Conflict Coaching Fundamentals Working With Conflict Stories

We naturally create stories to help us make meaning of our world, but in conflict situations the kinds of stories we typically tell ourselves can actually make it harder for us to manage and resolve the conflict constructively. This book provides an accessible framework for understanding why people tell their conflict stories the way they do, and how to help them move away from conflict stories that prevent them from understanding and responding to conflict in an effective way.

Presented using highly engaging and accessible cases, the book is designed to help people working with others in conflict to fully support them by understanding which areas of the conflict story to focus their attention on, and using practical techniques to support people to rewrite their story into a more constructive one to better manage the situation. The book also provides practical strategies to help people who are themselves in a conflict scenario to rewrite and enact a version of their conflict story that helps them to more constructively manage, and often resolve, their situation. A conflict management coaching system is introduced that is designed to address the particular problems created by dysfunctional conflict stories.

This is a book specifically for those who work with people in conflict (mediators, conflict coaches, managers, lawyers, HR staff, teachers) and also for anyone who wishes to better understand their own experience of conflict.

Introduction PART I: Conflict Stories 1. Conflict stories, narratives and genre 2. Melodrama 3. The melodramatic conflict narrative 4. Melodramatic victims 5. Melodramatic villains 6. Why is the melodramatic conflict narrative problematic? 7. Tragedy – the alternative conflict story 8. The shift from melodrama to tragedy PART II: Conflict Coaching to Support Story Development 9. Coaching to facilitate the shift 10. Simple to complex 11. Certain to uncertain 12. Passive to active 13. Dependence to agency 14. Past to future 15. Suffering to learning 16. The REAL Conflict Coaching SystemTM

Samantha Hardy PhD has over 25 years’ international experience practicing and teaching conflict management. She is the lead trainer at CCIAcademy.com and the founder of the REAL Conflict Coaching System.™ She provides conflict and leadership coaching and training face-to-face and online. In 2021, Samantha was presented with the Australian Resolution Institute Award for Service to Dispute Resolution for her outstanding contribution/practice in dispute resolution.