Responding to Conflict: Strategies for Improved Communication

Conflict in business is all too familiar, particularly under conditions of increased business pressures, rapid organizational change, and competing priorities. However, despite its prevalence, most of us still lack the fundamental, practical conflict management skills needed to handle disagreements effectively. Rather than react to conflict on a purely emotional level, driven by stress and frustration, you can learn how to systematically manage disputes and disagreements in a positive manner, or better yet, avoid them altogether. This comprehensive conflict management training will show you how to recognize and understand the underlying causes of interpersonal conflict. It emphasizes practical skills to help you critically evaluate conflict situations and then choose the most appropriate strategies and tools to manage and resolve these conflicts productively. You will develop greater awareness of your emotional triggers and learn how to control them effectively in the moment. In addition, you will learn how to continually action-plan around the implementation of your new skills, ensuring lasting behavioral change and improved relationships.

What You Will Benefit:

• Recognize the underlying causes of conflict and what drives escalation
• Map conflict using a comprehensive five-step approach to understand its full scope
• Identify and develop flexible responses to both personal and professional conflicts
• Practice applying proven models, techniques, and strategies to manage your interpersonal communication behaviors in difficult conflict situations
• Implement evidence-based strategies to improve your communication and effectively respond to conflict in constructive ways

What You Will Cover:

Developing Conflict Awareness

• Recognizing the important difference between disagreement and actual conflict
• Understanding the five distinct levels of a conflict and how to identify which level you are experiencing
• Exploring barriers to effective conflict management and resolution

Responding to Conflict in the Moment

• Identifying your own feelings and actions in response to conflict situations
• Applying the proven P-U-R-R Model to demonstrate understanding and manage responses
• Utilizing the validating process to help others feel heard
• Distinguishing between listening for thoughts and listening for emotions in conversations

The Critical Role of Trust in Minimizing Conflict

• Describing the 4 Cs as the cornerstones of building and maintaining trust
• Knowing how trust is lost and how to rebuild and regain it, and how transparency validates trust
• Identifying interests that lie behind stated positions in negotiations

Conflict Strategies and Response Patterns

• Identifying your preferred strategies for responding to conflict situations
• Understanding the five distinct conflict strategies and when each is most appropriate
• Exploring and analyzing appropriate strategies to effectively minimize and manage conflict

Moving Beyond Conflict to Resolution

• Knowing why relationship conflict and content conflict should be handled differently
• Turning potential disagreements into productive discussions by applying the Model to Disagree
• Identifying and practicing assertiveness tools and strategies for standing your ground respectfully
• Detoxifying emotional statements and devising alternative, more constructive ways to express the message

Dealing with Difficult Behavior and Personalities

• Explaining the crucial difference between difficult people and difficult behavior patterns
• Understanding how to effectively handle passive behavior in conflict situations
• Developing a strategic plan for handling both passive and aggressive behavior

Mapping the Conflict for Resolution

• Mapping a conflict using a comprehensive 5-step approach to fully understand it
• Exploring a given conflict from multiple different "viewing points" and perspectives
• Separating underlying interests from stated positions in a specific conflict situation
• Selecting a conflict strategy that is most appropriate for addressing your specific goal
• Implementing your chosen conflict strategy with skill and confidence

Managing Emotionally Intense Conflicts

• Applying practical skills to address emotionally tense, high-stakes conflicts (called Thunderstorms)
• Using learned skills to address realistic intra-group conflict case studies
• Planning for continued development to effectively respond to conflict in the future

Who Should Attend:

Business professionals who want to expand and deepen their conflict management skills, understand their own emotions and behavioral patterns when addressing conflict, and find productive, constructive ways to manage and resolve conflict in their professional and personal relationships.

Course Outline:

LESSON ONE

Developing Conflict Awareness

• Define Conflict and Its Characteristics
• Explain the Important Difference Between Conflict and Disagreement
• Describe the Five Distinct Levels of a Conflict
• Describe Barriers to Effective Managing and Resolving Conflict

Responding to Conflict

• Identify Your Own Personal Feelings and Reactions When Responding to Conflict
• Apply the P-U-R-R Model to Demonstrate Understanding and Application in Context
• Apply the Validating Process to Help Others Feel Heard and Understood
• Distinguish Between Listening for Thoughts and Listening for Emotions in Conversations
• Explain That Meaning Often Comes from the Context of the Relationship Rather Than the Intrinsic Definition of the Words Used

LESSON TWO

Responding to Conflict, Part Two

• Identify Your Own Personal Feelings and Reactions When Responding to Conflict
• Apply the P-U-R-R Model to Demonstrate Understanding and Application in Real Situations
• Apply the Validating Process Effectively
• Distinguish Between Listening for Thoughts and Listening for Emotions in Conversations
• Explain That Meaning Often Comes from the Relationship Context Rather Than Word Definitions

Conflict Strategies

• Identify Your Preferred Strategy or Strategies for Responding to Conflict
• Identify and Distinguish Among the Five Conflict Strategies
• Analyze Examples, and Recommend Appropriate Strategies to Minimize or Manage Conflict

The Critical Role of Trust in Minimizing Conflict

• Describe the Four Cs: The Four Cornerstones of Building Trust
• Explain How Trust Is Lost, How It Can Be Regained, and How Transparency Validates Trust
• Identify Interests Behind Stated Positions

LESSON THREE

Moving Beyond Conflict

• Describe How Relationship Conflict and Content Conflict Should Be Handled Differently
• Explain the Reason the Word "Why" Should Be Avoided When Managing a Conflict
• Identify Appropriate Solutions for Managing Real-Life Conflict Situations
• Use "I" Messages and the DESC Script to Express Yourself Assertively
• Apply the Model to Disagree Effectively
• Say "No" Assertively and Respectfully
• Detoxify Emotional Statements, and Devise Alternative Ways to Express the Message

Dealing with Difficult Behavior

• Explain the Difference Between Difficult People and Difficult Behavior
• Describe an Understanding of Handling Passive Behavior
• Describe a Strategic Approach for Handling Both Passive and Aggressive Behavior

LESSON FOUR

Mapping the Conflict

• Map a Conflict Through the Five Steps on the Template
• Explore a Given Conflict from Various "Viewing Points" and Perspectives
• Separate Interests from Positions in a Specific Conflict
• Select a Conflict Strategy Appropriate to a Specific Goal
• Demonstrate the Implementation of a Chosen Conflict Strategy in a Role Play

Managing Emotionally Intense Conflicts Called Thunderstorms

• Apply a Comprehensive Combination of Skills, Techniques, and Ideas Presented Throughout the Seminar to Participant-Generated Conflicts, Called Thunderstorms
• Demonstrate the Application of Appropriate Conflict Strategies to Address These High-Intensity Conflicts