The Conflict Management Skills Workbook

Conflict is a basic fact of life. Because conflicts are disagreements resulting from people or groups having differences in attitudes, beliefs, values, or needs, conflict is inevitable. Conflict itself is not a bad thing, as long as the conflict is managed effectively.

The self-assessments, exercises, and journaling activities in this book will take participants through a unique negotiations model. This model helps participants learn about their beliefs surrounding conflict, identify their preferred style for managing conflict, examine active listening skills, identify the situations that trigger conflict, and recognize their negotiation style for what they want and need.

Divided into five sections, participants look at:

• Beliefs about conflict
• Conflict management styles
• Listening for meaning
• Hot buttons
• Negotiation style

Each section serves as an avenue for individual self-reflection, as well as for group experiences revolving around identified topics of importance. Each assessment includes directions for easy administration, scoring, and interpretation. Also included are exploratory activities, reflective journaling activities, and educational handouts to help participants discover their habitual effective and ineffective conflict management skills. Finally, instruction is provided for enhancing participants most critical weaknesses when attempting to prevent or resolve real-life conflicts.