Professional Services

Conflict Management

Conflict Coaching
One of the challenges in work settings is how individuals deal with conflict. The inevitability of conflict stems from the inescapable fact that people have different and even opposing views, goals, needs and idea. Conflict is typically seen as something to be avoided, yet the goal is to try to convert conflict into a context where individual and team learning can grow.

In a team work setting the stakes can be quite high. The key challenge for both individuals and teams is how to respond to conflict in order to obtain positive outcomes and lessen its harmful effects. The goal is to shift one’s approach to managing conflict and become equipped with constructive skills that the more useful productive functions of conflict can develop.

Our Conflict Coaching process helps managers and leaders become more effective in how they manage conflict. Individuals and teams who are invited to take the Conflict Dynamics Profile (CDP) assessment instrument to develop greater awareness of how they typically deal with conflict and obtain ongoing coaching to increase their conflict competence.

The CDP produces a complete and comprehensive “conflict profile,” providing data on:

• what's particularly provoking to the individual
• how the individual perceives the way he or she responds to conflict
• how others view the individual responding to conflict
• how the individual’s behavior changes (or doesn’t) before, during, and after conflict
• which behaviors would have the most severely negative impact within the individual’s particular organization

We provide two-hour one-on-one feedback coaching sessions to debrief the results of the CDP survey and help the individual develop an action plan. We then meet once a month for three months, for two-hour coaching sessions, targeting specific skills and behaviors that are essential to handle conflict more constructively.  The coaching initiative includes a follow-up meeting in three months which serves as a “check up” to sustain the learning.   The coach provides support and expertise and works with the individual’s live ammo work situations that provoke conflict, and together determine strategies and techniques to cool down slow down or engage conflict constructively, recognize the hot buttons that provoke conflict in the individual manager, and enable more effective conflict management.  
    
The cost for this coaching program centered on this essential skill in a leader’s repertoire is $3,500.  Contact us for scheduling the three month individual coaching program or details on our team coaching sessions. 

The Conflict Dynamics Profile
is an assessment instrument dealing with conflict behaviors in the workplace, provides a powerful way to improve self-awareness of what triggers conflict in individuals as well as how they respond to conflict. Based on these triggers and responses, the Conflict Dynamics Profile, then provides practical approaches for improving behaviors that promote more effective workplace conflict resolution.

About the CDP
The Conflict Dynamics Profile (CDP) was developed to prevent harmful conflict in the workplace. It provides managers and employees with a greater awareness of how they respond when faced with conflict so that they can improve on those behaviors causing the most problems. The CDP's focus on conflict behaviors, rather than styles, emphasizes an action-oriented approach which lessens the problems associated with harmful or unproductive forms of conflict and results in more effective conflict management skills. There are two versions of the CDP: the CDP-360 and the CDP-Individual (CDP-I). The CDP-I is a "self report" (it only looks at how you view yourself), whereas the CDP-360 is a full spectrum tool which gives not only your self view but also delineates the feedback from bosses, peers, and direct reports. Click here for a sample report. As a psychometrically sound instrument, the CDP shows solid evidence of reliability and validity and has been normed against a variety of organizations. Easily completed in 20-25 minutes, the CDP comes with a comprehensive Development Guide offering practical tips and strategies for strengthening conflict management skills. Applicable for all types of organizations, the instrument can be used within the context of an existing training program, as a stand-alone assessment for an individual or group of employees, or as part of a coaching intervention.

The Benefits of Using the CDP in Individual and Team Development
The Premise of Managing Conflict Dynamics:  While conflict itself is inevitable, ineffective and harmful responses to conflict can be avoided, and effective and beneficial responses to conflict can be learned.  Frequently, this becomes an important component of coaching for change for individual managers and teams.

Assessing conflict behavior in individual and teams, centers on differentiating cognitive conflict (task- related) from affective conflict (personal).  Typically, the path conflict takes begins with a precipitating event or hot buttons – coming from people or situations – which initiate conflict.  The CDP measures Constructive Responses, behaviors which tend to keep conflict to a minimum and are task-focused, and, Destructive Responses, behaviors which tend to escalate or prolong conflict and tend to be person-focused. 

The CDP also allows for collecting developmental anecdotal feedback for the individual measuring which behaviors most likely lead to conflict with others.  The survey debriefing and follow on coaching helps the manager to make choices and select responses that better promote their conflict competence while managing their conflict dynamics.

In addition to measuring an individual or team’s perspective on conflict, the CDP measures Organizational Perspective on conflict and specific items that can have negative impact on careers within the particular organization.  This world class tool enables world class coaching in an important and potentially derailing area for individuals or teams striving for greater effectiveness and extraordinary performance.

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