The Conflict Paradox: Seven Dilemmas at the Core of Disputes

by Bernard Mayer

Find the roadmap to the heart of the conflict

The Conflict Paradox is a guide to taking conflict to a more productive place. Written by one of the founders of the professional conflict management field and co-published with the American Bar Association, this book outlines seven major dilemmas that conflict practitioners face every day. Readers will find expert guidance toward getting to the heart of the conflict and will be  challenged to adopt a new way to think about the choices disputants face,.  They will also be offered practical tools and techniques for more successful intervention. Using stories, experiences, and reflective exercises to bring these concepts to life, the author provides actionable advice for overcoming roadblocks to effective conflict work.

Disputants and interveners alike are often stymied by what appear to be unacceptable alternatives,. The Conflict Paradox offers a new way of understanding and working with these so that they become not obstacles but opportunities for helping people move through conflict successfully..

Examine the contradictions at the center of almost all conflicts Learn how to bring competition and cooperation, avoidance and engagement,  optimism and realism together to make for more power conflict intervention Deal effectively with the tensions between emotions, and logic, principles and compromise, neutrality and advocacy, community and autonomy    Discover the tools and techniques that make conflicts less of a hurdle to overcome and more of an opportunity to pursue Conflict is everywhere, and conflict intervention skills are valuable far beyond the professional and legal realms. With insight and creativity, solutions are almost always possible. For conflict interveners and disputants looking for an effective and creative approach to understanding and working with conflict , The Conflict Paradox  provides a powerful and important roadmap for conflict intervention.

Genres: Leadership

315 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 5, 2015

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Bernard Mayer, PhD, is an internationally recognized leader in the field of conflict intervention. He is Professor of Dispute Resolution at The Werner Institute at Creighton University and was a founding partner of CDR Associates, an internationally acclaimed conflict intervention and training firm. His background spans family mediation, public and private sector consultation, environmental decision making, organizational conflict, and international mediation. His previous books include Beyond Neutrality, Staying with Conflict, and The Dynamics of Conflict.

Reviews

[Marisa Duarte]

I picked up this book toward strengthening workplace skills toward understanding conflict as a creative tension. Mayer explains how terms like 'balance', 'neutrality,' and 'win/win' are out of date in particular given updated insights on the psychological development of the self as existing in a socially productive location between autonomy and community. This framing helps mediators and those in conflict to discern how their identity, background, and major life changes may shape dynamics of what seem like intractable obstacles. It also helps mediators to understand their role in helping disputants achieve clarity through acknowledging and understanding complexity. Mayer acknowledges the reflexivity needed to be an effective mediator while highlighting how the mediator's capacity to embrace complexity and avoid oversimplification (zero-sum games) is also what gives the mediator the ability to surface the paradoxical in many conflicts. Though it may seem counterintuitive, in many conflicts, understanding what is paradoxical is actually what is needed to alleviate high-stakes conflict toward more productive disagreement and dispute resolution. For example, if one disputant claims they are never listened to, which leads to longer sessions, perhaps the narrative portion of the fact-finding phase can be productively deepened by listening more carefully to that disputant. Such understanding shifts the nature of the conflict, which can be emotional, intellectual, social, and so forth--multidimensional--allowing for disputants to imagine or perceive potential directions they previously felt too trapped to discern. While written in an easy-to-read style for workplace professionals, I recommend taking time with each chapter and the frameworks Mayer presents, as they are paradigmatic in many cases, a synthesis of sociology, psychology, communication and rhetoric, and political science.

[Sharon Campbell]

As always Mayer charts a new and deeper path into the heart of conflict work.