We recorded this episode before this week's political assassination, but as I listen to the recording before posting it, that's what I think about. If we reduce a human being to just their politics, or to a single trait, or to one note of their personality, we lose more than we can possibly 'win' (whatever winning might even mean). So, can you disagree, or have a conflict with someone and not have it degenerate into a fight? We discuss how.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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You can practice conflict competence almost anywhere, using every interaction, even characters' dialogue in cartoons. Using two cartoons as examples, we analyze the scripts for the opportunities to understand each other that the characters missed. (Please accept that we changed the character names).

show notes:
Cartoon #1, Between Friends, by Sandra Bell-Lundy
Parent: Wear your boots. It’s snowing.
Child: I’m not wearing boots. It’s spring.
Parent: But it’s snowing.
Child: But it’s spring.
Parent: But it’s snowing.
Child: But it’s spring.
Parent: What do I have to do to make them understand?
Child: What do I have to do to make them understand?



Cartoon #2, For Better or Worse, by Lynn Johnson

Deborah: I see your sister is going away to university
Tyson: She’s not too excited about it though. She doesn’t want to leave her friends.
Deborah: Yeah, long distance relationships don’t work out too well.
Tyson: Deborah, you know I’d go to school here if I could, but I can’t.
Deborah: What makes you think I was talking about us? You didn’t hear what I said.
Tyson: I heard what you didn’t say.

Send us a text. We love hearing from you.

Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

Please subscribe to our podcast, like it, share it, leave comments (we love comments), ask questions and suggest topics you'd like to hear. Thank you for listening.

Some conflicts expand beyond their origin story, so you lose track of who started the conflict, and what your original conflict conflict goals were. That's conflict creep, where conflict exceeds the simpler scope and more limited objectives you had when the conflict started. After a conflict creeps, parties forget about solving the problem, and just want to win. So, how do you stop conflict creep? Using John Paul Lederach's six stages of conflict escalation, we look at how you can recognize the stages, and stop conflict creep.

show notes:
Lederach, J. P. (1999). The Journey Toward Reconciliation. Waterloo, ON, Herald Press.
conflict escalates through six changes.
1, people place blame instead of accepting responsibility.
2, everything that’s wrong replaces the simpler issue that began the conflict.
3, language becomes accusatory, generalized and defensive.
4, people seek allies, and categorize others as friends or enemies.
5, people believe they're justified to react to the latest insult and aggressions.
6, no middle ground remains, and people stop communicating.

Send us a text. We love hearing from you.

Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

Please subscribe to our podcast, like it, share it, leave comments (we love comments), ask questions and suggest topics you'd like to hear. Thank you for listening.