Barbara Mitchell - The Conflict Resolution Phrase Book: 2,000+ Phrases For Any HR Professional, Manager, Business Owner, or Anyone Who Has to Deal with Difficult Workplace Situations

Hold your tongue, count to ten, be the bigger person are all band-aids when it comes to resolving conflict. The Conflict Resolution Phrase Book is a comprehensive guide to handling conflict in the best way for short-term and long-term effectiveness. It starts with the inception of the problem, all the nuances leading up to the crisis and how to turn conflict into a positive experience for all. If you truly want to maximize your effectiveness as a leader, this book is essential for your library.

Marna Hayden, chief game officer, Hayden Resources, Inc.

Barbara and Cornelia take the fear out of managing conflict and difficult conversations. This is a wonderful toolbox of practical phrases, insights, and applications that will guide you through any conflict. As a mediator, I would love this to be required reading for all my clients. This book is a much-needed companion for anyone who manages conflict.

Adam Bowman, M.A., PHR

The Conflict Resolution Phrase Book is a natural complement to The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook because it helps us to focus on one of the most important aspect of conflict management...how to effectively use language. We can sometimes get sloppy with our communication during stressful situations and this will only exacerbate the conflict. Cornelia and Barbara provide a ready resource on how to talk differently to get different results when managing conflict. It is a must have for the manager or HR professional who know that words matter in todays workplace!

Marsha Hughes-Rease, MSOD, PCC, CAPT/NC/USN/Ret.,
Quo Vadis Coaching and Consulting, LLC

2,000+ Phrases for Any HR Professional, Manager, Business Owner, or Anyone Who Has to Deal With Difficult Workplace Situations

Barbara Mitchell and Cornelia Gamlem

Copyright 2017 by Barbara Mitchell and Cornelia Gamlem

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

THE CONFLICT RESOLUTION PHRASE BOOK

Edited by Jodie Brandon

Typeset by Diana Ghazzawi
Original cover design by Rob Johnson/toprotype
Printed in the U.S.A.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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This book is dedicated to everyone who is conflict averse. We hope this will help you to find the right words and gain the confidence to speak up!

Writing a book is not an event; its a journey. This journey began long before Career Press approached us with the idea. Throughout our respective careers, weve each have encountered people who and situations that provided inspirations for the phrases found in this book.

On this journey, there are people to whom we are especially grateful. Susan Devereaux is at the top of the list. You forged a path that helped us to develop great manuscripts. Our colleague Sharon Armstrong deserves a special mention for opening the door that allowed us to become published authors. Thank you, Sharon, for continuing to be our biggest supporter. Thanks to our great colleagues from our business book club: Alice Waagen, Judy Perault, Linda Keller, Lynn Lorenz, Marsha Hughes-Rease, Mary Tack, Mary Lou Byrne, Mary Walter Arthur, and Sarah Bowman Rajtik. You continue to support us and we value your insights and great stories. Maybe someday one of our books will make the reading list!

We also want to acknowledge our wonderful and supportive families, who encourage us, listen to us complain about deadlines, and serve as our sounding boards. We appreciate that you are always there for us.

A special thanks goes to Marilyn Allen, our literary agent, for responding to our endless questions and ideas. Youre a wonderful coach and advocate who gives us great advice and the encouragement to want to keep writing. And to the staff at Career Press for continuing to present us with ideas and believe in us, we appreciate all your support.

Has this ever happened to you? You and a colleague see a work issue totally differently. You know you may only have one opportunity to share your opinion or solution, and when you try to say it, the words just come out wrongso you dont say it at all. The result? Problems build up and workplace conflicts arise. Your relationship with the colleague suffers, you feel ineffective, and you both are less productive.

Sometimes you just need a prompt to help formulate your thoughts and help the words come out right. Although you cant plan for every conversation or confrontation, there are many times you initiate or anticipate a difficult conversation and thats where The Conflict Resolution Phrase Book can help you be prepared for whatever comes at you because preparation builds confidence.

None of us wants to go into a potentially difficult situation blind and be fumbling for words. Instead of shying away from such a conversation, you can use The Conflict Resolution Phrase Book to prepare for a difficult conversation or situation. Becoming familiar with phrases can spark a useful thought or give you the words you need to feel more confident and prepared.

Of course, you need to find your own wordswords with which youre comfortable and feel right to youand be in command of those words. The phrases in this book give you suggestions of positive things to say when youre initiating or responding to a difficult conversation. They will help you craft language to start a conversation. Drawing on these examples, youll discover the right words for you to positively influence the situation or resolve a conflict. The right words empower you to stand up to conflict rather than run from it. The more you practice confronting and even embracing conflict, the stronger that habit will become and the less likely youll be to flee from a difficult situation.

We firmly believe that resolving conflict in our virtual world has become increasingly difficult. Thats why we highly recommend that, when you find yourself in a conflict situation, you do your best to resolve it face to face. If thats impossible, use Skype or Facetime so that you can at least see the person youre working with. Being able to observe body language and facial expressions as well as hearing tone of voice are critical to your ability to understand where the other person is coming from and will help you resolve the conflict quicker. Please, under no circumstances attempt to resolve a conflict via email! It just cant be done, so dont even try.

This book is designed to be a resource for you when you need it. We dont anticipate youll carry it with you into a difficult conversation but our hope is that, before you get pulled into a conflict, youve studied the phrases and questions in this book and maybe even practiced a few out loud to the point where they come to you naturally.