Introduction:

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 program 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.

Do you have the self-awareness, solid communication skills, and motivation to resolve uncomfortable situations? Those who embrace conflict can build understanding and better relationships and experience greater personal and professional success. But managing conflict is not easy. In this workshop, you'll discover your own emotional triggers and learn how to manage difficult encounters with diplomacy, tact, and credibility.

Are you involved in daily conflicts with co-workers? Is your work environment becoming increasingly unpleasant? Is this impacting your performance? If the atmosphere at work is tense, this can lead to team demotivation and poor morale. Tense situations and minor daily conflicts can escalate if they are not dealt with. To turn this kind of situation around, you must learn to express yourself assertively and set limits without adopting passive or aggressive behavior. Improve your understanding of your supervisors’ and co-workers’ motivation and actions and apply straightforward methods for dealing with and resolving conflict. 

Course Objectives:

By the end of this course, delegates will learn how to:

• 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
• Build trust and credibility with colleagues and team members
• Leverage potential conflict situations as opportunities for critical conversations that enhance work relationships
• Gain confidence in holding difficult conversations calmly and assertively
• Manage conflict situations proactively
• Increase your effectiveness in managing conflict
• Analyze the conflict you are involved in
• Review your position in the situation and the positions of others
• Apply win-win negotiating methods
• Implement techniques for resolving the conflict
• Promote cooperation with co-workers
• Avoid loss of motivation and energy resulting from conflicts
• Increase productivity
• Enhance your communication skills
• Establish win-win relationships

Who Should Attend?

Executives, Managers, Supervisors, Team Leaders, Superintendents, Financial Officers and Controllers, Process Managers, Strategic Planning Managers, Key Personnel, Champions, Officers, Engineers, Administrative Staff, anyone who deal with conflict situations

Course Outline:

An Introduction to Conflict Management Definitions

• What is conflict?
• Why does conflict happen?
• Conflict management strategies
• Managing anger and emotions
• Responding to anger
• Conflict communication skills
• Interpersonal skills and resolving conflict

Developing Conflict Awareness

• Distinguish between a disagreement and a conflict
• Identify the signs of a conflict
• Manage your emotional reaction in a conflict situation

Modes of Managing Conflict

• Choose the appropriate conflict management approach for any situation
• Understand your own conflict style
• Follow the A.E.I.O.U. method to defuse a tense situation

Responding to Conflict

• Communicate assertively without eliciting defensiveness from the other person
• Constructively disagree with others

Handling Difficult Conversations

• Select appropriate language to express your ideas clearly
• Plan for difficult conversations in a way that focuses on achieving the results you desire
• Prepare for potential barriers during difficult conversations
• Effectively execute a difficult conversation
• Set goals for applying your new skills to your own real-life situations

Analyzing the Situation

• Identifying the characteristics of the situation
• Recognizing the role of perception
• Describing the behavior adopted in the situation
• Defining the psychological mechanisms the conflict brings out
• Developing awareness and self-control

Grasping Negotiating Techniques

• Outlining the drawbacks of haggling or bargaining
• Establishing a win-win negotiation
• Maintaining good relationships

Applying Techniques for Resolving Conflicts

• Refocusing negative behavior
• Settling tensions successfully

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

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

COURSE LOCATIONS