Conflict Management for Managers: Resolving Workplace, Client, and Policy Disputes

Conflict Management for Managers: Resolving Workplace, Client, and Policy Disputes provides current and future organizational leaders with the knowledge and skills necessary to prevent and manage every common source of conflict faced at work. Great managers and leaders understand they must communicate effectively, lead diverse teams, provide effective feedback, meet customer expectations, attend to organizational culture, and proactively manage relationships with vendors and regulators. This text provides skill-building exercises to help you lead effective meetings, build strong teams, conduct performance appraisals that motivate team members, coach employees and other managers through difficult times, and craft a positive brand image for both your organization and your own career. The text is divided into three sections: Conflict Management & Collaboration basics, including assessments designed to rate your current skills and set goals for growth; Strategies for preventing conflicts inside your work teams and organizations, including tips for giving feedback, motivating team members, and creating positive organizational cultures; and Processes and skills for enhancing relationships with external stakeholders such as customers, vendors, and regulators. Thoroughly updated, this new edition incorporates a greater number of skill-building exercises, discussion questions, and goal-setting suggestions to allow for the active transition of these skills from the printed page into your daily work life.

Table of Contents:
Introduction to the 2nd Edition Section I: Basic Conflict Management Knowledge & Skills Chapter 1: Manager Know Thyself: The skills and behaviors of great conflict managers Chapter 2: Practical Conflict Theory: Conflict’s origins, escalation and de-escalation Chapter 3: The Power of Negotiation Chapter 4: Mediation, Arbitration and other processes within the Alternative Dispute Resolution Continuum Chapter 5: Embracing Diversity, Inclusion & Intercultural Communication Skills for the 21stCentury Organization Section II: The Prevention and Resolution of Internal Organizational Conflicts Chapter 6: Building & Sustaining a Conflict Competent Organizational Culture Chapter 7: Reducing Employee Conflict: Performance Reviews, Turnover, Motivation and Working with Unions Chapter 8: Leadership: Creating Collaborative Teams and Organizations Chapter 9: Designing Conflict Prevention and Early Resolution Systems Chapter 10: Ombudsman at Work: Coaching, Training; and Shaping Organizations Section III: The Prevention and Resolution of External Organizational Conflicts Chapter 11: Principles and Systems for Superior Customer Service and Customer Recapture Chapter 12: Conflict & Collaboration between Regulators and Regulated Entities: Environmental and Public Policy Conflict Resolution: Trends and Best Practices Chapter 13: Facilitation: Meeting Management & Large Group Decision-making processes Conclusion About the Author Glossary of Terms References

About the Author :
Dr. Susan S. Raines is Professor of Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University. Dr. Raines is the Editor-in-Chief of Conflict Resolution Quarterly, the author of more than 45 peer reviewed articles and two books, and a Graduate Professor of Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University. She has mediated more than 15,000 cases inside and outside of the court system and served as a conflict management consultant to organizations across the globe. Her work focuses on ways in which organizations can reduce internal conflict (e.g. with employees) and external conflict (with customers, vendors and regulators) while maximizing mission achievement through the design of appropriate corporate cultures and systems. You can learn more about her work at https://www.rainesmediation.com/

Review :
Dr. Raines’ chapter on Intercultural Communication really changed my perspective on managing conflict in a highly diverse workplace. The chaptertaught me to look at decisions being made in the organization more objectively. Once you understand how certain countries discuss and perceive information, you can truly see their perspective more clearly and become more productive. There is always that small chance when writing a follow up to a wildly successful book that it won’t live up to the reception the first edition received. In this case, Raines took a well calculated risk and managed to far exceed the highest of expectations. This second edition stands on its own as a major contribution to the field. Raines continues to provide one of the clearest and practical presentations of conflict management methods, models, tools, frameworks and practical intervention advice. All three sections have been reworked to include new timely material as well as more information on areas of practical applications that will resonate with managers, practitioners, professors and trainers.