Managing Conflict With Confidence Session at ASAE09
I was sort of looking forward to simply being an attendee at ASAE & The Center's Annual Meeting in Toronto this year. I had been a speaker or at least led the bloggercon session for the last four meetings. I like speaking, but it does take up my attention during the meeting (at least until I speak). But this year I wasn't on the agenda, so I could focus on learning and supporting my friends in their sessions.
Then I got an email Monday from a friend at ASAE who explained that someone who was doing a session on Managing Conflict had cancelled at the last minute, and could I fill in! So now I'm doing a session! If you're going to be at the meeting, I'll be speaking on Monday in the 11:00 to 12:15 time slot, immediately after Charlene Li's general session.
The title of the original session was "Managing Conflict With Confidence: Seven Skills You Didn't Learn on the Playground." I told ASAE that I had done some conflict sessions both at ASAE events and at other conferences and I could simply do the same one here (and they were fine with that), but I also wanted to meet the expectations of the people who show up for that session expecting seven tips, so I designed a slightly new session. My title:
Managing Conflict With Confidence: 7 Tips for Getting Unstuck
So much of resolving conflict is simply getting out of the whirlpools we get into, which are usually created from all the parties avoiding in the first place. So I've come up with seven tips for getting unstuck, which include a combination of what I'm calling "attitude" tips (more about your approach to conflict or your internal stance when in a conflict situation) and "behavior" tips (things you can do differently to get better results in conflict situations).
If you've seen me speak on conflict before, you'll get a repeat dose of some of the core concepts (ladder of inference and behavior-impact feedback), but this session has some new content as well. If I have time I'll take the group through an exercise related to feedback. Look forward to seeing everyone in Toronto!