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HAVE A NICE CONFLICT BEFORE VALENTINE’S DAY
Conflict Prevention Week Offers Ways to Create More Success and Satisfaction in Your Relationships.

Carlsbad, CA ? January 26, 2012 ? Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Conflict Prevention Week will feature webinars and activities focused on preventing and managing conflict in your relationships. The event is sponsored by the new book Have a Nice Conflict, and will feature a number of special book offers during the week of February 6th, 2012.

Among the prominent speakers taking part in Conflict Prevention Week are globally recognized leadership expert, Michael Maccoby, internationally recognized authority on employee engagement, Beverly Kaye, and best-selling email etiquette author Mike Song. Each day will also feature a 30-minute exploration of each of the 5 Keys to Having a Nice Conflict ? skills discovered by the characters in the book.

The Five Keys to Having a Nice Conflict

Poorly managed conflict takes a toll on our time, money, health, and happiness. However, we can learn to have a nice conflict?the type of conflict that consistently leads to greater productivity, stronger relationships, and leaves everyone involved feeling good about themselves.

1. Anticipate: Anticipating conflict starts with having a better understanding of the people you’re dealing with and how their view of a situation might differ from your own. When you respect a person’s unique vantage point, you’re better equipped to steer clear of their conflict triggers.

2. Prevent: Preventing conflict is about the deliberate, appropriate use of behaviors in your relationships. If you know a person who highly values trust and fairness, you can prevent conflict with him/her by not using words or actions that threaten those values.

3. Identify: There are three basic approaches in conflict: rising to the challenge (assert), cautiously withdrawing (analyze), or wanting to keep the peace (accommodate). When you are able to spot these approaches in yourself and others, you are empowered to handle conflict situations more productively.

4. Manage: Managing conflict involves creating conditions that enable others to manage themselves out of the emotional state of conflict. But it’s also important to manage yourself out. Managing yourself in conflict can be as easy as taking some time to see things differently.

5. Resolve: To create movement toward resolution, we need to show the other person a path back to feeling good and valued. When people feel good about themselves, they are less likely to feel threatened and are free to move toward resolution.

Written in the form of a novel, Have a Nice Conflict follows one man’s fight to save his relationships and rescue his sinking career. Sales manager John Doyle would consider his career a success?he’s his company’s top salesman, and his take-charge attitude gets the job done. But when he is passed over for promotion?again?after losing two employees, who cite his abrasive style as their reason for leaving, John is forced to reassess how he approaches his relationships. With the help of Mac, an expert in the art of Relationship Awareness Theory, John learns the three stages of conflict, and how he reacts in each. Once he recognizes his own values and conflict trigger points, as well those of other people, John becomes able to better navigate terse situations, express his points in a way that resonates for other people, and even prevent conflict altogether.

Have a Nice Conflict can be found at all major bookstores and online booksellers with special offers and events available February 6 ? 10, 2012 as part of Conflict Prevention Week. Visit www.haveaniceconflict.com/preventionweek for more details.

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“WHAT’S BEHIND THAT ANNOYING BEHAVIOR?”
New Book Takes a Novel Approach to Interpersonal Conflict

Carlsbad, CA ? January 22, 2012 ? Conflict comes from many places, including our own misperceptions of someone else’s behavior. Have a Nice Conflict, a new book just released from Jossey-Bass reveals many of the dynamics that are happening between people during conflict situations.

Written in the form of a novel, Have a Nice Conflict follows one man’s fight to save his relationships and rescue his sinking career. Sales manager John Doyle would consider his career a success?he’s his company’s top salesman, and his take-charge attitude gets the job done. But when he is passed over for promotion?again?after losing two employees, who cite his abrasive style as their reason for leaving, John is forced to reassess how he approaches his relationships. With the help of Mac, an expert in the art of Relationship Awareness Theory, John learns the three stages of conflict, and how he reacts in each. John also learns that a person’s perceived weaknesses may offer clues into their positive strengths.

So what’s behind those annoying behaviors?

People choose the way they interact with others based on what best enhances their own feelings of self-worth. So when you find your blood pressure rising in response to another person’s incessant (fill in the blank), consider the following…

? What is the intent behind what appears to you as a weakness? Chances are people aren’t trying to annoy you. People are almost always trying to do good and feel like they’re contributing. Relationship Awareness Theory states that weaknesses are nothing more than positive strengths taken to extreme or misused.

? What strength are they overdoing? Try to look for the strength behind the annoying behavior. What if they dialed it down a little? If you feel a person is “smothering” you with attention, it’s likely their intention is just to be “helpful.”

? Try to understand them better. Discovering a person’s strengths may help you discover what they value. This kind of understanding can improve your relationship by helping you better interpret their motivation.

? Prevent conflict in yourself by avoiding misperceptions. When you take the time to understand a person’s values and how they attain self-worth, you are less likely to find yourself in conflict over their behaviors.

“Conflict is normal. A lot of people want to avoid conflict, but we say it’s possible to prevent it ? to actually stop it from happening,” said coauthor Tim Scudder, president of Personal Strengths Publishing, a global training and personal development company.

Preventing conflict is about proactively making better choices in your relationships that respect different personality types and foster powerful, productive interactions. If a conflict can’t be prevented?and let’s face it, some conflicts will happen despite our best efforts?we can learn to manage conflict by identifying it quickly and creating conditions that lead people back to a place of feeling good about themselves.

“Writing this ‘how-to’ book in the form of story allowed us to capture the drama and even humor of interpersonal conflict the way we all experience it,” said coauthor Kent Mitchell, “And frankly, people can relate to stories better ? concepts become more memorable and real when framed in a narrative.”

Have a Nice Conflict can be found at all major bookstores and online booksellers with special offers and events available February 6 ? 10, 2012 as part of Personal Strengths’ Conflict Prevention Week. Visit www.haveaniceconflict.com/preventionweek for more details.

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