Conflict Owner's Manual
Expert tips to help you use the conflict competencies you already have, so you can do conflict better. Our logo is a dandelion because conflict is like a weed you don't want in the garden. But since it's there, you want to know how to manage it, keep it from spreading, and feel good about how you dealt with it.
Episodes
Everyone has a view of how the world should work according to themselves. Your view is a frame that your holds, among other things, your beliefs, concerns, values, and hopes. But sometimes, your frame rubs wrong against someone else's frame, and oops, conflict happens. That's when a reframe adds a valuable conflict competence. We describe user-friendly ways to look at frames and reframes.
You have habits, everyone does. Habits are patterns of how you behave. Once you recognize how you usually or often react in a conflict you have identified your conflict pattern. Name your reaction pattern, the emotions driving that pattern, and the pattern you'd rather have. Name it, own it, improve it.
Show notes
Juliet spoke to herself (Act 2, Scene 2) on her balcony, unaware that Romeo was hiding below, watchin...
Conflicts unfold over time to become patterns. We discuss the many opportunities to manage, shift, change and reframe conflict patterns. When you change the pattern you improve your conflict competence.
Tyson refers to adrienne maree brown: https://adriennemareebrown.net/2015/02/02/trust-the-people/
"if you do not trust the people, they will become untrustworthy." Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Does your attachment to your point of view make your good questions sound like judgments? Here are four steps to showing that your curiosity comes from your good intentions.
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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.
Please subscribe to our podcast, like it, share it, leave comments (we love comments), ask questions and suggest topics you&apos...
It's election 2025 tomorrow in Canada, and we discuss conflict competence as a skill in every interaction, as well as necessary for democracy, electioneering, voting, and governing.
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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.
Please subscribe to our podcast, like it, share it, leave comments (we love comments), ask questions and suggest t...
Defaulting to curiosity rather than judgement is conflict competent. But, what if that curious question still sounds judgemental? We show you how to ask conflict competent questions, so you can diffuse conflict.
The article the explains better questions than starting with the word "why" at this link: https://deborahsword.com/a-conflict-analysis-of-why/
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Dr. Deborah Sword is ...
A bias can make decisions easier. You don't have to think hard if you already know your bias for herbal tea and against caffeinated tea. But when biases cause conflict, or stop you from enjoying the company of friends who hold perspectives you don't share, you'll want some conflict competent hacks to overcome biased thinking. We discuss four of the most common.
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Dr. Deborah Swor...
Have you made a comment that you intended as helpful and been criticized rather than thanked? Depending on how you respond in the situation, the cycle of defensive reaction either escalates or is diffused. You can decide if a conflict happens or not. We discuss two useful conflict competencies and how to use them.
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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and train...
You have choices about how and when you let the person you're in conflict with know that you're feeling vulnerable. Since your sense of your vulnerability influences the decisions you make in conflict, it's a conflict competence to be mindful of how vulnerable you feel, and how you choose to express or hide that vulnerability.
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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with dec...
Everyone has a mental map of what conflict does or should look like, how it unfolds, and your ideal ending. Not everything on your conflict mental map is conflict competent. What may be on your conflict mental map as one of your strategies may not optimally belong there. Deborah discusses 'deflection' as one strategy that you might want to delete from your conflict mental map.
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Dr. D...
Feeling shame doesn't leave you much room for dealing with conflict. Shame fills a lot of space, crowding out empathy and perspective taking. How can you be conflict competent when you're beating up on yourself in shame? We give a few tips.
Show notes:
Brené Brown, in Rising Strong, writes that vulnerability is “the birthplace of many of the fulfilling experiences we long for—love, belonging, joy, creativity, and trust” (p....
Have you taken a conflict course and then not used what you learned? Here's what you're missing when you have the knowledge and don't use it regularly.
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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.
Please subscribe to our podcast, like it, share it, leave comments (we love comments), ask questions and suggest topics you'd like...
Maya Angelou said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Pretend you have a private studio audience cheering you on when you make people feel good. Even if people don't reciprocate your efforts to understand them, you still benefit in many ways from listening to them, showing empathy, and having conflict competence. We di...
You may be comfortable avoiding conflict, which is one of the many responses available to you in conflicts. Avoiding would be your pattern and it can work well. Similarly, you may regularly default to one of the other responses, and that would be your conflict pattern. But, if you encounter a new situation, you will want more options. Here are some of the ways that having more conflict responses benefits you.
The words people use can provide insights into what keeps a conflict going. It's a conflict competency to notice the past, present or future tense of words, including your own. Listen to people's word spacers, such as 'er' and 'um' and what words they emphasize or repeat. Even silence or pauses between words can be significant, such as Tyson's 7 second pause while he considers his words. Listening...
Perhaps you know how to say what you want as an 'I message' rather than a 'you message' to avoid antagonizing the other person. I suggest additional strategies that deepen conversations and also go below any superficial presenting issue to the issue underneath. Communicating about the real issues can deepen the relationship, not just avoid antagonism.
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Dr. Deborah Sword is ...
Your brain uses your senses to collect data, interpret the information, make a risk assessment, and report to you at the speed of thought. Your brain predicts what is happening, and what might happen, so that you can react. For your reaction to be conflict competent, start with observing your brain do this in real time.
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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and...
Your values and many other factors influence your decision to engage with conflict, how you engage, or if you won't engage. You have more choices than you know. In making your decisions, ask yourself, How Is This About Me (H.I.T.A.M.) and Why Am I Talking (W.A.I.T.).
Send us a text. We love hearing from you.
Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.
Please subscribe to our podc...
When you understand another person, conversations can flow. Perhaps you've heard the expression: 'meet people where they are' and wondered how to do that. We describe empathy mapping and conversation analysis, which are two conflict competent approaches to holistic understanding where people are so you can meet them there.
Send us a text. We love hearing from you.
Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades...
Some conversations just miss; you aren't on the same wavelength, no one seems to listen, and you feel verbally attacked. There are two conflict competence skills that get those heated debates back on track.
Send us a text. We love hearing from you.
Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.
Please subscribe to our podcast, like it, share it, leave comments (we love comments), ask...
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