2115 - Responding to Conflict: Strategies for Improved Communication2

Overview

Duration: 4.0 days

Conflict in business is all too familiar—particularly under increased business pressures. Still, most of us lack basic conflict management skills. Rather than react to conflict on a purely emotional level, you can learn how to manage disputes and disagreements in a positive manner, or even avoid them altogether. This conflict management training will show you how to recognize the causes of interpersonal conflict. It emphasizes skills to help you critically evaluate conflict situations and then choose the appropriate strategies and tools to manage and/or resolve these conflicts. You’ll develop greater awareness of your emotional triggers and how to control them. In addition, you will learn how to continually action-plan around the implementation of your new skills.

Objectives

• Recognize the underlying causes of conflict
• Map conflict using a five-step approach
• Identify ways to develop flexible responses to personal and professional conflicts
• Practice applying models, techniques and strategies to manage your interpersonal communication behaviors in conflict situations
• Implement strategies to improve your communication and effectively respond to conflict

Content

Developing Conflict Awareness

• Recognizing the difference between disagreement and conflict
• Understanding the five levels of a conflict
• Exploring barriers to conflict management and resolution

Responding to Conflict

• Identifying your own feelings and actions in response to conflict
• Applying the P-U-R-R Model to demonstrate understanding
• Utilizing the validating process
• Distinguishing between listening for thoughts and listening for feelings

The Role of Trust in Minimizing Conflict

• Describing the 4 Cs as the cornerstones of building trust
• Knowing how trust is lost and regained, and how transparency validates trust
• Identifying interests behind positions

Conflict Strategies

• Identifying your preferred strategies for responding to conflict
• Understanding the five conflict strategies
• Exploring appropriate strategies to minimize/manage conflict

Moving Beyond Conflict

• Knowing why relationship conflict and content conflict should be handled differently
• Turning potential disagreements into discussion by applying the Model to Disagree
• Identifying and practicing assertiveness tools and strategies
• Detoxifying emotional statements and devising alternative ways to express the message

Dealing with Difficult Behavior

• Explaining the difference between difficult people and difficult behavior
• Understanding how to handle passive behavior
• Developing a strategy for handling passive or aggressive behavior

Mapping the Conflict

• Mapping a conflict using a 5-step approach
• Exploring a given conflict from various “viewing points”
• Separating interests from positions in a specific conflict
• Selecting a conflict strategy appropriate to addressing a specific goal
• Implementing a chosen conflict strategy

Thunderstorms

• Applying skills to address emotionally tense conflicts (called Thunderstorms)
• Using skills to address an intra-group conflict case study

Planning for future development to effectively respond to conflict

Audience

Business professionals who want to expand their conflict management skills, understand their own emotions and behaviors when addressing conflict, and find productive ways to manage conflict.

Prerequisites

None