Understanding The Roots Of Conflict

Conflict Communications at Work | What we teach

We teach you about the primitive conflict and survival strategies of our caveman ancestors. These primal drives and impulses still underlie conflict today, whether at work, in relationships, with your children, at school or with complete strangers.

No matter what the situation, the underlying motivations for conflict are the same! Humans have primitive and fundamental drives we are 'designed' follow and strive for.  These are powerful species survival tools that subconsciously guide yours and everyone else's behavior. 

These  unconscious drives and goals are what we are really fighting over. These behaviors go deeper than your feelings, thoughts and what you want to do. We revert to them under emotion and stress.  It's part of being human.

Primal motivations of conflict are very consistent. What changes are the tactics and how we manifest them. That is very much you, your history, your socio-economic level and culture. As it is with the person you are arguing with.

ConCom goes deeper into the subject than conflict management, resolution, deescalation, teambuilding, verbal judo, counseling or other specialized fields. At the same time, you don't need a Ph.D to start using Conflict Communications in your everyday life. That's because you're doing it already.

We teach you about the social/emotional drives and impulses that not only create conflict, but guide it. Humans follow these drives and 'scripts' without conscious control or awareness of what exactly we are doing -- even as we are doing them. But, once they are pointed out, you'll immediately recognize them as you've seen -- and done -- them all your life.

Then we teach you how to take control of these primitive behaviors. First within yourself, then with others. This allows you to avoid unnecessary conflict. You do so by not unconsciously reacting to the fight-provoking 'signals' being thrown at you. We then teach you how not to unconsciously toss those same signals back.

If conflict does still occur, we show you how to guide it back to the best and most effective result. If all else fails, we help you articulate the build up, escalation and why your response was appropriate given the circumstances -- an articulatable process defensible in court.

Conflict Communications in the workplace
Nobody wants to pay for the same training twice.

Yet, it seems no matter how often you send personnel to conflict resolution, de-escalation, problem solving and team building seminars, the same problems continue to crop up. Training that sounds great in the classroom, repeatedly falls apart in day to day application.

The problem is not with the training. In fact, what is in those programs is --technically -- good, solid, usable information. The problem is with what's missing.

Conflict Communications gives you the foundation to make this other training work outside the classroom. Our area of specialization is showing you how to remain calm and in control when someone is angry, threatening and within arm's reach.

It is difficult to put a simple label on Conflict Communications.

Is it a conflict management program? Is it conflict resolution training? Does it teach teambuilding? Is it a de-escalation program? Is it about how to remain professional when facing aggression? Is it a violence management system? Is it designed for police, law enforcement, business, social services, health care professionals, teachers or families?

Yes to all. And no, not specifically.

Each of those topics are individual pillars supporting your organization's overarching goals and helping to prevent conflict. What they are not is a fundamental understanding of the nature, motivations and unconscious mechanisms of conflict -- and, yes, even physical violence. The lack of this foundation is why other training fails in application.

What does Conflict Communications teach?
Before you can de-escalate someone else, you must de-escalate yourself first -- we show you how.

That's what makes Conflict Communication training unique. We do what no one else does. We explain in simple, understandable and easy to remember terms

• How primitive, socio-emotional reactions both cause and guide conflict.
   
• How these can take control of  your behaviors faster than you can 'think.'
   
• How they apply to all conflict -- including physical violence.
   
• How primitive parts of your brain hijack the issue away from solving the problem and turn it into a contest over a 'monkey brain agenda' (status, dominance, group dynamics, etc.) When this occurs, the original problem is never solved.
   
• How, if the monkey brain agenda is not addressed, there will be future conflict between parties; whether it's the exact same fight over and over again or another disagreement in an ongoing series of arguments.
   
• How to keep yourself from falling into these unconscious behaviors when trying to resolve a problem.
   
• How to bring someone else out of this emotional, irrational state and focus on solving the problem.
   
• We teach you how to de-escalate yourself first and how not to accidentally trigger someone's 'monkey brain' when trying to resolve a conflict.

We're not asking you to pay for the same training twice. But there is a big gap between the classroom and application. If you or your staff are having trouble applying previous training or policy, we can help. If your staff is good at dealing with conflict, we'll make them better. We'll also help your staff indemnify your organization against suits arising from conflict and even use of force incidents.

Taking this out of just the professional, you can apply Conflict Communication training to personal aspects of your life. It's that powerful of a tool.