Conflict Management & Negotiation Rex Mitchell Fall 2011

1. Conflict Management & Negotiation Rex Mitchell Fall 2011

2. Course Overview • Conflict Management • Understanding & diagnosing conflicts • Goals & interests • Power • Evaluating & managing conflicts • Effective communication skills • Forgiveness & reconciliation

3. Course Overview (cont.) • Negotiation • Basic concepts • “Principled negotiation” • Preparation • Ethics • Negotiation simulation in teams

4. Engage with the readings • What seems important here, what do I like, agree with, find useful? Why? • Highlight, make margin notes • How might I apply one or more concepts in my life – now and in the future? • Are there things I disagree with and/or would modify or expand on? Why? How? • Is important to create your own reading notes or concept map

5. Creativity

6. Understanding & Diagnosing Conflicts

7. Quick, First Responses, Please • When there’s a conflict, I feel.... • In a conflict situation, I usually.... • In a conflict situation, I would like to…

8. You can tell that people are in conflict by... • When I see two people in conflict, I think... • After a conflict, people usually…

9. What is conflict? • What is negotiation?

11. Conflict is an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and/or interference from others in achieving their goals

12. Conflict can have bothnegative & positive effects • Some negatives? • Some positives?

13. Course Overview • Conflict Management • Understanding & diagnosing conflicts • Goals & interests • Power • Evaluating & managing conflicts • Effective communication skills • Forgiveness & reconciliation

14. We May Differ Over… • Data and information • Assumptions • Goals • Expectations • Methods and preferred solutions • Values

15. Organizations and groups differ in how conflict is viewed and managed • Make a few notes re this: • In your work group (or family) • In your company (or other organization) • Share in group • Note similarities & differences

16. Conflict Episode Model

17. Conflicts can escalate & de-escalate

18. Indications of Conflict Escalation • Competition • Claiming righteousness, moral superiority • Not listening • Spreading to new issues and situations • Dealing in personalities • Violating social norms • Intentional hurt • Insults and threats

19. Some Ways to De-escalate • Listening, trying to understand • Showing concern for others’ feelings • Appealing/suggesting de-escalation • Goodwill gestures, concessions • Expressing feelings • Finding integrative alternatives • “Recognizing” the other human being

20. Conflict Episode Model

21. Exercise on Attitudes About Conflict • Individually, score 1-6 (6 = strongly agree) your degree of agreement with each of the statements, applied to you • In pairs: • Identify statements with largest score spreads • Discuss some of these • Would you help me understand why you answered as you did? • Was it like this in your family of origin? • How well has this worked for you?

22. Goals and Interests

23. Course Overview • Conflict Management • Understanding & diagnosing conflicts • Goals & interests • Power • Evaluating & managing conflicts • Effective communication skills • Moderating conflicts • Forgiveness & reconciliation

24. Objectives (aka Goals) • “If you don't know where you're going, you might wind up somewhere else.” (Yogi Berra) • Distinguish among objectives (= goals), interests, positions, strategies, & actions • Define goals in terms of results and outcomes, not actions • Frame as positive results to be achieved rather than problems to be avoided

25. Several Types of Goals • Content • Relational • Identity (self-esteem) • Process ….CRIP (aka TRIP)

26. Goals and Interests • Interest: underlying need, desire, or concern • Goal (objective): desired outcome or result • Position: stated action, result, or proposal • Strategy: method for achieving a goal • Action: specific steps to take

27. Is this an Interest, Goal, Strategy, Position, or Action? • Make $60,000 this year • I need more money with the arrival of a second child • I think I deserve a 7% salary increase • I will first try to negotiate an increase in my salary, then, if necessary, I will search for a second part-time job

28. Contact the placement office in my professional society re part-time jobs • Increase profits to $1.58/share for this year • We need to hire more workers • Impress the division head • Start work on the paper at least a week before it is due

29. Application • (Individually) Pick a current or recent conflict situation involving you: • Should be fairly complex • Because we will return to it several times to apply different concepts

30. Application – Part 1 • Individually: • Pick a current or recent conflict situation • Identify what are/were your CRIP goals • What are/were the CRIP goals of one or more others involved • In groups of two or three: • Take turns describing your conflict situation (briefly) & your draft of CRIP goals • Group helps you probe for additional or clearer interests/goals

31. POWER

32. Power: potential ability to influence behavior, events …get people to do things they would not do otherwise • Influence, politics: processes & actions through which potential power is used • Leadership: art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations

33. Sources of Power • Formal authority & reputation • Resources • System connections & positioning • Expertise • Personal

34. 1. Formal authority & reputation • Should distinguish between these • Formal authority particularly important where? • Military • Police • Some government organizations • Formal relatively less important where? • New organizations • High-tech, R&D organizations • Universities

35. 2. Resources • Control • Acquisition • Creation …giving ability to reward and punish

36. 3. System connections & positioning • Centrality • Political access • Visibility • Relevance (alignment) • Criticality • Discretion • Non-substitutability

37. 4. Expertise • KSAs (knowledge, skills, abilities) • Performance • Professional credibility • Fit with organizational needs & priorities

38. 5. Personal • Charisma • Attractiveness • Energy, stamina • Focus • Determination • Interpersonal skills • Personal reputation • Flexibility • Able to engage effectively, even confront • Able to let others get credit

39. Three Propositions I Believe • Power is necessary and is neither good nor bad inherently • Influence is a form of power that tends to reduce the potential for negative effects • Power and love are not a dichotomy

40. Good to Great Companies • Jim Collins • “Good is the enemy of great” • Identified a group of elite companies that made the leap to great results & sustained for 15 years • Cumulative stock returns >7 times market • One factor was “Level 5 leaders”

41. Level 5 Leaders… • Build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and unwavering professional resolve • Are ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves • Set up their successors for even greater success in the next generation • Are more work horse than show horse • Look elsewhere to give credit for successes • Look in the mirror when things go poorly

42. Discuss in groups • Discuss assigned one of: • Application 4.1 p.104-105, discuss what you were taught or have “learned” about power from your life • Interests, rights, power (p.107) • Denying power use (p.112ff), including passive-aggressive behaviors (p.125-126) • Power imbalances (p.126-131 & ff) • Report major points to class

43. Let’s Process Class So Far • What was useful – and should be done in the future? • What could be improved in the future?