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How to Manage Conflict

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How to Manage Conflict

Turn All Conflicts into Win-Win Outcomes

Career Press,

15 min read
9 take-aways
Text available

What's inside?

Conflict between workers can be a positive sign: It shows they care.

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • Applicable

Recommendation

To learn how to cure conflicts or head them off before they become major conflagrations, spend a little time with author Peg Pickering. Her brief but compelling guide to conflict resolution is a must read for every employee from the mailroom gang to the CEO. She offers practical, usable methods for understanding, diffusing and resolving conflicts ranging from minor annoyances to major blow-outs. Strongly and honestly written, the book is devoid of fluff and goes right to the point without pages and pages of psychobabble. getAbstract recommends this book to everyone who has to deal with anyone else.

Summary

Fundamentals of Conflict

Resolving conflict is never easy. But, since that skill can make or break both your personal and professional life, learning how to deal with confrontational situations and people is a necessary skill. Managing conflict requires these five key skills:

  1. Understanding the core ingredients for collaborative thinking.
  2. Aligning responsibilities to the needs of others.
  3. Building the practices necessary for support into daily interactions.
  4. Using conflict resolution and negotiation skills to resolve challenges.
  5. Developing personal tools and systems for dealing with tension and pressure.

Your ability to build these skills depends upon four factors:

  1. Personal responsibility for your own learning and skill development.
  2. Flexibility of style.
  3. Ability to listen and give feedback.
  4. A positive attitude toward change.

While conflict doesn’t necessarily contain hostility, that can become part of the situation. Conflict is simply "the existence of competing or incompatible...

About the Author

Peg Pickering is also the author of Prioritize Organize: The Art of Getting It Done.

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