Customer Reviews

Conflict Unraveled: Fixing problems at work and in families

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As a human resources professional and president of my local SHRM affiliate chapter, I've lately been very interested in learning about conflict management. As with any job dealing with people, conflict management can be a huge part of my position.

I was delighted and surprised by Andra Medea's book, Conflict Unraveled. Although I am a fairly fast reader, I was forced to slow down while reading this book because it constantly identified conflicts and problems I see daily at work in my co-workers, supervisors, and even at home with my own family---and happily, the solutions.

Though the book is solidly grounded on theory and successful tactics used by such luminaries as Bevel, Nash, and other civil rights activists, for me the best thing about the book is all the practical advice it offers. Several real-life examples offered in the book have really stuck with me---for instance, I can still vividly imagine, as described in one chapter, the author successfully facing down an angry, blustering man who had hit her car. If I don't remember anything else from the book, I will remember the tactic she used!

The book is also wonderfully full of common sense. You will be on both sides of the table, so to speak (the confronting one and/or the one being confronted) many times in your life, and Medea recognizes this. She offers tools to keep you from embarrassing yourself when you get angry (and not wanting to go back into the office the next day because of it), and techniques to help you deal with a person on the other side of your desk who is in a rage. Anger and conflict is natural, she reminds us; furthermore, it's chemical. Hard to deal with hormones or adrenaline, yes---but Medea offers practical tips which can really work if you have the discipline to use them---or at least have the tenacity to keep trying to use them!

Some gems:

1. "Flooding [adrenaline] shorts out most of the higher parts of the brain... the first step in managing conflict is to be braced for this chemical onslaught, because it will undermine every other useful skill you own."

2. "You may have found yourself in the surreal position of agreeing with someone who's yelling at you, saying everything she could want to hear, and still have her keep shouting as if you disagreed." (I have, many times.)

3. "Consider these skills when compared to negotiation. Accusation, manipulation and whining are all ways to score points or get things without offering anything worthwhile in return."

4. "The solution for the good guys at level three [blind behavior/anger] is exactly the same as for bad guys: you must become aware of your own behavior. ...Your own behavior can get you out of this. No one can do it for you."

5. "Some people will never give up the fight. Isolate them."

6. "Baron von Clausewitz, the military theorist, realized that it wasn't enough to focus on an opponent's weakness. The opponent could always improve a weakness, protect it or turn it into a strength. Instead, von Clausewitz suggested to focus on their strengths, because an opponent could never abandon a strength. The strength was an essential part of who they were."

Medea also breaks conflict down into different categories, in which some tactics work, and some do not. Primate signals (an interesting chapter!), for instance, work well in all types of conflict, from problem-solving to the most severe (tyranny/predation).

She also makes some interesting distinctions in types of workplaces and their leaders, and there's a long discussion on direct communication versus indirect communication that very much held my interest. I'm a direct communicator, as are most of my co-workers, but we have one superior who is indirect. That alone has led to a great deal of conflict. Thanks to the book, I'm ready to try out some new communication techniques that may work more successfully than what I have been trying.

It is very rare that I rate any book five stars. (At this point, I have only given one other book five stars.) This one deserves all five of those stars. Definitely worth the money.

Finally - a book that not only identifies urgent issues, but also outlines how to deal with them. The book is not a magical prescription to cure all of your ills. You will have to supply your own medicine (hard, diligent, consistent work), but it will increase your personal power and probably make your life happier.

We all have people problems, but no handbook regarding how to deal with them. Medea comes as close as anyone ever has to writing a handbook on the art of dealing with the unhappier moments in life involving interaction with other people (conflict). The book is always going back to how you (emphasize YOU) have to change your behavior in order to deal with people more effectively. The reader should be able to instantly recognize that he or she has had many of the experiences and feelings Medea describes in the book - within the past week!

Early in the book Andra lays groudwork describing "stages" of conflict. She lists four stages and only stage one is healthy (luckily we are not often at three or four!). Then, the reader is gently prompted to recognize that due to exogenous or endogenous factors (usually a combination of both), we react to people in a way that creates different stages of conflict. The book covers just enough to prevent boredom or overtechnical analysis, but also gives an ample background for the reader to not only understand interpersonal dynamics, but actually use the information to help resolve conflict and increase productivity in the work place, harmony at home, et cetera.

However, Andra unwittingly creates a conflict of her own with the reader by approaching the topic with a decidedly and undisguised feminist viewpoint. It detracts from the otherwise excellent social science she has done. Conflict is not a men versus women issue; differences between the sexes exist but neither is immune to any type of conflict expressed in any kind of way. It would have been easily possible and preferable not to give one-sided examples that paint women as victims of an oppressive male society. It may have been more constructive to give some opposite examples (a dominant woman screaming at her passive husband...) to grab the reader's attention and make the topic more poignant.

Altogether the book was well written, easy to understand, and uncovered a range of human behaviors that we all practice and probably do not recognize until a book such as 'Conflict Unraveled' comes along. From beginning to end Medea uncovers a range of human behaviors that include adrenaline levels, group dynamics (ladder/cluster type organizations), body language, and verbal communication (direct and indirect misunderstandings). I recommend finding space on your bookshelf for the book. econ

This book describes and diagnoses the components of conflict so that you can clearly understand it. Then the author gives clear, sound, and comprehensive advice for dealing with the situation, your own emotional and physical responses, and your opponent, in order to achieve the best possible resolution.

I strongly recommend this book to everyone who has any interest in dealing with and resolving conflicts. It will be exceptionally useful for managers, attorneys, police officers, and members of dysfunctional families.

I have been a manager for years. Dealing with conflict productively has been the single greatest challenge facing me, or the managers I have coached. I wish this book had been written at the very beginning of my career. I can think of so many situations I would have handled better. Get it. You'll agree.

"It's remarkable how Medea has captured the essential nature of conflict, whether on the job or at home, and prescribed the tools with which to handle conflict effectively. Conflict Unraveled could be subtitled "Everything you ever wanted to
know about your own reactions to your child and his reactions in response." In simple, clear language, Medea describes how conflict between parent and child begins, accelerates and gets out of control and, most important, how to deal with
conflict before it escalates. Whether you are the parent of a teenager or a toddler, this is a book to read again and again."

--Cheryl Coon, parent of teenagers and author of Books to Grow With: A Guide to Using the Best Children's Fiction for Everyday Issues and Tough Challenges (Lutra Press; www.lutrapress.com; July 2004; ISBN ISBN 0-9748025-7-3)

Andra Medea is an instructor in conflict management at the University of Chicago and a nationally recognized expert on the subject. What is less well known is that Andra has a superb sense of humor. This is a distinctive asset in Conflict Unraveled: Fixing Problems At Work And In Families in which she distills her many years of experience and expertise in a volume specifically written and presented so as to be fully accessible to the non-specialist general reader. This wonderful compendium of observations, advice, strategies, tactics, insights, and illustrations is something of a complete and very highly recommended "how to" course on conflict resolution whether in the home or in the workplace.

If you want to create the kind of successful culture of fiercely loyal customers and empowered employees that I discuss in Principled Profit, you need to understand human dynamics. This powerful and well-written book will give you several legs up. Learn to recognize "flooding"--emotional runaways--and how to de-escalate a person in that stage. Understand the difference between ladder and cluster hierarchies, and how to put each type to work for you. Learn what happens when people fall into the roles of hero and victim... Along with Bob Burg's Winning Without Intimidation, Conflict Unraveled should be required reading for anyone who wants to succeed in a people business.

Shel Horowitz's award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, demonstrates how to build a business around ethics, environmental sustainability, and cooperative practices--and how to develop marketing that highlights those advantages.