Crafting Solutions to Conflict

: Embracing collaboration, creativity, and compassion allows us to handle conflict more effectively. The Purposeful Planning Institute (PPI) held its annual Rendezvous in Denver, Colorado last week. In a keynote address, founder John A. Warnick spoke of the value of Collaboration, Creativity, and Compassion as cornerstones of the work that PPI members do. Those three ideas can also be effective to...

Publishing my 30th episode is a marker and a cause for celebration. I started to learn to host and produce a podcast in fall, 2018. The Podcasting Fellowship was a great experience. I published a trailer in December, 2018 and then began publishing weekly in January, 2019. It’s a blast. Podcaster Joanna Penn has been at it for 10 years. I heard her anniversary episode in March, in which she spoke o...

Andrew Karlen, Esq., provides counsel to serve the legal and human needs of his client business owners. Business owners should be clear about their ultimate business goals as early as possible, and put those goals in writing. They should plan for a business exit that allows them to achieve their financial, family, and community goals – recognizing that the implementation of the plans they make wit...

Bad conflict (the damaging, anything-but-creative kind) happens. Knee-jerk reactions don’t help. When enmeshed in a bad conflict, it can be tempting to hunt for someone to blame. That’s not always useful. Think about what may have caused the problem (objective causes? subjective causes?) and then carefully consider your next steps.

Declarations in interpersonal relationships, such as ultimatums, can do unexpected lasting damage. Ultimatums, threats, and lines in the sand are hard to walk back, can cause a loss of face, and can lead to stalemate. It’s smart to think through the risks and rewards or the costs and benefits of declarations – before issuing them. Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea...

Dr. Vanessa Avery shares insights on religious diversity training, conflict in religion, and her role as Consulting Director to the Sharing Sacred Spaces Initiative (SSSI). Vanessa shares her academic and professional path, including her interest in René Girard, the late French historian, literary critic, philosopher of social science, and author of Violence and the Sacred. Her work with SSSI has...

Approaching conflict with authenticity may seem difficult. Even if it is, it’s usually worth it. Perhaps the biggest advantage of authenticity is avoiding its opposite. And that’s because fake frequently fails. People usually know when the other person is not being genuine and resent it, even more than the genuine disagreement. Being authentic allows everyone involved to engage and move forward.

The phrase “yes, and” sends a different message from “yes, but”. “Yes, and” can lead to further discussion instead of rejection. The “yes, and” phrase comes from theater improvisation, where a statement is affirmed (yes) and then built upon (and). The same concept can apply in discussions about ideas and suggestions: instead of rejecting them with a list of their shortcomings (“yes, but”), acknowl...

Rogério Faé Rodrigues, currently a visiting scholar in the U.S., talks about helping enterprising families, in the U.S. and in his native Brazil. Rogério describes his work, as one of the founders of Une Consultoria, as a being a facilitator as much as a consultant: helping families to decide and implement what is best for that family. He noted that “there is no way of doing succession by impositi...

Managing conflicting memories of a past event can be essential to preventing and undoing damage in interpersonal conflicts. At times, it’s possible to have a civil conversation about those conflicting memories. In other cases, it’s best to agree to disagree and move on. Managing the potential damage to the valued relationship is the key. Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest?...

Cookie cutters are great for making cookies: quick, easy, and uniform. Not so great for interpersonal conflicts. Cookie dough responds well to cookie cutters when all the conditions are consistent – that’s the idea! Humans aren’t consistent; we’re human. So, human interactions don’t respond well to a cookie cutter approach to conflict resolution. A solution crafted to address a particular conflict...

Louise Duncan, Managing Director of TetraMap International, in Auckland, NZ, described the framework’s key concept that “Strength lies in valuing differences”. Facilitators use a process that allows individuals to discover their own elemental preferences in the world of nature: earth, air, water, and fire. Louise recommended: “The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workpla...

The tragic fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris demonstrated the value of having a plan and testing it as a way to reduce conflict and mitigate damage. The Fire Department devoted more than one hundred firefighters to rescuing artifacts in the cathedral. The plan identified key people and priorities. And it had been practice, on site, twice last year. These steps were essential in minimizing the...

The tragic fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris highlighted some positive lessons to reduce conflict and mitigate damage. Control what you can. Adopt the good, though not perfect, solution. Start the process of improving a proposed plan, with a goal and a timeframe.

From life in an intentional community with his young family to his current passion as a patient-caregiver activist, Danny van Leeuwen, aka Health Hats, has had an appreciation for governance. Good governance can greatly reduce the likelihood of damaging conflict, and allow solutions to conflict to be crafted when needed. Danny has understood the importance of rules for a community to follow and th...

Finding a way to broach the subject of an ongoing simmering conflict can be difficult; creating a catalyst can help. If there is a time-limited opportunity to address the conflict, or a deadline imposed from the outside, it might be fairly easy. Otherwise, how do we get past an implicit or explicit “why now”? It may work to use a specific date like Reconciliation Day (see the April 2 bonus episode...

Denial can be an easy approach to conflict, but not a very good one. Pretending that there is no conflict or that an admitted conflict has no negative impact is rarely effective. Recognizing that a conflict exists and that it is doing real damage is important. You can then determine what the conflict is costing you – the first step in deciding if you want to address the conflict and attempt to res...

Bruce Hammer, based on years of experience as a psychologist, therapist, leadership and organizational consultant, offers more insights on effective interpersonal communication. Today’s episode is part two of my conversation with Bruce. Don’t miss part one, which is the regularly scheduled episode just before this one. (There’s a bonus episode in between because that covers a time-sensitive topic....

Advice columnist Ann Landers declared April 2 as Reconciliation Day for family and friends. Thirty years ago, a reader wrote in to the syndicated columnist and suggested that a day be set aside for family and friends to extend – and to accept – the olive branch of reconciliation on a day named Reconciliation Day. Three years later, Ann Landers declared it an annual tradition. In some countries, Re...

Bruce Hammer, based on years of experience as a psychologist, therapist, leadership and organizational consultant, explores communication mindset and a number of factors that can help us communicate more effectively. This episode is part one of my conversation with Bruce. There was so much good – as in practical and positive – information that I decided to deliver it in easy-to-digest bites. In pa...

The Good Friday agreement, signed on Good Friday in 1998, brought an end to The Troubles – violence that had plagued Ireland for thirty years. A very powerful and positive illustration of conflict resolution! Former US Senator George Mitchell played an essential role in bringing the parties together to reach agreement. His comments about conflict are inspirational: "I believe there's no such...

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Benjamin Franklin is credited with coining this phrase, in the context of comparing fire prevention costs to the costs of dealing with the consequences of fire. Destructive conflict can be seen the same way: prevention can be less costly – in a number of ways – than dealing with the consequences. Some practical approaches to prevention can be worth...

Tara is an experienced litigator, based in White Plains, NY. When we spoke, Tara had recently completed mediation training with Brad Heckman and Christine Daly at the New York Peace Institute. https://nypeace.org/ The Institute is a respected provider of mediation training and conflict resolution services, based in NYC. Although Tara has frequently represented clients in mediations where she serve...

A pachyderm, specifically a mystery animal that turns out to be an elephant, presents an opportunity to consider different perspectives. An old parable from India describes the efforts of multiple people to make heads or tails (pun intended) out of a mystery animal. It’s an elephant, though the different, individual, perspectives don’t help nearly as much as the information gained when all of thos...

Pachyderms, specifically elephants in the room, present an opportunity to think about moving past denial and avoidance of conflict. Many of us know about the idea of the elephant in the room: the large issue that no one wants to talk about, or even acknowledge. I’ve seen this elephant more than a few times in my work as a mediator and I have some ideas to share about how to start to understand it...