One of the things that most people tend to avoid and have problem dealing with is conflict. The reason? A lot of us are not trained how to handle it and in the event that we do, we tend to default to our primeval responses – to either fight, flight, or freeze. This webinar walks us through techniques to deal with conflicts – be it in the professional setting or our personal lives.
This session’s instructor is Margaret Crowley, the owner of Crowley Mediation, a firm providing mediation services for different issues including workplace conflict and has mediated more than 1,000 cases. Margaret previously served as a Civil Deputy District Attorney in Nevada for over 15 years.
Specifics of her presentation tackled:
- An exercise that demonstrates people’s thoughts about and associations with conflict and our need to view conflict from a different lens to better resolve it.
- How choosing the appropriate time to have conflict conversations is critical in its outcome and the science behind this.
- A rundown of the signs of fight, flight, or freeze response to look out for to figure out if it is indeed a good time to have the conversation and engage with the other person.
- Elements to consider when selecting the place to have the conversation and the benefits of going virtual instead of face-to-face.
- The value of active listening when dealing with conflict – its benefits, the steps to effective active listening based on the HURIER model, what it looks like, and the goal of active listening.
- The importance of acknowledging the other person’s thoughts and emotions and what it sounds like to do so effectively.
- What “I” messages are, the formula for a successful “I” message, and using this to better communicate our feelings, thoughts and desires in hopes of facilitating conflict resolution.
- The central role of emotional intelligence (EQ) during conflict resolution.
- How its pillars of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management allows us to better understand and regulate ourselves and interact with others.
- How EQ skills creates better likelihood for success, how unlike IQ, EQ can be enhanced, and specific steps to take to improve emotional intelligence.
- What empathy is, how it differs from sympathy, its benefits, and ways to cultivate it.
- The power of building rapport in fostering connection, things we can do to build rapport, and examples of behaviors that destroy it.
- The value in looking at the interest and why behind the position held by the other person.
- How this overcomes being stuck and finds a compromise that works for each party.
- How asking open-ended questions facilitate better interaction to get to the interest behind a position.
- Shifting from emotions and aiming to understand to operating on logic to come up with plans for amenable solutions to close the loop.
- Using hypothetical questions to get the parties involved to step back from the conflict and shift to the positive and solution.
- The balancing act required and the importance of not rushing this step for it to actually work.
- Working with a someone who is uncooperative and may seem vindictive or narcissistic.
Other Webinars with This Speaker
- Crime and Punishment: Exploring Restorative Justice and Peacemaking
- Nov 17: The Top 10 Techniques for Dealing with Conflict (this webinar)
- Feb, 28, 2023: Using Conflict to Spark Creativity
Resources and Handouts
- Handout: “I” Message Formula
- Handout: Conflict Words
- Project Implicit (Test) by Harvard University
- Book: Emotional Intelligence: and Why It Can Matter More than IQ by Daniel Goleman
- Book: Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters and How to Harness It by Ethan Kross
Audience Comments
- “I especially noted the part of “acknowledging the emotions of the speakers, matching their emotional intensity, and NOT dealing with or solving the problem itself” while actively listening.” — Sherri
- “Explaining active listening and emotional intelligence were the most valuable parts.” — Sandra
- “Just great reminders about skills we need to continue to work on.” — Tracy
- Loved this. Listening and communication is the key! I’ve spent most of my life avoiding conflict. And I’m not sure at this stage if I can learn something new, but I’m going to try. Thanks! — Elaine
- This is a skill so constant reinforcement is helpful. I just had a situation where I applied some of the techniques, but this walk through made me realize where I had not applied all. I see where it might have made a difference. I think leaving more time for sharing out examples or questions would be helpful. — Madeline
- A very well structured and well-defined informative presentation. It is remarkable how professionalism can make things really much easier for such a difficult topic. Thank you very much. — Gavriil
- Thank you for doing these webinars, they are always informative! — Jennifer
- Great Session and Presenter! — Dan
- Appreciated the discussion on empathy. We have a current situation that is causing significant challenges between a supervisor and her subordinates. We are probably not approaching the manager in the best way to show support and get her buy-in to problem solving. — Diana
- “For my new employee just starting out in this business, this was very beneficial.” — Cris
- “Fantastic detail that is so helpful. I appreciated the method to outline the details of each of the 10 conflicts. Thank you.” — Cheryl
- “I obtained additional tools to aid me in peacefully resolving conflicts inside and outside our business.” — Ray
- “The well-organized, comprehensive overview and additional resources, i.e. books and other experts whose work is relevant. Good examples. [The video] was very clear and effectively illustrated the key difference between active listening and not actively listening.”– Mary
