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Executive Education

Conflict Management Strategies

Make conflict resolution part of a healthy work environment

While disagreements between people are inevitable, conflict is not inherently corrosive. It can be part of a productive work environment provided it is skillfully managed. 

In this program, you will gain key insights on workplace conflict and learn ways to manage, resolve or deescalate it. Assess your personal style and approach to conflict. Practice new skills for managing conflict on both individual and team levels. Prevent conflicts when possible, and resolve them in a fair and considerate manner when they occur. Leave with an action plan for applying your learnings to conflict situations in your workplace.  

The program focuses on the individual dynamics of conflict resolution, including conflicts between managers and workers as well as between co-workers. It does not cover legal or contractual conflicts (e.g. collective bargaining) or broader societal conflicts like aboriginal land claims. 

Front-line supervisors, team leaders and middle managers charged with responsibility for maintaining a healthy and productive workplace. Managers from any industry will benefit from attending.

  • Increase your awareness of how you respond to conflict and adapt your conflict response style to particular situations 
  • Identify behaviours and language that tend to provoke conflict 
  • Develop collaborative skills and communication habits that will help deflect and/or resolve conflicts 
  • Recognize powerful unstated conflicts and make them explicit, so they can be treated 
  • Use time-tested third-party techniques to assist others in resolving conflicts 
  • Structure a conflict management process in ways that reduce or resolve conflict 

Sources and Types of Conflict

  • Insights from brain science and psychology that help resolve conflict

Alternative Ways of Responding to Conflict

  • How do you tend to respond and how do others respond differently?
  • Benefits of alternative approaches

Managing Conflict Resolution

  • Defining positions and interests
  • Framing conflicts and developing an effective roadmap for resolution
  • Facilitating the conflict management process 

Communication Skills in Conflict Resolution

  • Obstacles to communication, shifting from confrontational to collaborative language
  • Listening, empathy and understanding; asking the right questions 

Making Conflict Outcomes Positive

  • Avoiding/deescalating emotional responses
  • Managing difficult conversations 

Special features

This program combines structured frameworks, skill development and role-playing exercises. You will develop a personal conflict profile and design an action plan for managing conflict better. You’ll also apply conflict resolution practices to your own work situation. 

Trevor Sones Headshot

Trevor Sones

Faculty

Trevor is an Adjunct faculty member at the UBC Sauder School of Business, where he teaches human and organizational behaviour, conflict resolution, leadership and communication. He has also been a Mediator with the BC Labour Relations Board for more than 14 years, helping parties negotiate solutions to large, high-profile conflicts. He is particularly skilled at handling interactions between senior leaders on politically sensitive issues involving those under their leadership.

Upcoming sessions

calendar Program dates
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notebook Format
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May 31 - Jun 1, 2023
$2195.00 + tax (5%)

In-person

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8:30am – 4:30pm in Vancouver, BC

8:30am – 4:30pm in Vancouver, BC

UBC Robson Square

Participating organizations

Success stories

  "Great content and delivery! Through this course, I feel better equipped—personally and professionally—to address conflicts."

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