Productive Conflict

Speaker: Andrea Goulet

Conflict on teams is essential. Without the ability to constructively dissent and debate diverse points of view, innovation and creativity become stifled. Yet conflict can also dissolve trust and breed resentment. When conflict gets personal, it can be a vicious cycle that makes workplaces unhealthy and unproductive. In this presentation, participants will learn specific skills for using empathy and effective communication to generate high-performing teams, fulfilling relationships, and healthy workplace cultures.

By incorporating recent research about conflict and team dynamics, participants will learn concrete skills to:

• Identify key differences between productive and destructive conflict patterns.

• Explore how personal distress and defense mechanisms impede productive conflict.

• Plot potential failure points as a way to improve communication proactively.

• Engage in and encourage constructive dissent as a means of learning and creativity.

• Develop specific communication protocols for common situations.