Developing Your Conflict Competence: A Hands-On Guide for Leaders, Managers, Facilitators, and Teams

Chapter 3. The Emotional Side of Conflict

There are many wonderful books and courses dealing with conflict. If people could easily follow the recommendations found in these sources, conflict would not be such a confounding problem. We work with a lot of very smart clients, and while they easily understand concepts related to constructive conflict behaviors, they usually have difficulty using them in their daily lives. While practice helps polish the behaviors, we find that an even more fundamental issue concerns emotions.

Conflict is much more than just an intellectual battle of opposing ideas. It involves emotions, and often they are the greatest obstacle to resolving differences. In order to become conflict competent, people need to develop their ...