Conflict Engagement

Being Collaborative - image of rowers

#92 Being Collaborative — What It Means

Being collaborative is a guiding principle in many cooperative approaches to dispute resolution and conflict engagement. It is based on an underlying set of beliefs – primarily that certain forms of cooperation will lead to better outcomes for both parties. In this blog, I flush out how I further understand what it means to be …

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The importance of speaking up - photo of two birds, one chatting to the other

#89 The Importance of Speaking Up

Listening well is often considered the hallmark of effective communication in conflict dynamics, but speaking one’s mind well is also important. Meaningful communication always flows in both directions. Bernie Mayer discussed the importance of speaking up in Episode 6 of the On Conflict Podcast. Referring to himself, Bernie elevated the importance of speaking up: “The …

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The Conflict Journey - Co-Creating Peace - Gordon White

#88 Sustaining Peace With Co-Creation

In an episode of the On Conflict Podcast, author and Reos partner Adam Kahane quotes a line from the Broadway musical Rent: ‘The opposite of war is creation.’ Adam suggests that although ending war may be enough to begin peace, sustaining peace requires that we replace war with something constructive. For instance, formerly adversarial political …

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Adam Kahane on collaborating with an enemy

#80 Adam Kahane on How to Collaborate with an Enemy

Adam Kahane has worked on some of the more challenging social problems that the world has faced in recent history, for example the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, and building connections between the Government and drug cartels in Colombia. His voice is highly relevant because there are few others in the field of conflict engagement …

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Encapsulating Conflict – How to Live with On-Going Conflict When You're at Your Wit's Ends

#78 Encapsulating Conflict – How to Live with Ongoing Conflict When You’re at Your Wit’s Ends

Some conflicts are not going away, and focusing on resolution may be counter-productive. I heard leading researcher John Gottman say in a plenary address that over 65 percent of marital conflict is never resolved. It’s how couples live and work with conflict that makes the difference. The same could be said of many other organizational, …

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Greater empowerment. Photo of man on sailboat

#71 Taking More Responsibility for Conflict Leads to Greater Empowerment

The road to greater empowerment in conflict resolution is different from what you might imagine. We are all familiar with the feeling of power that accompanies anger or being righteously offended. But, swellings of aggravation are delusional and a false sense of power. Through blame, these emotions assign responsibility to other people, but realistically we …

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Building Trust

#57 Building Trust in the Absence of Integrity

This blog further explores the notion introduced in Blog #17 that there are different approaches to trust. There, I initially named these approaches ‘faces of trust,’ and in this blog I am describing them as qualities that we can rely on in someone else to build trust. This blog also pulls together several ideas from …

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