Course Outline

Disagreements and conflicts at the workplace are more-less a daily bread. As diverse human beings with different roles, goals and personal perspectives, we will undoubtedly have differences in opinion. To reinforce this point, in his research on intra-organizational conflict analysis, Madesi, S. (2005) found that an organization that does not experience a good share of conflicts and disagreements is static and dysfunctional. The goal however, is to resolve these differences in positive ways that respect the other person, consider multiple perspectives and possibilities, and value the legitimate needs of everyone involved. Such a process can result in solutions or decisions that are creative and innovative thereby helping organizations to learn and lead to positive change. Decision-making and problem-solving is enhanced when differences are used to generate and expand the possible avenues for action.

When instead disagreements worsen and become unmanaged conflicts, there are often negative results for an employee and employers alike. People may feel threatened – this feeling of threat can be physical but is often emotional, such as a threat to goals, status, job security, values or preferred outcome. Ineffectively managed conflicts can impact the parties in many ways, such as loss of sleep, anxiety, lowered morale and decreased job satisfaction. It can, on occasion, also take on a life of its own, drawing in other people or departments. If the conflict grows – people, departments and the institution – all pay the price of deteriorating work performance. Madesi, S. (2005) warns that if such conflicts are not professionally managed in a long span, they could affect workplace systems, structures, polices and in very extreme circumstances could lead to workplace violence.

It is important for such conflict to be addressed in productive ways. Well managed conflict can produce positive effects in working relationships and eliminate the negative effects of escalated conflict. When we solve problems, do we do so for the moment, or do we put in place systems for addressing these types of concerns in the future? In reflecting upon your answers to these questions, you may begin to understand what we mean by anticipating conflicts likely to arise in the workplace: Normal, healthy organizations will experience their share of conflicts, and workplaces experiencing a certain amount of dysfunction will experience it in greater quantities. Anticipating conflicts is useful in either situation for transforming these situations into opportunities for growth and learning. This certificate course will take you through the a-b-c-d of workplace conflict transformation and peacebuilding (building and keeping sustainable workplace peace).

How You Will Benefit

• Understand what conflict and peacebuilding means
• Distinguish between conflicts, problems, disputes, challenges and opportunities
• Understand the Framework for Building Workplace Culture of Peace
• Practice building your own Framework for Non-Violence at your Workplace
• Understand how to promote a working environment where employees feel respected, differences are resolved in ways that promote collaboration and collegial
• Understand and practice questions to ask yourself when you are in a workplace conflict
• Understand and practice coordinated guess work about what factors might be contributing to the conflict for the other person.
• Practice the four styles of communicating for peace
• Understand  Gender Differences in Communication
• Stress and Anger Management Techniques
• Practice  Neutralizing Emotions
• Practice Building Positive Energy and Goodwill
• Analyze Escalating and De-Escalating Factors in a Conflict
• Examine Root Causes of Conflicts Vs Peaceful Leadership/Management
• Peaceful Responses to Conflicts
• How to create a mutual understanding
• Giving and Receiving Feedback
• Identifying the Benefits of Choosing to Settle for Peace
• Practice Making Peaceful Decisions
• Practice Building Sustainable Peace
• Practice Building and Evaluating your Peacebuilding Action Plan

You Will Learn

• Getting in the Mood – Preamble
• Understanding Peace
• Communicating for Peace
• Workplace Power and Influence – Using them to cause conflicts or build peace
• Responses to Conflicts (Thoughts, Feelings, and Physical Responses) – How you Respond to Conflicts – How you can Change
• You will know it when you see it – Indicators of peace at Workplaces
• Concerns working with a co-worker, What if my conflict is with my supervisor?
• Dealing with confidence issues to approach the other party directly?
• Building plan A-B-C for different situations; what you can do if the conflict has already escalated?
• Dealing with angry, threatening behavior?
• Being Hard on the Problem – Not the Person
• Synthesizing Workplace Peacebuilding Tools
• Using the Asset-Based Peacebuilding Approach
• Narrowing Peacebuilding Tools to what works for your Context
• Advocating for Peace – How to organize non-violent effective advocacy campaigns
• Building a Plan of Action for Sustainable Workplace Peace
• Peacekeeping Process (Post Peacebuilding Era – Sustaining your Peace)
• Workshop Wrap-Up
• Closing Workshop Meeting
• So you think you can Dance 4 Peace – Winners take home goodies

Who Should Attend

• This seminar is open to all individuals wishing to learn how to build and keep sustainable workplace peace and development. Boards of Directors, managers, employees and trainers are the main targets for this course. It might be of special interest to employees taking on the roles of human resource management. It is imperative that most staff if not all workplace staff take this course in order to work as a team in building a culture of workplace peace.