The Eight Essential Steps to Conflict Resolution: Preserving Relationships at Work, at Home and in the Community

If you want an introduction on how to effectively handle disagreements with other people then you should definitely read this book!

Often personal conflicts are seen as something negative and something to be avoided. The fact is that conflicts can also serve as a tool to strengthen the relationship and recognize each others differences.

A common misconception is that conflict resolution is all about making the other party surrender certain needs, which ultimately leads to unnecessary complications due to the fact that one of the parties feels victimized as a result.

Instead it is better to focus on identifying common goals and finding common ways to satisfy these goals. That way everyone involved can have their most important goals satisfied, maybe in exchange for voluntarily sacrificing some of the less important goals. Handling the situation in this manner enables both parties to effectively improve their relationship and facilitate further cooperation.

This book provides a number of ideas on how you can achieve this kind of mutual benefit when resolving your personal conflicts.

'Conflict Resolution' is a good look at this often neglected aspect of human interaction. This book focuses on creating solutions to conflict that are mutually beneficial to all parties, to prevent future conflict and/or 'revenge' attitudes, as well as building on the relationship to learn and grow from conflicts. Some of the ideas seem pretty basic and based on common sense, but this makes it easier to see how they can be applied in a variety of situations. Each idea is well presented and exhaustively demonstrated with case studies and examples. In fact this may be my only complaint, that the book has some simple ideas that are demonstrated to too deep a degree. It is clearly written and without condescension, or seeming patronising. This can be used in business, community or personal settings and there is something to help everyone. This is a clear book that has some great ideas to move beyond the bargaining or conquest style of conflict most often exhibited and should have something to offer most readers.

This book is easy to read, but it took me a long time, as each paragraph gave ideas you could put to good use in every day situations. I found myself thinking about how I could apply the information to current problems, both personal and global. Having started reading it on September 9th 2001, the implications of focusing on long term outcomes suddenly became all too relevant.

There are many case studies which highlight how each stage of the resolution process can be approached successfully. These ranged from family conflicts to more complex major issues, so the book is applicable to a wide range of people. The style is simple, but effective, without resorting to a lot of psychological research information.

.... It has also given me invaluable information to deal with my own problems.