Emotional intelligence, interpersonal skills and creative thinking when under stress and pressure can make conflict a transformative experience.

1. www.lifestage.org
Conflict resolution is a core skill
associated with emotional intelligence
and success in the networked world
Creative Thinking About
Interpersonal Conflict –
and how to grow through it

2. Objectives
1. Identify the benefits of healthy conflict to creating effective
partnerships, teams and organizations.
2. Understand the relationship between the capacity to engage in and
resolve conflict and emotional intelligence
3. Identify the mind and skill set associated with emotional intelligence
that enhances the capacity to use conflict to grow personally and
creatively.

3. Great human stories turn on conflict between
characters or conflict between the central
character and powerful forces
The questions that drive conflict:
What do I want?
What (or who) are the obstacles to getting what I want?
What actions have I taken to overcome these obstacles?
How do I engage with these obstacles?
What story am I telling about these obstacles?
How has engaging with these obstacles changed me?
What thinking, beliefs, or conventions are challenged by this
conflict?

4. Conflict Is:
Inevitable
Important
Illuminating
Want Collaboration? Accept – And Actively Manage – Conflict” Harvard Business Review March 2005
Healthy conflict
advances collaboration

5. “Clashes between
parties are the
crucibles in which
creative solutions
are developed
{ and wise trade-
offs among
competing
objectives are
made.”
Want Collaboration? Accept – And
Actively Manage – Conflict” Harvard
Business Review March 2005

6. The skills for working through
conflict are crucial to personal and
professional success
and can be learned.
 “The root cause of many-if not most-human problems lies in how
people behave when others disagree with them about high-stakes,
emotional issues. Research shows dramatic improvements in
organizational performance when people learned the skills
routinely practiced by those who have found a way to master
these high-stakes, ‘crucial’ moments.”
 Patterson, K., Greeny, J., McMillan, R., Switzler, A Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When The
Stakes are High, 2nd edition, McGraw-Hill Books, 2012

7. Healthy conflict can increase trust,
enhance mutual understanding
and reveal hidden obstacles to growth

8. Addressing conflict has the potential to reveal
hidden agendas, underlying tensions or personal
hurts– a process so emotionally-loaded it can seem
better to not do it at all.

9. When tensions build and conflict emerges in
highly-charged or cool-to-the-point-of-freezing,
encounters may not go well - reinforcing the idea
that problems cannot be worked out.

10. The effects of conversations gone bad
can be both devastating and far-
reaching. Research shows that
strong relationships, careers,
organizations and communities all
draw from the same source of power-
the ability to talk openly about high-
stakes, emotional, controversial
topics.
Patterson, K., Greeny, J., McMillan, R., Switzler, A Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking
It is what you say.
When The Stakes are High, 2nd edition, McGraw-Hill Books, 2012
And how you say it.

11. Conflict can trigger emotional
reactions that interfere with cognitive
processes and reasoned judgments

12. Emotional
Intelligence:
it’s not (only) what
you think.
It’s how you think
about what you feel

13. “a multifactorial array of
interrelated emotional,
personal and social abilities
that influence our overall
ability to actively and
effectively cope with demands
and pressures.”
Bar-On, R., & Parker, J.D.A. (2000). The handbook of emotional intelligence. San Francisco: Josey
intelligence.
Bass.
Emotional Intelligence (EI)

14. The ability to Emotional Intelligence is involved
recognize the in the capacity to perceive
meanings of emotion, assimilate emotion-
emotions and
problem-solve on
related feelings, understand the
the basis of them. information of those emotions and
manage them.” Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P., &
Caruso, D. (2000). Models of emotional intelligence. In R.J.
Steinberg (Ed.), Handbook of intelligence. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Consciously choosing to slow down emotional
reactions and focus internally allows the
creative mind to engage with the conflict.

15. “Between stimulus and response
is a pause. And in that pause lies
our freedom.” Viktor Frankl

16. Interpersonal
Skills
Emotional self-regulation
Associated
With Listening to and empathizing
Emotional with others
Intelligence and
Creative {
Self-Motivation
Conflict
Adapting to or initiating
Resolution change
Mayer, D.J. and Salovey, P. “What is Emotional
Intelligence?” In P. Salovey and A. Shiyter (Eds),
Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence:
Effective Communication
Implication for Educators, 3-31 Basic Books, New
Educators,
York 1997.

17. Working with what seem to be minor
issues creates ground rules for how to talk
about bigger ones. What appear to be
small problems in the present context can
do large-scale damage when pressures
intensify.
“When it comes to truth and justice there is no difference between the small
and great problems. Whosoever fails to take small matters seriously in a
spirit of truth cannot be trusted in greater affairs.” Albert Einstein, notes from
an address about the conflict between Israel and Egypt, written shortly
before his death, from Brian, Denis The Unexpected Einstein, John Wiley &
Sons, 2005: 156

18. “We often tell ourselves a story about others’ real
intent. These stories determine our emotional
response.”
The Cost of Conflict Avoidance” VitalSmarts Research , www.vitalsmarts.com

19. “Reality is that which, when you stop
believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
Phillip K. Dick
“Conflict is the reality of other human beings, each
with his psychological field, his own perceptions, his
individual interests. If our misperception of others
leads to conflict, the result will be either corrected
perceptions or the striking of a balance enabling
both parties to accommodate to the viewpoints that
produced the conflict.”
R.J. Rummel “Misperception, Cognitive Dissonance, Righteousness & Conflict” Conflict In Perspective:
Conflict”
Volume 3 Chapter 4

20. Emotionally Intelligent conflict
can promote the conditions for
creative growth
When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well,
you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not
doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun.
You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with
our friends or our family, we blame the other person. But if
we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like
the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does
trying to persuade using reason and argument.”
Ven Thich Nhat Hanh

21. Everyone involved in a conflict has a
narrative about it. Getting each person’s
narrative out in the open is necessary to
finding a way out of the impasse.
There are three ways of dealing with difference:
domination, compromise, and integration. By
domination only one side gets what it wants; by
compromise neither side gets what it wants; by
integration we find a way by which both sides
may get what they wish. Mary Parker Follett.

22. 
Emotionally intelligent conflict:
Works to understand others’ perceptions;

Involves showing that we understand others’ perceptions;
Requires awareness of our own emotional reactions and triggers;
Requires self-regulation of emotions;
Occurs through respectful communication that deals with behavior
and is based on mutually-beneficial agreements;
Reveals underlying tensions that block creative action;

23. .
The key to real change lies in getting people to hold one
another accountable to agreements. This is best achieved
through dialogue in which we express our stories about
what happened, listen to others’ stories and allow the
interactions to take the story in a new direction

24. Emotional Self-Regulation is the skill
that empowers us to
confront the “right” problem
“Master communicators “Before speaking up, stop
manage their emotions by and ask yourself, “What do I
examining, questioning, and really want here? What
rewriting their story before problem do I want to
speaking.” resolve?”
“The Cost of Conflict Avoidance” VitalSmarts
Research , www.vitalsmarts.com

25. Be fully present
Give mindful attention
to what the other
person is saying;
Take in what the other
person wants;
{
Take in what the other
person believes about
“Show you care about the other
you; person and his or her interests to
disarm defensiveness and open up
Try to understand why dialogue.”
the other person The Cost of Conflict Avoidance” VitalSmarts Research , www.vitalsmarts.com

believes what they do;

26. 1. Share your facts: “I read this email about our meeting.”
2. Tell your story: “I thought we had reached a consensus at the meeting
but this email seems like an attempt to bypass what we decided.”
3. Ask for others’ paths: “Help me understand what your intention is for
writing this. What do you want to accomplish with this?”
4. Talk tentatively: “In my opinion…” or “I’m wondering if….
5. Encourage testing: ““I want to hear your views no matter how much
they may differ from mine. Maybe I’m missing something and I want us
to be able to talk about anything regarding our work together.
Patterson, K., Greeny, J., McMillan, R., Switzler, A Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When The Stakes are High, 2nd edition,
McGraw-Hill Books, 2012: 136
Skills for Emotionally Intelligent Dialogue

27. To Benefit From Criticism:
Approach It Like A Scientist
 Don't respond immediately. Our first reaction will tend to be
defensive and dismissive of the criticism.
 Consider the criticism in a cool moment later. But in order to do
this it helps to:
 Spend time on a regular basis asking ourselves “how I can
improve in my relationships?” What do I need to know about
myself in order to grow?” If this is an established habit, if we
consistently engage in honest dialogue with ourselves, it is more
likely we will be able to discern the difference between an attack, a
projection, and a valid criticism from which we can learn.
 Consider: what if what s/he said is true? Ask this question as a
hypothetical and begin to explore the implications.
 “How To Manage Criticism” Alex Lickerman, MD www.creativitypost.com/psychology/how_to_manage_criticism

28. Even the most masterful initiation of dialogue can trigger an
array of defensive ploys: “lying, threatening, stonewalling,
crying, sarcasm, shouting, silence, accusing, taking offense,
passive-aggression. The best approach is to move to the
middle: disarm the ploy by addressing it. For instance, if your
counterpart has stopped responding to you, you can simply
say, "I don't know how to interpret your silence.“ Green, Sarah, “Difficult
Conversations: 9 Common Mistakes,” Harvard Business Review, www.hbr.org

29. Conflict may bring out “game-changing”
information about relationships, teams and
organizations.
Seek common ground- if no common ground is possible, the
relationship may have to change;
Set clear boundaries and express expectations that can be a “set point”
for future dialogue about the conflict;
State the desired outcome in terms of behavior, e.g. “What I want is for
us to talk in person before involving others outside our team.”
If dialogue breaks down clearly state the consequences. Be sure that the
consequences are actionable.
From: www.wittcom.com

30. Conflict can change everything.
If we do it right, it can change us
and add meaning to life.
“The meeting of two
personalities is like the
contact of two chemical
substances;
If there is any reaction, both
are transformed.”
Carl Jung

31. References and Resources
 Bar-On, RBar-On, R., & Parker, J.D.A. (2000). The handbook of emotional
intelligence. San Francisco: Josey Bass.
 .,
 Chade-Meng Tan, “How Emotional Intelligence Can Help Resolve Conflicts and
Build Tough, Kind Leaders”
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articlepdf/2991.pdf?CFID=226357812&CFTO
(Chade-Meng Tan is author of Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path To
Achieving Success, Happiness and and World Peace,
 Brian, Denis The Unexpected Einstein, John Wiley & Sons, 2005: 156
 Green, Sarah, “Difficult Conversations: 9 Common Mistakes,” Harvard Business
Review, www.hbr.org
 Lickerman, Alex, MD “How To Manage Criticism”
www.creativitypost.com/psychology/how_to_man
 Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P & Caruso, D. R. (2004) Emotional Intelligence. Theory,
findings, and implications. Psychological Inquiry, 15, 197-215.

32. Patterson, K., Greeny, J., McMillan, R., Switzler, A Crucial
Conversations: Tools For Talking When The Stakes are High, 2nd edition,
McGraw-Hill Books, 2012
R.J. Rummel “Misperception, Cognitive Dissonance, Righteousness
& Conflict” Conflict In Perspective: Volume 3 Chapter 4
The Cost of Conflict Avoidance” VitalSmarts Research ,
www.vitalsmarts.com
Want Collaboration? Accept – And Actively Manage – Conflict”
Harvard Business Review March 2005
References & Resources

33. To schedule a consultation to discuss onsite training for your
staff or group contact
Jude Treder-Wolff, LCSW, RMT, CGP
at 631-366-4265.
For more information about our programs, resources and articles check
out website and blog:
www.livesinprogressnewsletter.blogspot.com
www.lifestage.org