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ADRHub Virtual Book Club – Conflict Management Coaching: The CINERGY Model

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Cinnie Noble

I am very excited to tell you that Jeff Thompson  one of the co- creators of ADRHub.com Werner Institute –  has kindly invited me to co-lead a virtual book club on my book:  Conflict Management Coaching: The CINERGY™ Model.  Below is the announcement recently posted on the ADRHub. It includes a link about where to purchase the book and there is a link to the ADR Book Club.

The ‘meetings’ will take the form of on-line discussions over the month of June. My co-moderator for the book club is Tammy Lenski who is a dear colleague and incredible contributor to the ADR field. One or both of us will pose some questions and moderate the discussion beginning June 3.

I really hope you will join ADRHub if you haven’t already (free) and participate in the discussions about my book during the month of June.  If you have a chance to read the Introduction and Chapter 1 for the first week, please do. Each week we’ll focus on 2 chapters, but if you have other comments you wish to make or questions you want to ask about the book and its concepts outside the two chapters of the week, please feel free to post those.  Or if you prefer to ‘listen’ in, that will be fine too.

By the way, the book will be in digital format shortly. If you wish notice of when that occurs, please contact me directly at info@nullcinergycoaching.com and just put the words – Digital format – in the Subject line.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Oh, I am sorry you will have to bring your own refreshments to the meetings!

Warm regards, Cinnie

ANNOUNCEMENT:

We are happy to announce the popular ADRHub book club will be back June 1st.  This time the book will be Conflict Management Coaching: The CINERGY™ Model. The author Cinnie Noble will be the co-moderator, providing members with the unique opportunity to not only engage other professionals but also the author!

An added benefit to purchasing her book through Amazon.com and being part of the club is that Cinnie donates a portion of the proceeds to Mediators Beyond Borders.

About the book: Conflict Management Coaching: The CINERGY™ Model is a comprehensive and dynamic book about coaching people on a one-on-one basis to improve their skills for managing and engaging in their interpersonal disputes. The text not only describes the research-based coaching model that uniquely combines conflict management, coaching and neuroscience principles. It also shares many forms and ideas that support a coaching practice.

Conflict Management Coaching is aimed at coaches, mediators and other conflict management practitioners, HR professionals, leaders, lawyers, psychologists, social workers and others who work with people in conflict.

Read more about the book and where to purchase it here.

Visit ADR Book Club.

Posted in Conflict Management Coaching | Leave a comment

Thinking about whether to raise the issue

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Cinnie Noble

Not all of us know when, whether or how to be proactive and raise a conflictual issue with a person with whom we have an inner conflict. It’s a tough call at times and it takes some self-reflection to consider the pros and cons of doing so. There may in fact be occasions when we determine that it isn’t appropriate to raise a matter. On the other hand, if we are reluctant because we tend to avoid conflict it is important to consider that and what our objectives are for the situation, the relationship and ourselves. It could be that there will be a detrimental outcome by not facing ourselves and the other person. Under these circumstances it often happens that the inner conflict will continue to bother us and effect the relationship.

Weighing the risks and opportunities of our choices about whether to raise a conflict issue helps to enlighten our motivation and the outcomes we want. To answer the questions about this week’s blog, please consider a matter that you are not sure about raising:

  • What is your ambivalence about raising the issue?
  • What does your ambivalence say about what is important to you about the issues? About the relationship?
  • What fears may you have?
  • What else are you experiencing about this situation?
  • How important is the relationship on a scale of 1-5, 5 being ‘extremely important’? How important are the issues in dispute on the same scale?
  • If you don’t raise the issues, what then?
  • What is the best outcome if you do?
  • In what ways do the opportunities outweigh the risks of raising the issue – or vice versa?
  • What best outcome for you may be the best outcome for the other person too?
  • How do your answers to the above questions have an impact on how you are going to proceed?

What other ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) may you add?

Posted in Facing Conflict, Fears | 4 Comments

True or not so true conflict story-telling

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Cinnie Noble

When we have had a dispute with another person, it is sometimes the case that the facts about what happened become distorted. This depends for instance, on how hurt and offended we feel, our relationship with the other person, our mood that day including extraneous matters that affect us and a host of other influences. Such factors have an impact on the ‘spin’ we convey to others on what transpired such as what we said and what the other person said. How we wished we had responded gets mixed with how we did respond. If we have trouble letting go or mending the situation, our emotional reactions often grow and can embellish or exaggerate our perspective on the situation, the other person and ourselves. We may also tend to play down our own contribution, as we hear ourselves speak our truths and our untruths.

What we do in response to conflict and how we do it are our own personal ways of managing each specific dispute with the specific person. Though our perceptions are our realities, we may be able to step back and gain different viewpoints that open up the possibilities for us and our relationships. Reflecting back in objective ways help to shift our approach. That is, one way of developing conflict mastery is to think carefully about the truths of what occurred and how acknowledging different realities changes our way forward.

Consider a dispute that has already occurred and which you realize you were not totally truthful about it, as you answer this week’s ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions):

  • What happened from your perspective in that dispute? (Describe the details as you recall them – what you said/did and what the other person said/did.)
  • In what ways would the other person’s version differ from yours?
  • What is not exactly true about your description?
  • What is going on for you about that/those things?
  • What are some other truths that you may be reluctant to express?
  • What do you suppose led you to distort the real truths?
  • What feelings are you not expressing about what occurred?
  • What do those feelings reflect about your true self in this conflict situation?
  • What do you wish you had said or done in that situation?
  • What truths do you know now that were not clear when you first started to answer this set of questions?

What other ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) may you add to this list?

Posted in Conflict Perceptions, Truth in Conflict | 3 Comments

Regrets After Conflict

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Cinnie Noble

Having regrets about what happened in a conflict feels lousy. Our regrets are often remorse for things we wished we had said or done differently or not at all. Such ruminations generally trigger off a range of reactions in us such as our self-limiting beliefs, self-blame, insecurities and vulnerabilities. Our fears and “if only I had” thinking are other examples of how we handle regrets after our disputes are ostensibly over. Negative feelings that emerge about ourselves and the other person due to remorse add further layers to the initial conflict. The fact is we say and do things when in conflict that do not reflect who and how we want to be in the situation or the relationship. It may even seem as though we step out of ourselves and react in ways that are uncharacteristic of how we usually interact.

There are many consequences of regretting. Agonizing about what we said or did, self-criticizing and worrying are all energy draining. These and the related emotions can cause ongoing internal tension for us and external tension for the other person and those around us. In the end, regretting what we said or did – or didn’t say or do –doesn’t serve us well unless we learn from the experience and figure out how to apply that knowledge the next time.

For this week’s blog, it will help to bring to mind a conflict situation about which you continue to hold regrets:

  • What are your specific regrets about that situation?
  • What is the impact on you of those regrets?
  • What is the impact on the other person and the relationship?
  • What are other downsides of having regrets?
  • In what ways if any, may you be gaining from your regrets?
  • If you were to manage the situation differently, what would you have done or said?
  • What is the nature of your self-criticism or self-limiting beliefs about such situations?
  • What themes are there about your regrets in this situation as compared to other incidents about which you have also held regrets?
  • What options do you have about ways to manage situations that will not result in having regrets?
  • What is the lesson to be learned about regrets?

What other ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) may you add here?

Posted in Post-Conflict, Regrets, Resilience | Leave a comment

Forgetting About “It”

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Cinnie Noble

Intertwined with the notion of resilience and moving past the feelings and thoughts that emerge from our disputes is whether we can actually forget about what occurred. Or, do we store the emotional impact and the impressions we make about the other person and ourselves? It has been suggested in a previous blog that unless we unpack what happened for us in our interpersonal disputes we will carry the luggage around with us. This week the ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) blog is more on this topic.

The starting point is that it is unlikely that we totally forget the interactions that offend us or in which we offend others. Some conflicts unfortunately leave indelible marks that make it difficult to forget about the pain of the interaction. Others of course, do not leave marks as deep. In either case, what we do hold onto in our hearts and minds is significant and the feelings and thoughts that remain commonly show up again in situations with the same person or with others when similar dynamics arise. It is also common that when we agonize about what remains unresolved, we misplace or displace our emotions on bystanders or issues that are not relevant. In any case, it helps us to focus on what we remember as an opportunity to develop our conflict mastery about how to lighten the load about the things we don’t forget.

For answering today’s ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions), please consider an interpersonal dispute which you are not forgetting:

  • What specifically are you not forgetting about that specific dispute?
  • What is particularly significant for you about that thing (those things)?
  • What is the impact on you about not forgetting that/those?
  • What impact do you think this (not forgetting) has on the other person?
  • What are you gaining from not forgetting? Losing?
  • If you think or feel it’s not necessary to forget or you prefer not to or the memory remains for other reasons, what are you holding onto mostly about this matter and for what reason(s)?
  • What would forgetting that thing (those things) be like for you?
  • What impact would forgetting have on the other person?
  • In what ways does the memory you have of this situation reflect something you are not forgetting about a previous situation (or situations) too?
  • What insights do these sets of questions provide?

What other ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) may you add here?

Posted in Post-Conflict, Resilience | 2 Comments