Disagreements in professional—and personal—settings are often one of the least pleasant aspects of our lives. Working through those disagreements can be uncomfortable, and we can feel lost as we try to navigate them. However, such disputes can be tremendously fruitful in their capacity to allow us to understand each other’s values, to gain wisdom from the information and perspectives that differ from our own, and to see each other’s humanity.

Although no difficult conversation can ever be truly free from discomfort—otherwise the conversation wouldn’t be a difficult one—there are approaches for arranging the emotions at play, the issues at stake, and the values that underlie them into a thoughtful and mutually informed framework, and there are step-by-step processes for walking through the disagreement together toward understanding and, hopefully, resolution. In this webinar, attendees will learn about the typical emotional background happening during a disagreement and common reactions to it; how to reconstruct unhelpful statements into more helpful ones that can facilitate a difficult conversation; how to identify the issues, interests, and positions present in a disagreement; and how to employ a ten-step procedure for working toward agreement. If you have ever been frustrated by platitudes such as “lean into the conversation” or “employ active listening” that do not seem to address the mechanics of how to navigate a tough conversation, this webinar can give you a concrete step-by-step procedure for doing just that.

Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• describe the typical emotional background happening during a disagreement and its resolution;
• differentiate between short-term and long-term oriented approaches to resolution;
• reconstruct unhelpful statements into statements that can facilitate a difficult conversation;
• identify issues, interests, and positions present in a conflict scenario; and
• describe the ten-step interest-based process for working toward conflict resolution.

Registration closes Tuesday, July 30, 2024 at noon.