Crafting Solutions to Conflict

Gary Friedman, a highly-respected and deeply-experienced mediator, ran for local office in the small Northern California town where he had lived for 40 years. Recently, tensions had flared in town meetings over a few local issues. Amanda Ripley, author of High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, wrote about his foray into politics in her article, “I Got Obama’d”.https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/01/conflict-resolution-politics-amanda-ripley-excerpt-484786Starting out with a goal of including everyone, Gary soon fell into the trap of divisive politics, and tensions escalated. He and his allies lost power. He then regained his perspective and worked to help to help his neighbors understand each other – even when they disagreed. Then conflict could lead to something productive, to true problem-solving.What some of us like to call “good conflict”, the creative and collaborative kind.Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea or question about conflict management or conflict resolution? Let me know at jb@dovetailresolutions.com! And you can learn more about me and my work as a mediator and a Certified CINERGY® Conflict Coach at www.dovetailresolutions.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebeddall/.Enjoy the show on your favorite podcast app or on the podcast website: https://craftingsolutionstoconflict.com/And you can follow us on Twitter @conflictsolving. 

Use of Restorative Justice in criminal justice and its application in other areas have both grown in recent years. Restorative Justice has a focus beyond punishment of offenders that includes the needs of the victims.  In addition to broader use in the criminal justice arena, Restorative Justice has grown in application to include schools, religious institutions, and societies at large.Howard Zehr, a Restorative Justice pioneer, offers these questions to consider if a process is accurately described as Restorative Justice. Are the wrongs being acknowledged? Are the needs of those who were harmed being addressed? Is the one who committed the harm being encouraged to understand the damage and accept his or her obligation to make right the wrong? Are those involved in or affected by this being invited to be part of the “solution?” Is concern being shown for everyone involved? If the answers to these questions are “no,” then even though it may have restorative elements, it isn’t restorative justice.” https://zehr-institute.org/what-is-rj/Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea or question about conflict management or conflict resolution? Let me know at jb@dovetailresolutions.com! And you can learn more about me and my work as a mediator and a Certified CINERGY® Conflict Coach at www.dovetailresolutions.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebeddall/.Enjoy the show on your favorite podcast app or on the podcast website: https://craftingsolutionstoconflict.com/And you can follow us on Twitter @conflictsolving. 

Internal Family Systems Therapy allows an individual to support one’s own contradictory parts.Amy is a certified leadership coach who has pulled together a range of professional and personal experiences that help her serve her clients. One aspect of her coaching work is the application of Internal Family Systems Therapy. The IFS model  accepts and welcomes the various parts that we each hold within us. You can learn more about IFS here:  https://ifs-institute.com/    Learn more about Amy and her work at her website, https://careerleadershipalignment.com/ Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/AmyKayWatsonCoach/ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amykaywatson/ .Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea or question about conflict management or conflict resolution? Let me know at jb@dovetailresolutions.com! And you can learn more about me and my work as a mediator and a Certified CINERGY® Conflict Coach at www.dovetailresolutions.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebeddall/.Enjoy the show on your favorite podcast app or on the podcast website: https://craftingsolutionstoconflict.com/And you can follow us on Twitter @conflictsolving. 

When a bad conflict ends, consider carefully how to deal with any sudden and severe shift to your foundation. There is a shock. A shock to you. A shock to the other person -- or people – and a shock to the relationship itself. And it’s predictable that those shocks will have effects. What they are and when they will occur is less predictable. Often, even less predictable are the aftershocks. Don’t be thrown by the shock. Whether it’s a shock or an aftershock, try hard to avoid a knee-jerk reaction to lash out and hurt others in the relationship. Though the immediate lash-out may seem satisfying in the moment, that feeling can fade very quickly. And then the “jerk” part remains. Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea or question about conflict management or conflict resolution? Let me know at jb@dovetailresolutions.com! And you can learn more about me and my work as a mediator and a Certified CINERGY® Conflict Coach at www.dovetailresolutions.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebeddall/.Enjoy the show on your favorite podcast app or on the podcast website: https://craftingsolutionstoconflict.com/And you can follow us on Twitter @conflictsolving. 

Truly understanding estrangement is quite tough; clearing up some misconceptions is easier. There’s often a tilt to the misunderstanding of estrangement. A tilt to the negative, the hopeless, a belief in a guaranteed increased hardening as time goes on. There can also be a misunderstanding about how the two “sides” view the estrangement itself, even if they agree about how they started on the path to estrangement. It’s common to believe everyone chooses anger, reciprocal rejection, or a genuine effort to forget about those on the other side. That’s not always the case, as demonstrated by the words of a man, years into an estrangement, who said this about his brother: “He’s in the family. Absent but loved.” Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea or question about conflict management or conflict resolution? Let me know at jb@dovetailresolutions.com! And you can learn more about me and my work as a mediator and a Certified CINERGY® Conflict Coach at www.dovetailresolutions.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebeddall/.Enjoy the show on your favorite podcast app or on the podcast website: https://craftingsolutionstoconflict.com/And you can follow us on Twitter @conflictsolving. 

Families can benefit if they leave the work of fiduciary duties to a dedicated professional trustee and focus on being a family. Marguerite describes the duties, including obligations of ethics and fairness, that trustees must fulfill. Communications with all the relevant people are essential, while also preserving the agency of an aging person.  If a family member -- and not a professional -- is acting as trustee, communication is even more important because of real, imagined, or potential conflicts of interest. You can learn more about Marguerite and Lorenz Private Trustees at https://www.mytrustee.net/ . Her book, Ethics for Trustees 2.0, is available on Amazon.Marguerite also talked about the work of the Independent Trustee Alliance, an international professional alliance dedicated to growing and supporting the Independent Trustee profession. Learn more here: https://www.trusteealliance.com/.Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea or question about conflict management or conflict resolution? Let me know at jb@dovetailresolutions.com! And you can learn more about me and my work as a mediator and a Certified CINERGY® Conflict Coach at www.dovetailresolutions.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebeddall/.Enjoy the show on your favorite podcast app or on the podcast website: https://craftingsolutionstoconflict.com/And you can follow us on Twitter @conflictsolving. 

Reconciliation Day, April 2nd, can serve as a catalyst to start to heal an estrangement. The late advice columnist Ann Landers created the day as a time each year to extend an olive branch of reconciliation over hurts caused by words or actions. You can learn more about its origins in the April 2, 2019 Reconciliation Day episode: https://bit.ly/2PnuhMO.Reconciliation Day can serve as a catalyst: an arbitrary day to make the first step toward ending an estrangement and reconciling. Think through how best to approach the other person. Use the fact of Reconciliation Day explicitly – it’s why you are reaching out now (no ulterior motive). And consider the step forward as just that: a step in the right direction on an important journey, and not the whole journey itself.Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea or question about conflict management or conflict resolution? Let me know at jb@dovetailresolutions.com! And you can learn more about me and my work as a mediator and a Certified CINERGY® Conflict Coach at www.dovetailresolutions.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebeddall/.Enjoy the show on your favorite podcast app or on the podcast website: https://craftingsolutionstoconflict.com/And you can follow us on Twitter @conflictsolving. 

Both the directness and the intensity with which we express disagreement influence the solution. A paper titled “The Directness and Oppositional Intensity of Conflict Expression” explored combinations of high or low directness and high or low intensity in expressing opposition. The best approach, according to the paper, is high directness/low intensity. In that case, the clear expression of opposition leads to a clear understanding of it. And a low intensity approach allows those involved to focus on the problem they are trying to solve and to avoid getting caught up in personal attacks or defenses. Say what you mean, mean what you say – but get your point across without being mean.The brief newspaper article featuring the research paper can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/business/be-direct-and-low-key-to-defuse-discord-at-the-office.html  “Applied Science” column, New York Times, May 10, 2015, Phyllis Korkki, “Defuse Discord at the Office: Be More Direct”. An abstract of the research paper and information on accessing the entire piece can be found here: https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amr.2013.0124. “The Directness and Oppositional Intensity of Conflict Expression” byLaurie R. Weingart, Kristin J. Behfar, Corinne Bendersky,Gergana Todorova,and Karen A. Jehn.Published Online on April 22, 2014. Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea or question about conflict management or conflict resolution? Let me know at jb@dovetailresolutions.com! And you can learn more about me and my work as a mediator and a Certified CINERGY® Conflict Coach at www.dovetailresolutions.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebeddall/.Enjoy the show on your favorite podcast app or on the podcast website: https://craftingsolutionstoconflict.com/And you can follow us on Twitter @conflictsolving. 

Jim shares insights from his deep experience with legacy families – and shares a secret tip. Jim noted a few key points.  Not all differences are going to lead to damaging conflicts. When families work to manage conflicts, it’s not just about communication; negotiation will be necessary. Families will help themselves when they work to improve skills that promote effective negotiation. Families can then carry forward a new template for their interaction, one that will better serve future generations.You can learn more about Jim and his publications at http://jamesgrubman.com/. You can reach him at jim@jamesgrubman.com. Jim is a Faculty Advisor for the Ultra High Net Worth Institute. Learn more about the Institute here: https://www.uhnwinstitute.org/Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea or question about conflict management or conflict resolution? Let me know at jb@dovetailresolutions.com! And you can learn more about me and my work as a mediator and a Certified CINERGY® Conflict Coach at www.dovetailresolutions.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebeddall/.Enjoy the show on your favorite podcast app or on the podcast website: https://craftingsolutionstoconflict.com/And you can follow us on Twitter @conflictsolving.  

Wise words from Desmond Tutu: “Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.” Increasing your volume isn’t likely to win over anyone, and it might make matters worse. Improving your argument doesn’t mean make your language nastier, use big words where smaller ones would be better, or say everything twice.Instead: find the weak points in your argument and make them stronger, make the vague points clearer, be specific, and think through the likely objections of the other person. The point of all of these thoughts is that you can more effectively attempt topersuade someone else to see things from your point of view if you leave out the volume and the venom.  And that can be true in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit or a chat with a family member.Do you have comments or suggestions about a topic or guest? An idea or question about conflict management or conflict resolution? Let me know at jb@dovetailresolutions.com! And you can learn more about me and my work as a mediator and a Certified CINERGY® Conflict Coach at www.dovetailresolutions.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebeddall/.Enjoy the show on your favorite podcast app or on the podcast website: https://craftingsolutionstoconflict.com/And you can follow us on Twitter @conflictsolving.