Build Your Skills

The skills and dispositions that support constructive conflict are like muscles—they get stronger with practice.

In the short videos below, you’ll learn about specific approaches that you can practice. Each video has a handout with the exercises, a transcript, and additional resources. If you are looking for a deeper dive into skill-building and Middlebury’s approach to conflict transformation, please visit our Media and Resources page. You’ll find an overview, reading list, and our podcast. Middlebury users can also explore the extensive resources on our Canvas site.

Introduction

Handout to accompany Introduction

Transcript

Speakers: Sarah Stroup, Mandy Berghela, Teyonce Allison

Sarah: Welcome to our module on fostering better conflict. Many of us hear the word conflict and have a pretty negative reaction. You might think of fights that you’ve had with a friend, tensions that still exist with a coworker, or conflict in society that is divisive and even violent.

Conflict can be terribly destructive. But it also cannot be avoided. Conflict is part of the human experience. If we are able to engage in conflict in constructive ways, it can deepen our relationships, foster closer collaboration, and even lead to positive organizational and social change.

Mandy: When we talk about fostering better conflict, we want to first support this new understanding of conflict and then offer spaces to practice new skills. We know that conflict might still be uncomfortable. Really listening to ideas, experiences, and views that are different from our own is hard. And we don’t ask anyone to do anything that feels unsafe or would lead them to shut down.

Teyonce: But with practice, we can get more comfortable being uncomfortable. We can strengthen our ability to really listen and honestly speak across our differences. Our hope is that rather than simply coexisting or tolerating one another, we can have more robust and respectful engagement across those differences.

Sarah: This is the work that develops more inclusive organizations, workplaces, and schools. This is better conflict. In the series, we will focus on four core skills.

Mandy: The first is about developing critical self-awareness. “Who am I in conflict” is a great question to ask of ourselves before sitting down with someone else.

Teyonce: Second, we will practice active listening skills. Real listening is hard, and often doesn’t happen when we’re just trying to think about how we can respond or critique. By slowing down that reactivity, we can listen carefully, signal our willingness to talk, and better understand the other person’s perspective.

Mandy: Third, we will talk about what it means to understand another perspective. Sometimes we hear a person’s position on an issue and immediately think that there’s no common ground. The goal of this practice will be to listen for deeper interests and needs that might help us identify more creative solutions to a problem.

Teyonce: Finally, we will focus on how to ask better questions. We will never have the full story of what’s going on in the conflict situation, but open questions will help us get to that deeper story.

Sarah: These are a lot of things to practice, and they take time and effort. But there’s a great payoff on the other side. At Middlebury, we have found that self-awareness, active listening, going beyond positions to interests, and asking open questions can foster productive collaboration among students, faculty, and staff.

Thank you for investing in this practice. Let’s get going!

Self-Awareness and Conflict Styles

Handout to accompany Self-Awareness and Conflict Styles

Transcript

Speakers: Sarah Stroup, Mandy Berghela, Teyonce Allison

Sarah: Who am I in conflict? Developing self-awareness is a critical first step for fostering better conflict. The first thing we are going to ask you to do is to take a self-assessment. If you haven’t, please pause this video and use this link. The self-assessment takes just three or four minutes. If you have taken the self-assessment, great – let’s keep going!

“No two people approach conflict in exactly the same way.” Our histories, personality style, level of stress, and context can all shape how we engage in conflict. Why should we pay attention to how we approach conflict? There are at least two reasons.

Teyonce: First, sometimes we aren’t fighting about “the thing,” but clashing over how we approach the thing. Here is an example – some people are very task-oriented, others are very relationally oriented. I am all tasks. If I’m working with someone who really focuses on relationships, it could go something like this: we sit down to work on a problem at work. As we get started, the other person asks me about how my friends are doing and what I did over the weekend.

Each of these well-intended attempts to connect could be interpreted by me as dodging the issue or attempting to manipulate me. Meanwhile, if I get right down to the conflict, the other person might feel like I don’t care about them or that I blame them for the problem. Basically, issues can get more difficult to address because of our different approaches.

Mandy: We should also reflect on our approaches to conflict because they are can be more or less effective. For example, if emotions are running really high, conflict avoidance might be a good call. But over the long term, conflict avoidance can prevent us from addressing the issue.

There is no one best approach to conflict that works in every situation. The goal is to intentionally choose an approach designed to achieve our goals, even if that isn’t our conflict “comfort zone.”

Sarah: The self assessment we use is a version of something called the Thomas Kilmann Instrument or TKI. It was developed in the late 1970s by two professors of management at the University of Pittsburgh. The TKI test is used by the National Institutes of Health, the US Coast Guard, the New York State Bar Association, the Harvard Program on Negotiation, and more.

The TKI distinguishes between high and low assertiveness and high and low cooperativeness. These terms – “assertive” or “cooperative” aren’t neutral terms in our language – who wants to be called uncooperative? I like to think about “cooperative” as a measure of how much you are prioritizing the individual versus the collective.

Before we ask you to discuss your self-assessment, let’s take a minute to really flesh out why there is no best conflict style. Assertiveness and cooperativeness each have advantages and disadvantages.

Teyonce: When is it good to be highly assertive? Assertiveness is best in a few situations - when you need fast decision-making, when it’s ethically right to take a stand, or if you’ve tried amicable means of conflict management and they haven’t worked. High assertiveness can help make a clear point and lead to faster decision-making.

However, there are some downsides. A highly assertive person is unlikely to be challenged, and their colleagues may end up acting as yes men. If that happens, then valuable new information may not be sought. In addition, If someone is highly assertive on multiple issues, it may not be clear which is the most important priority.

Mandy: What about cooperativeness, that idea of tending not just to the individual but to the collective group? High cooperativeness makes sense when you have a lot of perspectives that might all contain some truth - or perhaps someone else else’s ideas are better than yours! Being highly cooperative is also important when you really care about the relationship. It can also reduce the chance that there will be backlash - that people will try to undermine your work down the road.

But cooperativeness also has disadvantages. If you go into a situation assuming that everyone is interested in working together, this can be exploited by people who actually like the fight. Amanda Ripley called these conflict entrepreneurs – they benefit from the conflict. Also, if you just assume that everyone wants to work together, you might miss some real resistance or anger from your colleagues. Finally, cooperation and collaboration takes time.

Sarah: OK. Now it’s your turn to think about your conflict style. Using the results from self assessment, you can think about these questions on your own or with a partner.

First, share one thing that you see in your self assessment that seems true for you and might be helpful for a colleague to know. Second, think about when your style is more or less effective. Identify a situation in which you think your conflict style may have been helpful in addressing the situation. Then identify a time where your conflict approach may not have been helpful.

Remember- the goal is to not put you in a box or offer THE definitive statement on how you approach conflict. This exercise invites each of us to reflect on what might be our default approach. If our default doesn’t help us achieve our goals, we might need to step out of that comfort zone.

Listening to Understand

Handout to accompany Listening to Understand.

Transcript

Speakers: Sarah Stroup, Mandy Berghela, Teyonce Allison

Sarah: This video focuses on a foundational practice - active listening. Listening is hard. Sometimes we think that we are listening, and then suddenly find that we are thinking about our grocery list or the email we forgot to answer. Careful listening is essential if we need to negotiate, collaborate, or understand a problem. And, if we don’t listen, it can escalate the conflicts that we’re in.

Consider this quote from the book Difficult Conversations: one of the most common complaints that we hear from people engaged in difficult conversations is that the other person won’t listen. In the great majority of cases, the reason the other person is not listening is not because they are stubborn, but because THEY don’t feel heard.”

It could be that you have stopped listening because YOU don’t feel heard. The disappointing news, folks, is that we can’t force other people to listen to us. When we are in a conflict situation, we can only control the choices that we make. Control is hard! If you’ve been in a conflict situation recently, you know it has emotional and physical impacts. When I am having a difficult conversation, my heart starts to race, my jaw starts to clench. I am flooded with emotion, I get that fight-flight-freeze reaction, and it’s difficult to focus on the content of what the other person is saying. But if we are willing to listen ourselves, it might interrupt a destructive pattern.

If you want to work on responding to your emotions and noticing what’s going on in yourself, please head to our videos on critical self-awareness. If you are using other resources from nuwave, please check out the other short videos on emotional intelligence, self-management, and empathy. If you know that those emotions are reactions are going to come up, and you are ready to practice ways to stay attentive and open as a listener, then keep going.

For this exercise, please find a partner to work with. This can be someone from your workplace, a friend, or someone at home. You’ll be given a specific structure to work through, and this will take less than 10 minutes. You will need some scrap paper, something to write with, and a timer.

Let me first describe the structure of the exercise to you, and then I will give you a prompt to discuss. In your pair, one of you will be the speaker, and one of you will be the listener. I encourage you to do the exercise twice, switching roles.

Here is how it goes. The speaker will have a minute and a half to say whatever they want in response to the prompt. The listener’s job is just to listen. Do not take notes - just focus on what the other person is saying. After that, the listener has one minute to describe the speaker’s statement back to them. The speaker shouldn’t interrupt or nod, just sit and listen to their words as expressed by the other person.

After you have taken turns, take a brief break. Use your scrap paper to take a few notes on what it was like to be the speaker and to be the listener. The speaker might think about sharing openly, and whether the listener actually captured what they were trying to say. The listener might note what they did not understand or what felt challenging.

Next, I am going to tell you what the prompt is and then give you an example. First, here is the prompt that you’ll use for the listening exercise. Tell a story of a conflict you were involved in where you feel like your engagement didn’t go well. What would you do differently?

Mandy and Teyonce will show us an example of what this exercise looks like.

Mandy: So I was in this group project last week, and I didn’t really go that well. There was one person in the group that continually tried to assert themselves. They asserted their authority into the group, and I didn’t really like that, so I kind of started talking, thought about them to the rest of the group. And in retrospect, I do wish I handled it differently. I wish I communicated it to the person who was trying to assert themselves, and see if there’s a way that we can work it out. But I wasn’t able to do that. So I do wish I was able to communicate with them. Maybe that would have changed how our project went.

Teyonce: I’m so sorry you had that experience. Is it okay if I just recount back to you what I’ve heard to make sure that I am taking away the correct thing from what you’ve shared with me?

Mandy: Yeah, definitely.

Teyonce: Okay. So, you were in a class and you had a group project that was assigned, and there was one person that just tried to assert their authority over everyone else in a way that didn’t seem to make you feel good and didn’t give equal voice to everyone else in the group. And as a result of that, to just express your frustration, you talked about that person, to the rest of your group, rather than confronting that person individually, and that’s something that you’d like to you wish you could have done differently is talking to that person and expressing to them why you didn’t appreciate how they were acting in the group setting. Is that correct?

Mandy: Yeah, you got that right.

Sarah: This exercise helps us practice and reflect on what it means to focus on listening to understand. What is your partner saying? What are the experiences that they’ve had. How do they describe them? Can you repeat those back to them with words that they would understand as their own? This practice is called “looping.” It is used by negotiators, mediators, journalists, therapists, and now by you! It is a way to slow down our urge to respond and start by checking in on our own understanding of what the other person is saying. Thanks as always for your time, and have fun practicing!

From Positions to Interest

Handout to accompany From Positions to Interest

Transcript

Speakers: Sarah Stroup, Mandy Berghela, Teyonce Allison

Sarah: What is at stake in a conflict? The answer is often more complicated than it first appears. In this video, we will talk about moving from arguing about positions to understanding interests. Let’s imagine a specific situation. Mandy and Teyonce work together and run a delivery business.

Mandy: I think that we really need to buy this $10,000 car..

Teyonce: Wow. I disagree totally. We should absolutely not buy that $10,000 car.

Sarah: Mandy and Teyonce have positions that are completely different. This sort of situation happens a lot - you want one thing, and I want the exact opposite. If we stay focused on those opposing positions, a couple of things might happen. First, it can move beyond the car very quickly - and get very personal.

Mandy: I think that we really need to buy this $10,000 car.

Teyonce: Are you nuts? $10,000 for that car? That is a terrible idea! You don’t even know anything about cars!

Sarah: Second, we might be missing some critical information that has shaped our position on the car. We need skills to analyze the conflicts we face in a new way. If we can move beyond these opposing positions and get to the deeper roots of the issue, we will be better able to identify creative solutions and maintain our relationships.

We are going to offer three practices that can help offer a new perspective on the conflicts we are in. The first practice: separate the people from the problem. You might have heard this one before. I find that it is easier said than done, which is why we need to practice it. When we are working with other people, it is easy to forget that we are dealing with human beings. Every person has emotions, deeply held values, and different backgrounds. We are also all imperfect - we have blind spots and bad habits, and we all make mistakes.

You might have heard of Getting to Yes, a famous negotiation textbook. Their first rule of thumb for dealing with conflicting positions is to be “hard on the problem, soft on the people.” Here is the exercise. The next time you hear a position you disagree with, try to focus on both the substantive issues and the relational issues.

Teyonce: I think that we really need to buy this $10,000 car.

Mandy: Ok. She wants to talk about our transportation problems, and that will have an impact on our budget. Our relationship isn’t great right now - I haven’t been in the office much lately, and we had a problem meeting our last project deadline.

Sarah: If you can separate the issue from the relationship, you may be able to move from seeing the other party as the adversary to seeing them as a partner tackling a shared problem. The second practice is to move from positions to interests. When two people articulate opposing position - buy the car! Don’t buy the car! - it is hard to see a way forward. But if you keep digging, you might see a variety of interests and needs, some of which might overlap. One starting point is simple - ask the other person what their interests are.

Teyonce: I think that we really need to buy this $10,000 car.

Mandy: Hmm, interesting. Why do you think we need another car?

Teyonce: I think it would help us maximize our productivity and get different places faster than just having one option.

Mandy: Okay, interesting. Is there something that this car is particularly good at?

Teyonce: Yes, it does have a four wheel drive, which means we can drive in so many different terrains.

Mandy: Okay, interesting. Can you say more about why you think we need this right now?

Teyonce: Well, with this upcoming winter, it can pose a difficulty, halting our ability to meet our delivery schedule on time. And so by having a car that’s well prepared for that sort of temperature, terrain, and environment, I think we’ll be able to do a great job executing our deliverables.

Mandy: Okay, interesting. What do you think will happen if we don’t get the car?

Teyonce: I don’t think that we’ll be able to meet the necessary deadlines we have, and we saw what that did last time. And so I think it’d be great if we just are able to put ourselves in the best position possible.

Sarah: When you’re in conflict with another person, there is a good chance that they are thinking about the issue differently than you are. And you won’t know what they are thinking unless you ask. Asking questions doesn’t mean taking a position. You aren’t saying yes or no - you are just seeking more information.

Now, sometimes, we can’t talk to the other person. In this case, we can still do a thought experiment that will help us uncover another person’s interests. This is something that William Ury calls the “victory speech” exercise. Let’s imagine that Teyonce has sent Mandy an email.

Teyonce: “Dear Mandy, I think we should spend $10,000 on a new car for our delivery fleet. Let me know what you think. Respectfully, Teyonce.”

What can Mandy do? Here is the thought exercise: imagine that Teyonce has to give a victory speech. Teyonce has to talk to the people that they care about the most - let’s say her boss. If Teyonce got what she wanted, what would she say to her boss?

Teyonce: I’m happy to report that we got the new car! For our delivery business, we really need more vehicles on our fleet. I also got a great deal - I had been watching the price for a while and this was 15% lower than I’ve seen advertised. And this will give us so much more control over our delivery schedule instead of relying on that part-time worker that isn’t always available.

Sarah: Here, we can imagine that Teyonce has a lot of different interests and needs. She wants to expand the business. She wants to be recognized as fiscally responsible. She wants more control. The “victory speech” exercise helps Mandy see that there might be a lot more going on in this conflict. If you are in a conflict, I encourage you to try out this exercise. What do you think the other person’s victory speech would be if they got what they wanted? What might be most important to them in this conflict?

To recap, we have covered three exercises in this video:

Separate the people from the problem, trying to understand the issue and the relationships.
Ask people what their interests are.
Imagine their interest through the victory speech exercise.

When we are in a conflict where the other person’s position seems directly opposed to ours, these practices can help us work with the other person to find creative solutions.

Better Questions for Conflict

Handout to accompany Better Questions for Conflict

Transcript

Speakers: Sarah Stroup, Mandy Berghela, Teyonce Allison

Sarah: In this video, we will focus on the quality of the questions that we ask when we are working on a conflict with someone. When we hear something that we disagree with, often our first instinct is to challenge that position. In our listening exercises, we focused on moving away from this rush to respond. What about when it is our turn to speak? One idea is that we might ask a question. But all questions are not created equally. We are going to show you what it looks like when a person is asked different types of questions. After we show you some examples, we will encourage you to do this on your own.

Let’s imagine Teyonce and Mandy run a local coffee shop together. They are talking about what they want to purchase in their business, and they have a disagreement. First, let’s hear what Teyonce’s position is:

Teyonce: I think we should only purchase locally roasted beans to serve in our coffee shop.

Sarah: Ok, Mandy hears this and disagrees. How will she follow up? Let’s start by seeing what happens when Mandy asks questions designed to change Teyonce’s mind. We’re going to watch them go back and forth for a minute.

Teyonce: I think we should only purchase locally roasted beans for our coffee shop.

Mandy: Aren’t locally roasted beans incredibly expensive?

Teyonce: They are, but they’re for a worthy cause.

Mandy: The beans we have already are fine, aren’t they?

Teyonce: Yes, but they don’t have the same ethical virtue behind how they’re sourced.

Mandy: Are the local roasters any good?

Teyonce: They are quite good.

Mandy: Do you not care about being fiscally responsible, or is this some virtue signalling?

Teyonce: I do believe it’s important that we are fiscally responsible, but supporting our local economy is a good way of doing so.

Mandy: Since when do you care about the local economy?

Teyonce: Since always!

Mandy: Didn’t you say you wanted to leave the purchasing decisions to me?

Teyonce: I did, but we’re also a team, and so it’s important that we make these important decisions together.

Sarah: The questions that Mandy just asked are all examples of questions of persuasion. Some of them are leading questions.  Others aren’t really questions - they are Mandy’s judgements stated in question form. Others are oversimplifications or offer a false choice. Now let’s see what happens when Mandy asks different types of questions. Again, let’s watch their conversation for a minute.

Teyonce: I think we should only purchase locally roasted beans for our coffee shop.

Mandy: What is important to you about getting the locally roasted beans?

Teyonce: I think I’d be really great to know that our shop is supporting local businesses.

Mandy: And what do you mean when you say locally roasted?

Teyonce: So, they would be sourced from small farms that are in our community and we’d be able to give back not only to our customers, but promote these small businesses.

Mandy: Okay, that sounds good. Can you say more about how this would work in practice?

Teyonce: I recognize that it’s a bit more of an expensive proposition than what we’re currently doing, and I haven’t thought through all this small details, but I just thought it could be a really great ethical idea to enhance the appeal of our store and I just would love to flush through it more with you.

Mandy: Yeah, I think I like that too. Are you feeling uncertain or conflicted about this idea?

Teyonce: I can see how it could be difficult for us to manifest in a way that is fiscally sound, but I think that if we make some cuts here and there, we can really make it work.

Sarah: When Mandy asks questions of curiosity, Teyonce becomes less defensive and is more willing to admit that her proposal isn’t fully fleshed out. Importantly, Mandy hasn’t said that she agrees with Teyonce - she isn’t abandoning her own position! But her questions invite Teyonce to share more information about her priorities, the details of the plan, and what might be missing.

This is an example is the situation that we made up in order to illustrate the exercise. Now we invite you to try this exercise on your own. Taking turns with a partner, each of you should share a position and have the other person ask you the two different types of questions. After you have gone one way, then switch roles with your partner.

When you have done the exercise, you might debrief afterwards. Here are a few questions to consider:

What happens when you are asked questions of persuasion?
What happened when you were asked questions of curiosity?
Finally, what is an example of a curious question that you think you could ask in a conflict?

Enjoy the practice!

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Introduction

Self-Awareness and Conflict Styles

Listening to Understand

From Positions to Interest

Better Questions for Conflict

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Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation

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