Becoming a Conflict Competent Leader by Craig Runde and Tim Flanagan This book now in its 2nd Edition, is essential reading for every manager in every kind of organization. The book provides an overview of conflict dynamics, destructive and constructive responses to conflict, how to manage emotions in conflict, reflective practice, and creating a workplace […]
Seeing what others don’t: The remarkable ways we gain insights, by Gary Klein Much of my work as a coach is supporting clients to gain insights into their experiences and their choices moving forward. As a narrative coach, I connected Klein’s description of insights as things that “shook people loose from their initial stories” and
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When someone in conflict comes to a manager or a conflict specialist for help with a conflict, they often ask for a solution. They want the manager or specialist to fix things for them, or at the very least to tell them what they should do. Having someone intervene on your behalf, or give you
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Building agreement: using emotions as you negotiate By Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro This book, by two of the very big names in conflict resolution at Harvard, is based on the premise that the best way to manage emotions in conflict is to work on the underlying core concerns that cause those emotions. The authors
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Inside Out: How conflict professionals can use self-reflection to help their clients by Gary Friedman I came across this book by accident and then couldn’t understand why I hadn’t discovered it earlier! The book is essentially all about managing emotions in conflict (those of the parties, and those of the conflict professional). And by managing
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When we are in conflict, we tend to only see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. We filter out information that is inconsistent with our interpretation of events and we can ignore information that is glaringly obvious to other people around us. When we are emotional, this problem is
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Managing conflict well is not about suppressing emotions; rather it is about providing a constructive way to communicate about and through them. What does this mean in practice? Firstly, we need to accept that emotions are an integral part of conflict. They are always there, whether or not they are expressed, and whether or not
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Think again: The power of knowing what you don’t know By Adam Grant This book is essential reading for anyone interested in reflective practice (at its heart, a process of thinking again). Grant emphasizes that it is the process of re-thinking that is important, not the outcome. Rethinking does not have to change your mind,
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Schön, D.A. (1983) The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Donald Schön’s book is the key text on reflective practice. First published in 1983, it led to a real commitment to reflective practice being introduced into many professional disciplines, including conflict resolution. The book begins by explaining the difference between competence and artistry, showing
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Conflict-specific: BOOK: The Guide to Reflective Practice in Conflict Resolution by Michael D. Lang (2019) If you only ever read one thing about reflective practice in conflict resolution, it should be this book! Here’s the official overview of what the book is about: “This book is a common sense guide to becoming a reflective practitioner,
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