Conflict in the workplace is normal and even healthy, though unprocessed conflict can lead to tension and anxiety while wasting an opportunity for learning and growth. Understanding your style of handling conflict—avoidant, cooperative, assertive, accommodating, or collaborative —can help towards building useful conflict resilience skills to enable you to look beneath the surface for common interests and needs. Learning how to effectively communicate and understand why your colleague is in conflict opens the possibility of reaching a collaborative outcome.

Fred Hanson '81, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University School of the Arts, will guide us through some basic conflict resolution theory, and offer some practical skills to help you navigate workplace disputes to reach an outcome based on mutual understanding.