This collection of activities, self-assessments, and exercises is especially useful as a resource to introduce the issue of conflict and its resolution as a part of workshops on management, leadership, communication, negotiation and diversity.
Business people are becoming much more interested in understanding workplace conflict, its causes, and its impact. 50 Activities for Conflict Resolution is designed to meet the needs of professionals who are expected to resolve their own personal and immediate conflicts or train others to do so. It also deals with the specific skills one needs to act as a third party in helping others resolve their conflicts.
Some people believe that conflict is a necessary part of life, and that without conflict there is no growth. Others believe that the only way to handle conflict is to avoid dealing with it. Individuals participating in the workshop activities and self-study exercises offered in this book will examine their own concerns with conflict, their own individual styles, and the role conflict has played and is playing in their lives. They will also learn skills to help them become more effective in interpersonal relations at work. Ultimately they and their organizations will benefit through reduced conflict, improved communication, and a more productive work environment.
This book focuses on activities and self-study exercises. Some exercises point out ways to look at conflict, while others help people explore their own beliefs and values. Other exercises deal with how to understand individual conflict styles. The objective is to be able to recognise conflict, size up the situation, and keep it from becoming destructive to ongoing relationships. The activities and exercises also offer ways in which parties can recognise the kinds of language that might make things worse, as well as explore what might be done or said to make things better.
This 300 page binder is fully reproducible and flexibly organised in two sections:
Part One: Group Workshop Activities: includes twenty-five interactive group learning activities to explore conflict and provide practice in skills that help to resolve it. With sections on:
• Two Responses to Conflict: Fight or Flight
• How Can We Both Win? A Quick Demonstration
• Individual Conflict Styles: A Zoological Approach
• Approaches to Conflict: Role Play Demonstration
• When Conflict Creates Stress, Don't Just Stand There...
• Introduction to Listening: A Self-Inventory
• Red Flags
• Benefits and Barriers: Exploring Third Party Intervention
• Mismatched? Are You Reading the Non-Verbal Cues?
• Constructive or Destructive Conflict: Lessons to be Learned.
Part Two: Individualised Exercises and Assessments: consists of twenty-five individualised exercises and assessments that are ideal for pre-work prior to group training sessions, or they can be distributed to participants for their own self-development. All of the activities and assessments are reproducible and include participant materials and notes for the instructor. With sections on:
• Self-Assessment in Dealing with Differences
• Analysing A Conflict: Is It Worth Getting Into?
• In the Heat of the Moment
• How to Deal with Hot Buttons
• Resolving a Conflict through Planning
• Mediation: Test Your Knowledge
• First Thoughts About Others: Perception IQ Quiz
• Uncovering the Hidden Agenda
• Your Turn: A Non-Judgmental Exercise
• Supportive Listening: What's Your Score?
• Escalate vs. Acknowledge: The Choice is Yours.
