Secrets of Conflict Resolution

Let’s start with 3 questions:

• Have you ever felt held hostage in a conflict?

• Have you ever been part of a conflict where you saw the answer but were unsure how to implement a solution?

• Looked back on the conflict and just wished that it had never happened.

You are not alone if you answered yes to all three questions. It took me years to understand the answers to these questions. In this course, I’m going to share with you my insights and the techniques used by experts in conflict resolution.

Course description

Conflict is filled with human emotion. We can experience anger, fear, hurt, frustration, and worst of all, broken relationships. It does not need to be this way. We need to understand what drives conflict, not just identify and fix its triggers. Relying on logic to solve conflict only mask emotions.

Unlock conflict with interventions. There are many interventions throughout this course you can use to unstick a conflict. Watch out for the lecture on how to Get the Ball Rolling because it contains:

• 21 different interventions you can use to solve a conflict

Explore toxic behaviours and how interventions are used to untangle them. In this lecture, you will find.

• 5 key interventions with examples.

No one method solves conflict. It is a combination of tools. Explored in lecture 6 is the position interest model. It is an excellent tool to find what people want in a conflict. Once an interest is located, you can explore the conflict in depth. The next step is to understand and work with emotion to solve the conflict.

Emotions are how people make sense of their role in a conflict, they also frame how people understand and define the dispute. The feelings we experience and the context of the conflict cause our bodies to react with a stress response. It could be the flight, fight, freeze, or friend stress response that instinctively prepares the body to protect us or take a defensive stance. That is the basis of conflict in the workplace and can cause:

• • High sick leave and absenteeism rate.

  • Culture of bullying.

  • Conflict between people.

This is vital information to have so that you can move people from a “me against you” stance to an “us against the problem” approach. Lecture 10 focuses solely on 4 stress responses; fight, flight, freeze, and the friend stress response.

Build trust. This is the first step in conflict resolution. If emotions are left unacknowledged and not dealt with, negative emotions emerge. People lose trust in one another as their points of view evade accuracy. That’s why attending to emotions is key to successfully resolving a conflict. Building trust is discussed throughout the lectures.

Why do people get angry unexpectedly? Lecture 9 answers this question by turning to our evolutionary history. The answer may surprise you.

Create ground rules to build safety within a group. Ground rules set out the way participants are to interact during the facilitation. In this lecture, you receive,

• 12 essential ground rules.

Use your voice for impact. When people are in conflict, trust declines. How you say something is often more important than what you say and that is the focus of this lecture.

Did you know the biggest causes of conflict are boundary violations? Lectures 12a and 12b focus on workplace boundaries. Boundary violations are the root cause of:

• Bullying and harassment.

• Poor communication.

• Resistance to change.

• Unclear job expectations.

• Personality differences.

• Toxic work culture.

• Poor work habits.

Lecture 12b contains two activities that you can use for a small or large group. The activities are an ideal way to build trust between people and tease out any points of disagreement and then get things moving again.

Course overview

• Understand why conflict is unavoidable.

• Learn how to handle in-scope and out-of-scope questions and statements.

• Defined the role and responsibilities of a facilitator and how to design a facilitator process.

• Brief introduction to signposting

• Find out the difference between mediation and facilitation.

• Learn how to handle inappropriate disclosures.

• Gain practical tools and techniques for unpacking a conflict.

• Learn a simple and practical method to counter feelings of anger.

• Easy-to-use interventions, with examples that get to the heart of the issue.

• Create a safe atmosphere for people to trust each other.

• Understand how to implement a caucus successfully.

• Find out how to assess the mood of a group quickly with the use of a continuum.

• Discover the difference between an apology and an expression of regret.

• And lots more.

Why do this course?

Workplace conflict is unavoidable, costly, and damages organisational culture. It has the potential to wreck careers, damage relationships, and cause harm to others.

United Kingdom: Workplace conflict is costing UK employers £28.5 billion a year.

• • Equivalent of more than £1,000 for each employee.

  • 10 million employees experienced conflict in their workplace.

  • 5 million employees suffered stress, anxiety, or depression because of the conflict.

  • 900,000 employees took time off work because of conflict and half of those resigned.

  • 300,000 employees dismissed.

Collaborative Research by CPP & OPP questioned 5,000 full-time employees in nine countries around Europe and the Americas: Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

• 85% of employees have had to deal with conflict.

• 29% of employees deal with conflict frequently.

• Primary cause of conflict is:

  • 49% personality clashes and warring egos.

  • 34% stress.

  • 33% heavy workload.

How is this course different?

I combine my skills and knowledge in psychotherapy (facilitation) and law (mediation) to deliver a crossover course on conflict resolution. Not every conflict is going to be resolved by a professional facilitator or mediator. Supervisors, managers and human resource professionals are often called to solve a conflict. In this course, I approach conflict from the perspective of the person whose job it is to resolve a conflict.

I believe everyone has what it takes to solve a conflict.

How to use this course

Each lecture is concise and to the point. None are over 10 minutes long. Each lecture provides you with the information you need to unpack a conflict.

Who is this course for?

• New facilitators & mediators.

• People who supervise others.

• Human resource professionals.

• People who are curious and want to learn conflict resolution methods.

It’s time for you to sit back, relax, and build your skills in conflict resolution.