*Communication and Conflict Management Course - Spring/Summer 2024

Communication, or lack thereof, is usually at the center of conflict within the workplace.  Awareness of styles and high-level skills around communication and conflict management help develop a work culture where engagement and creative and innovative thought are fostered and become commonplace.  Strong communication skills give us the necessary tools to follow a path of healthy communication instead of defaulting to a communication pattern in which we totally avoid difficult, yet necessary, conversations or dive right in and handle them badly.  This course provides an alternative.

By utilizing structured conversations to help increase participants’ awareness of their communication and conflict resolution styles as well as teaching skills to enhance the ability to communicate effectively the course will cover the following topics:

• Navigating and mastering difficult and critical conversations
• Conflict resolution styles
• Communication styles
• Seven levels of listening
• Listening barriers
• Empowering questions
• Disempowering questions

The information is geared for all staff who are seeking to increase and improve their interactions with peers, volunteers, donors, and other organizational stakeholders. All materials are provided.

Sessions – A total of seven course sessions are held once monthly over seven months.  The first and seventh sessions are 60 minutes in length and sessions two through six are 90 minutes each.

The cohort will be created with no more than 8 people per group.  Groups will form and meet beginning late Spring/early Summer 2024.  Meeting day and time will be based on the information provided by participant survey results.  Each session, excluding the first and last (60 minutes each), will last 1.5 hours.