The Conflict Resolution Toolbox, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER THIRTEENCONCLUSION

The Toolbox presented in this book consists of nine models that are highly effective in diagnosing and assessing conflict. It has presented them on the basis that practitioners of all types—managers, leaders, mediators, negotiators, and facilitators—will benefit greatly from learning and applying a range of conflict analysis models in their work. The two new models in this book, the Law of Reciprocity and the Loss Aversion Bias, add important understandings about psychology, behavior, and cognitive biases to the Toolbox as well.

Many practitioners are skilled and effective at conflict management by working intuitively, by doing what seems to make sense at the time, often with good results. So why should anyone bother learning and developing models for conflict analysis in their practice or work?

The reason is simply this: working with models like these lead the practitioner from a level of competence to a level of mastery. Competence allows us to help people resolve conflict; mastery gives us the ability to work with far more complex and deeply rooted issues. As we look more broadly toward growing and developing in the field of conflict resolution, these models are essential for conflict practitioners if they wish to become more than simply competent. The path from a journey level to a level of mastery in the field of conflict resolution is well described by Michael Lang and Alison Taylor in their book, The Making of a Mediator.¹ In this book, the ...