Craig Runde and

Dr. Debra Dupree

 Connect before you correct…interject!
 You have 6 minutes to connect in a group of
THREE.
 Exchange THREE things about each person in 2
minutes per person
When it comes. to managing conflict with your clients,
what are you good at and what are you not so good at?
What is your biggest challenge when clients become
emotionally triggered?
What is YOUR goal, or one takeaway, for attending this
program today?

ACTIVITY
Relationships At Work - Wakeland
Housing Corporation October 2012 2
 Individual Conflict Competence
- the ability to use cognitive, emotional, and
behavioral skills that enhance the productive
outcomes of conflict while reducing the
likelihood of escalation or harm

 Organizational Conflict Competence

– creating cultures and systems that support
use of individual conflict competence
• Understanding conflict
dynamics

• Enhancing self-awareness

• Regulating emotions

• Reflecting on conflict

• Improving behavioral
responses to conflict
 Understanding how you
respond to workplace
conflict

 Recognizing what
triggers conflict for you

 Developing an action plan for personal

improvement
 Emotional Self-Regulation

◦ Recognition of somatic responses to conflict

◦ Developing a personal plan of regulating emotion

during conflict – different approaches

◦ Creating a plan for slowing down when emotions

run too high
 Help people understand physical responses
to conflict emotions

 Standing exercise

 Breathing exercise
 Why people behave the way they do

Understanding DIFFICULT CLIENTS

10
 Anger Fear

Basic
Emotions

Gladness Shame
1. Guilt
2. Taking life too
seriously
3. Feeling pressured
4. Worrying
5. Lack of confidence
6. Not saying “no”
7. Letting people get
you down
Controlling Bias / Fear Body
emotions Attitude language
 Self
Awareness

Social
Awareness

Self-
Management

Relationship
Management
 Rigid &  Difficulty
Uncompromising empathizing with
 Difficulty others
accepting loss  Preoccupied with
blaming others
 Difficulty healing
 Avoids
from loss responsibility
 Emotions for the problem or
dominate thinking the solution
 Inability to reflect  Depends on others
on own behavior to solve problems

OC Mediation Conference 2012 March '12

o Fear of being wrong…being
ignored

o Fear of losing…being inferior

o Fear of not being liked…being

abandoned

o Fear of emotional discomfort…

being dominated

OC Mediation Conference 2012 March '12

 HIGH CONFLICT FEATURES
• Lack of self-awareness
 Why they are the way they are
 How they contribute to their own problems
 Or, how to change
 Aaron Beck (1990), Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders

• Lack of adaptation
 Behavior becomes rigidly patterned
 Social impairment evolves
 Rigid behavior evokes responses from others
that “validate” their inflexible beliefs
 Efrain Bleiberg (2001), Treating Personality Disorders in Children &
Adolescents

OC Mediation Conference 2012 March '12

 How do we get
to this?

Listen for the sounds of the BEACH

Relationships At Work, Inc.
18
 Develop at least one technique for addressing
how to regulate emotions in conflict situations in
the moment

◦ Attentional Deployment
◦ Reappraisal

 Build resilience to negative emotions by

cultivating positivity

 Avoid emotional hangovers…it takes 5 positives

to counteract 1 negative
 Developing a plan before conflict occurs
again that will help you delay responses until
emotional balance is regained
◦ Coffee break
◦ Restroom break
◦ Straight forward request
◦ Plan for the conversation…deliver with structure

 Don’t wait until you are already in a heated

conflict – too hard at that point
 Engage Constructively by Increasing Use of
Conflictive Responses

◦ Understand current constructive behaviors

tendencies

◦ Generally emphasize development of: reaching out,

listening for understanding, perspective taking,
expressing thoughts and feelings, and creating and
vetting solutions
 Reaching Out

 Listening for Understanding and Perspective

Taking

 Expressing Thoughts and Feelings

 Creating and Vetting Solutions

1) Invite the Other 3) Summarize What Is
into a Conversation Important Or Of Value
about having a To Those Involved And
Conversation later. To The Organization
Address The Facts First

4) Reaching
2) Explore The Impact
Agreement on How Do
/ Emotion the situation
We Move Forward?
has on each of you

A Conversation About a Conversation

 What will you commit to doing differently?

 What will you continue to do because it’s

effective?

 What will you stop doing because it doesn’t

work or get you where you want to go?
 Dr. Debra Dupree is President and Founder of
Relationships-at-Work, Inc. She provides business
mediation and leadership development services to
create solutions for the workplace that strengthen
performance and increase profitability by reducing
conflict. Her focus includes emotional intelligence,
leadership development, presentation and
persuasion strategies, and performance
management. Debra’s clients range from
technology to finance, from law to military, and
from education to utilities. She works with the up
and coming, management-challenged, motivated to
achieve, and the CEO desiring to improve influence
and profitability. Debra’s 2014 Doctoral
Dissertation addressed the Psychology of Good
Bosses versus Bad Bosses, looking at the
neuroscience of behavior and leadership styles. Her
first book, in progress, addresses the physiological
aspects of emotional behavior behind every
decision-making process. Her articles are featured
on Innovative Thought and frequently interviewed
on programs through ESPN and Radio Reflections.
She is currently affiliated with Brandman University
and Ryokan College as an Adjunct Professor and
previously taught at National University and
California Western School of Law in Dispute
Resolution (Negotiation, Mediation & Arbitration).
Dr. Debra Dupree
 Craig E. Runde is Director of the Center for
Conflict Dynamics. He oversees product
development and training programs, and
alliances. Craig is the coauthor of Building
Conflict Competent Teams (Jossey-Bass,
2008), Developing Your Conflict
Competence (Jossey-Bass, 2010), and Becoming
a Conflict Competent Leader - Second
Edition (Jossey-Bass,2012). He is a frequent
speaker and commentator on workplace conflict
issues and a member of the editorial board of
the Journal of Conflict Management. Before
joining Eckerd College, he was the director of
the International Center for Computer Enhanced
Learning at Wake Forest University. Craig
received his B.A. from Harvard University, M.L.L.
from the University of Denver, and J.D. from
Duke University. He has practiced law in
Colorado and has taught at the University of
Minnesota Law School and Wake Forest
University.
Craig Runde