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La Sal Sustainability Collaboration: Conflict competence in action
Feb 01, 2025My last project with the Wallace Stegner Center’s EDR program was facilitating the La Sal Sustainability Collaboration (LSSC), a diverse group working to co-create an approach to management of the Southern La Sal’s and Canyons, where federal, state and private rangelands are operated as an integrated, sustainable system.
2024 EDR blog year in review
Jan 01, 2025To kick off the new year, we’ve been reflecting on our achievements from 2024 and what we would like to accomplish in 2025. One of the things we are proud of from 2024 is posting another year’s worth of EDR blogs on key topics related to conflict competence and collaboration.
Emotions are data when dealing with conflict
Dec 01, 2024I find it very telling that when I ask people at the start of my classes and professional trainings what they think of when they think about conflict, the most common responses are emotions (particularly unpleasant emotions) such as frustration, anxiety, anger, or fear.
We need to talk about dysregulation
Nov 07, 2024Let me start with a provocative question: How are you feeling about the current state of U.S. politics? I encourage you to take a moment to really sit with this question and tune into how you are feeling.
To overcome divisiveness, we need to focus on interests (and not positions)
Oct 01, 2024In the hope that it helps us all navigate this challenging election season, I want to build on ideas I’ve explored in prior blogs to directly address the problem with focusing on positions and highlight some approaches for focusing on what really matters—our interests.
The problem with compromise
Sep 01, 2024In my classes and trainings, I often ask people what skills are necessary for effective conflict resolution. One of the most common responses I get is “compromise.” When people say this, I ask them a follow-up question: How does compromise make you feel? I encourage you to take a moment to sit with that question yourself.
To flourish, we need to teach people how to make conflict productive
Aug 01, 2024We live in a highly interconnected world in which people from all walks of life interact with each other on a daily basis. This unavoidable reality of modern life creates many amazing opportunities, including for greater creativity and innovation. However, it can be difficult to navigate if we don’t have skills for productively working through our differences.
When dealing with conflict, don’t just be nice—be kind and firm
Jul 01, 2024As I explain, being kind and firm helps us focus on what really matters and get good outcomes for ourselves and others when dealing with conflict—and, in doing so, it helps us avoid many of the problems people create by focusing on “just being nice.”
The power of “Yes and…”
Jun 01, 2024“Yes, and” thinking is a mindset and way of speaking that reflects the simple but profound fact that the world is complex, and seemingly contradictory things can—and do—coexist.
The power of “the BOP” when dealing with conflict
May 01, 2024In this blog, I want to build on those ideas by explaining a key source of power in negotiation and conflict situations: your ability to understand and exercise what I call the BOP–your “best option possible.”
Don’t give up your power when dealing with conflict
Apr 01, 2024Over my many years of doing conflict resolution and collaboration work, it has become very clear to me that we have a serious problem with power. People involved in conflict often describe themselves as powerless. Or they ask questions such as “How do you negotiate with people who have more power than you?” or “What do I do if they have all of the power?” Or they wonder how parties can collaborate when there are serious power imbalances.
Commitment: A core conflict competency
Mar 01, 2024Over the past year, I have published a series of blogs exploring the key skills that are necessary for making conflict productive, or what I call the core “conflict competencies.” Prior blogs have explored the conflict competencies of calm, curiosity, compassion, creativity, courage, and communication. In this blog, I want to explore one final core conflict competency: commitment.
Communication: A core conflict competency
Feb 01, 2024In 2023, I wrote a series of blogs exploring key conflict competencies. There are two competencies I identified in that blog that I have yet to fully describe: communication and commitment. In this blog, I am going to discuss communication. In my next blog, I’ll dive into commitment.
2023 EDR blog year in review
Jan 04, 2024As we enter the new year, we are reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re going. As part of that, we’re looking back at the EDR blog topics we covered last year, which included an overview of the EDR program’s future direction, discussion of why conflict tends to be so challenging for people, and exploration of key conflict competencies—i.e., key skills for making conflict productive.
Destructive conflict tendencies vs. productive conflict choices
Dec 01, 2023In my last blog, I described what conflict competence is and summarized the key conflict competencies that empower us to deal with conflict skillfully and productively. In this blog, I build on those ideas to explore the choices we make when dealing with conflict and the way in which different choices lead to very different outcomes.
What is conflict competence and what are the core conflict competencies?
Oct 26, 2023In this blog, I want to pull these concepts all together by explaining what conflict is, what conflict competence is and why it matters, and what basic skills—or what I refer to as “conflict competencies”—are required to make conflict productive.
Courage: An overarching skill for making conflict productive
Oct 01, 2023I therefore believe that we need to develop an additional important, overarching skill or conflict competency in order to make conflict productive in our personal and professional lives: courage.
Compassion: A prerequisite for calm, curiosity, and creativity when dealing with conflict
Sep 01, 2023To get beyond this limiting mindset and to be calm, curious, and creative when dealing with conflict, I think we need to lean into another word that starts with C: compassion.
Curiosity is a superpower when dealing with conflict
Jul 26, 2023So how about curiosity? What does it mean and look like to approach conflict with curiosity, and how do we do this?
To make conflict productive, focus on co-creating mutual gains outcomes
Jul 02, 2023The mission of the EDR program is to foster a culture of collaboration around environmental, natural resource, and broader public policy issues. In other words, we strive to help people work together to create a better today and tomorrow.
The power of calm when dealing with conflict
Jun 01, 2023To make conflict productive and to avoid it becoming destructive, we have to get out of this win-lose mindset and instead focus on what really matters, and one key way to do this is to ask ourselves and others “What would be a productive outcome in this situation?”