Conflict is part of the human exerience – it’s baked into our DNA – and lasting solutions require resolving conflict. Here you can read the best information on conflict resolution strategies, hand curated by our experts and trainers in public solutions. People don’t always agree, and resolving those disagreements is key to what we do in public participation. Resolving conflicts takes a lot of “soft skills,” more so than just facts. Data rarely changes someone’s mind. To do that you need humility, respect, authenticity and transparency, qualities that are necessary in dealing with the public for your government, organization, or business. These are the newsworthy articles that we have found contribute to this conversation on conflict resolution. Enjoy, dear reader.
Kurt Gray is a professor of psychology and neuroscience who has written a book with an interesting explanation about why people fight about morality and politics and how we might find common ground. Outraged explains that we all have competing views about harm, and the real victims.
Believing you’re going ...
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We’re on the cusp of the most consequential U.S. presidential election of our lifetimes. It’s hard to comprehend how we’ve possibly come to the ridiculous but clear choice that we’ll make in November. But the question is obvious: will we live in an uglier, hotter, meaner, dirtier, less healthy, less ...
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We’re coming into that time of year when families get together more often and people with widely different views are thrown into social conversations where politics and cultural differences can rear their ugly noggins. These 50 questions are useful for a variety of situations, so if you’re already dreading another ...
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I suspect that you’re aware of the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), which actually don’t just occur in some kind of prescribed, neat, predictable order; it’s more complex than that. (Trust me.) But conflict can also be defined in five stages....
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Mark Twain said, “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” We see stupidity and confidence in any number of successful people these days. (I’ll let you decide who they might be.) Confidence comes in handy but, like beer, too much just isn’t ...
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The value of humility can’t be overstated when it comes to preventing and reducing conflict. It seems counterintuitive to professionals who have worked hard their entire lives to develop a high level of expertise and confidence in their own abilities in their respective fields. So, to be asked to be ...
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Princess Diana once said, “You can’t comfort the afflicted without afflicting the comfortable.” We afflict a lot of clients. I mean that most clients hate conflict and avoid it any way they can and they often hire us hoping we’ll just make their problems magically go away. But, like most ...
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Winston Churchill is often credited with saying, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” You know people like that. We’ve elected way too many people like that. Actual or presumed expertise often results in confidence – certainty, but that certainty comes with a ...
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Normal people tend to avoid conflict like explosive diarrhea. It’s really difficult, messy, and makes your stomach hurt. So, most people do what they can to pretend it’s not that important or that bad or, failing to justify it away, they defer it to somebody else or they kick the ...
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Can’t you apologize too much? Good question. It came from a client recently and it prompted a lengthy conversation starting with what constitutes a good apology. We all agreed that “We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems. We acknowledge the Court’s rulings ...
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