Briggs Company and former Head of Learning Consulting at Pearson, former VP at The Myers-Briggs Company and former Head of Learning Consulting at Pearson spent years at The Myers-Briggs Company — the organization that publishes the TKI. She knows this tool inside and out, and she knows when it needs reinforcement from other assessments to create real behavioral change.
Key Takeaways
- The TKI conflict assessment (Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument) is the most widely used conflict resolution assessment globally, published by The Myers-Briggs Company.
- It identifies your preferred conflict management styles across five modes: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding, and Accommodating.
- The model rests on two dimensions — assertiveness and cooperativeness — which combine into a 2×2 matrix with a midpoint.
- 85% of employees experience workplace conflict, and U.S. companies lose an estimated $359 billion annually to conflict-related hours (CPP Global Human Capital Report).
- The TKI is a powerful diagnostic tool — but it works best with expert facilitation and, often, pairing with complementary assessments like DiSC or EQ-i 2.0.
- OptimizeTeamwork’s tool-agnostic approach means we prescribe the right assessment for your team’s specific challenge, not the one we happen to sell.
What Exactly Is the TKI Conflict Assessment?
The TKI conflict assessment is a 30-item, forced-choice instrument that measures how you tend to behave in conflict. It plots your responses on two dimensions — assertiveness (how strongly you pursue your own concerns) and cooperativeness (how strongly you pursue others’ concerns). Those results map to five conflict-handling modes. The assessment takes about 10–15 minutes. It produces a personalized profile showing which modes you default to, which you underuse, and where each style helps or hinders you.
Here’s what makes the TKI different from assessments that stick labels on people: every conflict mode is situationally appropriate. Competing isn’t “bad.” Accommodating isn’t “good.” Each mode has settings where it shines and settings where it backfires. The real value comes when teams see their collective conflict profile. They spot gaps — maybe nobody on the team defaults to Collaborating — and build intentional strategies for the modes they need most.
TKI defined briefly: The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) is a 30-item forced-choice assessment that identifies your preferred conflict management style across five modes, based on assertiveness and cooperativeness.
The Thomas-Kilmann Model: How It Works
The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument was developed in 1974 by Dr. Kenneth W. Thomas and Dr. Ralph H. Kilmann. Both were organizational psychologists who recognized that existing conflict frameworks were too simplistic. Early models treated conflict as something to “win” or “lose.” Thomas and Kilmann saw it differently.
They built their model on a core insight from conflict theory: every conflict behavior reflects a balance between two motivations:
- Assertiveness — the degree to which you try to satisfy your own concerns.
- Cooperativeness — the degree to which you try to satisfy the other person’s concerns.
By crossing these two dimensions, they identified five distinct conflict management styles, each representing a different balance of self-interest and other-interest. Their instrument — 30 forced-choice items where respondents pick between paired statements — became the TKI assessment. It was first published in 1974 and later distributed through CPP, now The Myers-Briggs Company.
Today, the TKI is the most widely used conflict resolution assessment in the world, with millions of administrations across industries, cultures, and organizational levels. Its longevity comes from one practical strength: it gives people a non-judgmental vocabulary for talking about conflict — often for the first time.
The Five TKI Conflict Modes Explained
The heart of the Thomas-Kilmann model is its five conflict modes, each positioned on a two-dimensional matrix of assertiveness and cooperativeness. Understanding these modes — and when each one fits — is what makes the TKI assessment so actionable.
The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Matrix
| Low Cooperativeness | Moderate Cooperativeness | High Cooperativeness | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High Assertiveness | Competing | — | Collaborating |
| Moderate Assertiveness | — | Compromising | — |
| Low Assertiveness | Avoiding | — | Accommodating |
Here’s what each mode looks like in practice:
1. Competing (High Assertiveness, Low Cooperativeness)
When you’re in Competing mode, you pursue your own concerns at the other person’s expense. You use whatever power is available — authority, expertise, persuasive skill — to win.
When it works: Emergencies, safety issues, unpopular decisions that still need to be made, or situations where you must act quickly and decisively.
When it fails: It damages relationships, kills psychological safety, and breeds resentment. Teams where everyone defaults to Competing experience high turnover and chronic distrust.
Red flag: If your entire leadership team scores high on Competing, you likely have a culture where people fight to be right rather than fight to solve the problem.
2. Collaborating (High Assertiveness, High Cooperativeness)
Collaborating is the mode where both sets of concerns get fully explored. You want your needs met and you want the other person’s needs met. This requires the most time and emotional investment of the five modes.
When it works: Complex problems with multiple stakeholders, situations where commitment from both sides matters, or when the long-term relationship outweighs a quick resolution.
When it fails: It’s time-consuming. Collaborating over minor issues wastes energy. It also fails when one party acts in bad faith — you can’t collaborate with someone who’s exploiting your goodwill.
Insight: Many teams discover through the TKI that nobody defaults to Collaborating. That’s a structural gap — and it explains why important problems keep getting kicked down the road.
3. Compromising (Moderate Assertiveness, Moderate Cooperativeness)
Compromising sits at the midpoint of both dimensions. Everyone gives something up. You meet in the middle.
When it works: When time is limited, when the stakes are moderate, when competing goals have equal validity, or as a fallback when Collaboration stalls.
When it fails: Compromise can produce outcomes that satisfy nobody fully. Over-reliance on Compromising can lead to a team culture of “good enough” — where excellence is consistently traded for expediency.
Common pattern: Teams that default to Compromising often report surface harmony but underlying frustration — “We always meet in the middle, but nobody’s really happy with the result.”
4. Avoiding (Low Assertiveness, Low Cooperativeness)
In Avoiding mode, you don’t pursue your own concerns or the other person’s. You sidestep, postpone, or withdraw from the conflict entirely.
When it works: When the issue is trivial, when confrontation costs more than it’s worth, when you need time to cool down, or when you have no power to affect the outcome.
When it fails: Important decisions get delayed. Resentment builds silently. Teams with high Avoiding scores often describe their culture as “polite but passive-aggressive.” Conflicts don’t disappear — they go underground and resurface as disengagement, missed deadlines, or sudden resignations.
Research finding: 27% of employees have witnessed workplace conflict escalate into personal attacks (CPP Global Human Capital Report). When Avoiding is the norm, conflicts fester until they explode.
5. Accommodating (Low Assertiveness, High Cooperativeness)
Accommodating means you prioritize the other person’s concerns over your own. You yield.
When it works: When the issue matters far more to the other person, when preserving the relationship is paramount, when you realize you’re wrong, or when building goodwill for a future conversation.
When it fails: Chronic Accommodating leads to burnout, resentment, and loss of self-respect. Team members who always accommodate stop contributing their real perspective — and the team loses their expertise.
Pattern to watch: High-Accommodating cultures often lose their best people — not because of conflict, but because of the absence of honest conflict. Top performers leave when their input is never championed.
How the TKI Assessment Works
The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument is straightforward by design. Here’s what the experience looks like:
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30 forced-choice items. Each item presents two statements — for example, “I sometimes try to find a compromise” versus “I sometimes give in to the other person’s wishes.” You select the one that better describes your typical behavior in conflict.
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No right answers. The TKI doesn’t measure skill or competence — it measures tendency. Every mode is situationally appropriate; there’s no “ideal” profile.
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10–15 minutes to complete. Brief enough to fit into a team workshop or onboarding session.
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Scoring produces a percentile profile. Your results show how frequently you use each of the five modes compared to normative data. This highlights your default mode(s), as well as modes you may underuse.
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Interpretation requires context. A raw score means little without a facilitated conversation about when each mode serves the team and when it creates friction. This is where expert facilitation makes the difference.
Important: The TKI’s forced-choice design means you’re always choosing between two conflict behaviors — which reveals the relative priority you place on each. This is more revealing than a Likert-scale questionnaire because it forces genuine trade-offs.
When to Use the TKI for Your Team
The TKI isn’t the only conflict resolution assessment available, but it’s often the best starting point — especially in these situations:
You’re building a new team. Before a team has its first real conflict, the TKI gives members a shared vocabulary. When tension arises later, people can say, “I think I’m defaulting to Avoiding here — can we try Collaborating?” instead of spiraling into personal blame.
Your team is stuck in a recurring conflict pattern. If the same disagreement keeps resurfacing with the same dynamics, a TKI profile can reveal why. Maybe three team members are high Competing and the rest are high Avoiding — meaning nobody’s actually listening.
You’re onboarding a new leader into an existing team. A group TKI profile shows the new leader the conflict landscape they’re stepping into. They see who’s likely to push back, who’s likely to withdraw, and where the conversation gaps are.
You need a neutral, non-judgmental framework. Because the TKI treats every mode as valid in the right context, it depersonalizes conflict. People don’t feel labeled or blamed — they feel informed and equipped.
You want a quick, research-backed starting point. At 10–15 minutes of assessment time plus a facilitated debrief, the TKI is one of the most efficient paths from confusion to clarity about your team’s conflict dynamics.
When the TKI Needs Reinforcements
The TKI conflict assessment tells you what someone does in conflict. But it doesn’t fully explain why — and it doesn’t address the emotional regulation, communication patterns, or power dynamics that determine whether conflict resolution even becomes possible.
This is where our tool-agnostic approach matters. We don’t push one assessment. We prescribe the right one for your team’s specific challenge. Sometimes that’s the TKI alone. Often, it’s the TKI paired with complementary assessments for a deeper understanding.
How the TKI Compares to Other Conflict and Communication Tools
| Assessment | What It Measures | Best For | Time to Complete |
|---|---|---|---|
| TKI | Conflict behavior — how you act in disagreements | Teams stuck in recurring conflict patterns | 10–15 min |
| DiSC | Behavioral communication style — how you communicate broadly | Teams with communication breakdowns across styles | 15–20 min |
| EQ-i 2.0 | Emotional intelligence — 15 subscales including self-awareness, impulse control, empathy | Leaders who need to strengthen emotional regulation | 20–25 min |
| MBTI | Cognitive personality type — how you take in information and make decisions | Teams needing deeper understanding of personality-driven conflict patterns | 20–30 min |
TKI + DiSC: Connecting Conflict Style to Communication Style
The DiSC assessment measures behavioral communication styles — Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness. When you layer DiSC on top of TKI results, the picture sharpens dramatically.
For example: A team member who scores high on TKI Competing and high on DiSC Dominance isn’t just assertive in conflict. They’re likely to dominate meetings, interrupt colleagues, and frame every disagreement as a battle to win. The combined profile gives you a much more actionable development plan. (Learn more about our DiSC programs →)
TKI + EQ-i 2.0: Connecting Conflict Style to Emotional Intelligence
The EQ-i 2.0 measures emotional intelligence across 15 subscales, including emotional self-awareness, impulse control, and empathy. This pairing matters because conflict isn’t just behavioral — it’s emotional.
A leader who scores high on TKI Avoiding and low on EQ-i 2.0 Emotional Self-Awareness doesn’t just avoid conflict — they likely don’t even recognize when they’re doing it. The combined data creates a much richer coaching conversation.
TKI + MBTI: Connecting Conflict Style to Personality Type
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator adds a cognitive dimension. Thinking types may default to Competing because they frame conflict as a logic problem to solve. Feeling types may default to Accommodating because they prioritize relational harmony. Understanding these patterns enables more targeted — and more compassionate — team development.
Dr. Rachel’s perspective: “The TKI is where I often start, but I never stop there. Conflict is behavioral, emotional, and cognitive. A single assessment catches only one dimension. The real insights emerge in the integration — and that requires a facilitator who knows all the instruments deeply.”
The Real Cost of Unmanaged Team Conflict
If you’re still wondering whether investing in a team conflict assessment tool is worth it, consider the data:
- 85% of employees experience workplace conflict at some level (CPP Global Human Capital Report).
- U.S. companies spend an estimated $359 billion on paid hours lost to conflict annually (CPP Global Human Capital Report).
- 27% of employees have witnessed conflict lead to personal attacks (CPP Global Human Capital Report).
- Managers spend an estimated 25–40% of their time dealing with workplace conflict, according to multiple studies.
- Employees in the U.S. spend approximately 2.8 hours per week involved in conflict, equating to roughly $359 million in lost productivity per day (CPP Global Human Capital Report).
- Replacing a single employee costs 50–200% of their annual salary — and unresolved conflict is a leading driver of voluntary turnover.
These aren’t abstract numbers. They represent real people spending real hours in arguments, avoidance, and rework — while their actual work goes undone.
The TKI doesn’t eliminate conflict. No assessment can do that. What it does is transform conflict from an invisible, emotional drain into a visible, manageable process. Teams that can name their conflict patterns can change them. Teams that can’t are left guessing — and the data shows that guessing is expensive.
Bottom line: If your organization loses even one senior employee to unresolved conflict, the replacement cost alone could fund a comprehensive conflict-resolution program for your entire team — many times over.
FAQ: Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument
What is the TKI conflict assessment?
The TKI conflict assessment (Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument) is a 30-item forced-choice tool that identifies your preferred conflict management styles across five modes: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding, and Accommodating. Published by The Myers-Briggs Company, it’s the most widely used conflict assessment globally.
How long does the TKI assessment take?
The TKI assessment takes approximately 10–15 minutes to complete. It consists of 30 forced-choice items where you select the statement that best describes your typical conflict behavior. Its brevity makes it practical for team workshops and facilitated sessions.
Is there a “best” conflict mode on the TKI?
No. Every TKI conflict mode is appropriate in certain situations and counterproductive in others. The goal isn’t to eliminate any mode — it’s to develop flexibility so you can use the right mode for the right situation. A healthy team profile shows range, not a single dominant style.
What’s the difference between TKI and DiSC?
The TKI measures conflict behavior specifically — how you act when disagreements arise. DiSC measures broader communication and behavioral style. They answer different questions. TKI tells you what someone does in conflict; DiSC tells you how they communicate generally. Together, they paint a much richer picture.
Who should take the TKI assessment?
The TKI is appropriate for any professional who navigates workplace conflict — which is essentially everyone. It’s especially valuable for teams experiencing recurring conflict, new teams building norms, leaders who need to understand their default style, and HR professionals designing conflict-resolution strategies.
How accurate is the TKI conflict assessment?
The TKI has been validated through decades of research and is used by organizations worldwide. Like any self-report instrument, it reflects how you perceive your behavior — which may differ from how others experience it. That’s why facilitated debriefs and 360-degree feedback are valuable complements to the TKI profile.
Can the TKI be taken remotely?
Yes. The TKI is available in digital format and can be completed remotely. We administer the TKI in both in-person and virtual workshop settings, with facilitated debriefs that help teams apply their results immediately.
From Conflict Awareness to Conflict Resolution
The TKI conflict assessment gives your team something most organizations lack: a shared, non-judgmental language for talking about conflict. When people can name their default mode — “I’m Avoiding right now” or “I’m Competing when I should be Collaborating” — they can choose differently. That awareness is the bridge between recurring friction and productive resolution.
But awareness alone doesn’t change behavior. The TKI is a powerful diagnostic tool; it’s not a treatment plan. Turning conflict insights into lasting behavioral change requires expert facilitation, often supplemented by complementary assessments that address the emotional and communication dimensions the TKI doesn’t cover.
That’s exactly what we do at OptimizeTeamwork. Dr. Rachel Cubas-Wilkinson, former VP at The Myers-Briggs Company and former Head of Learning Consulting at Pearson spent years at The Myers-Briggs Company — the very organization that publishes the TKI. She served as VP there and as Head of Learning Consulting at Pearson. She’s delivered 4,000+ workshops, coached 30,000+ leaders, and she understands not just what the TKI measures, but what to do with those results to create real change.
We’re tool-agnostic for a reason. We work with 7+ validated assessments — TKI, DiSC, EQ-i 2.0, MBTI, and more — because no single tool fits every team’s challenge. We prescribe the right one for yours.
Ready to turn conflict from a cost center into a growth opportunity?
👉 Explore our conflict-resolution workshops →
👉 Book a Free Strategy Call — We’ll help you identify the right assessment mix (TKI, DiSC, EQ-i 2.0, MBTI, or another tool) for your team’s specific conflict dynamics.
Sources
- Thomas, K. W., & Kilmann, R. H. (1974). Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. CPP, Inc. (now The Myers-Briggs Company).
- CPP Global Human Capital Report: Workplace Conflict and How Businesses Can Harness It to Thrive.
- Myers-Briggs Company. TKI — Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. The Myers-Briggs Company website.
- Thomas, K. W., & Thomas, G. F. (2008). “Conflict Handling Behavior.” In The International Association for Conflict Management Newsletter.
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