Conflict Competence

Edmondson, A. C., & Smith, D. M. (2006). Too hot to handle? How to manage relationship conflict. California management review, 49(1), 6-31.

Maxfield, D., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., Patterson, K., & Switzler, A. (2005). Silence kills: The seven crucial conversations for healthcare. Provo, UT: VitalSmarts.

Waite, R. & N.S. McKinney. (2015). Enhancing Conflict Competency. ABNF Journal, 25(4),123-128.

Hosts respond to questions from the Coaching for Leaders community on how to handle difficult conversations and more.

Learn how to achieve shared goals while remaining true to yourself, even when the stakes are high. This lecture, discussion guide, and practice video package is made available through leanin.org.

Most people instinctively avoid conflict, but as Margaret Heffernan shows us, good disagreement is central to progress. She illustrates (sometimes counterintuitively) how the best partners aren’t echo chambers — and how great research teams, relationships and businesses allow people to deeply disagree.

William Ury, author of "Getting to Yes," offers an elegant, simple (but not easy) way to create agreement in even the most difficult situations — from family conflict to, perhaps, the Middle East.

Most of us will do anything to avoid being wrong. But what if we're wrong about that? "Wrongologist" Kathryn Schulz makes a compelling case for not just admitting but embracing our fallibility.

Every doctor makes mistakes. But, says physician Brian Goldman, medicine's culture of denial (and shame) keeps doctors from ever talking about those mistakes, or using them to learn and improve. Telling stories from his own long practice, he calls on doctors to start talking about being wrong.

We can’t control if we’ll die, but we can “occupy death,” in the words of Peter Saul, an emergency doctor. He asks us to think about the end of our lives—and to question against the modern model of slow, intubated death in hospital. Two big questions can you help start this tough conversation.