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CONFLIC COACHING
FUNDAMENTALS

WORKING WITH CONFLICT STORIES IS NOW AVAILABLE!

Who should read this book?

This is a book specifically for those who work with people in conflict (mediators, conflict coaches, managers, lawyers, HR staff, teachers) and also for anyone who wishes to better understand their own experience of conflict.

Book Description

We naturally create stories to help us making meaning of our world, but in conflict situations the kinds of stories we typically tell ourselves can actually make it harder for us to manage and resolve the conflict constructively. This book provides an accessible framework for understanding why people tell their conflict stories the way they do, and how to help them move away from conflict stories that prevent them from understanding and responding to conflict in an effective way.

Presented using highly engaging and accessible cases, the book is designed to help people working with others in conflict to fully support them by understanding which areas of the conflict story to focus their attention on, and using practical techniques to support people to rewrite their story into a more constructive one to better manage the situation. The book also provides practical strategies to help people who are themselves in a conflict scenario to rewrite and enact a version of their conflict story that helps them to more constructively manage, and often resolve, their situation. A conflict management coaching system is introduced that is designed to address the particular problems created by dysfunctional conflict stories.

This is a book specifically for those who work with people in conflict (mediators, conflict coaches, managers, lawyers, HR staff, teachers) and also for anyone who wishes to better understand their own experience of conflict.

Table of Contents

Introduction
PART I: Conflict Stories
1. Conflict stories, narratives and genre
2. Melodrama
3. The melodramatic conflict narrative
4. Melodramatic victims
5. Melodramatic villains
6. Why is the melodramatic conflict narrative problematic?
7. Tragedy – the alternative conflict story
8. The shift from melodrama to tragedy

PART II: Conflict Coaching to Support Story Development
9. Coaching to facilitate the shift
10. Simple to complex
11. Certain to uncertain
12. Passive to active
13. Dependence to agency
14. Past to future
15. Suffering to learning
16. The REAL Conflict Coaching SystemTM

What Readers Say?

Kenneth Cloke

Mediator and author of The Dance of Opposites: Explorations in Mediation, Dialogue and Conflict Resolution Systems Design, USA.

Samantha Hardy, a self-confessed “pracademic,” brings a wonderful combination of practical coaching and mediation skills, a high level of emotional insight, and a profound understanding of the nature of narrative and melodrama to this excellent and immensely useful book. Every practitioner will learn something from it and walk away with a deeper understanding of the role of melodrama and tragedy in conflict stories, and a great many practical coaching and mediation skills to boot! It is an enjoyable read and well worth the price.

Sam is inviting you to look at conflict through a whole new set of eyes. The unique and entertaining lens that she is offering is genres of literature. She has uncovered and is taking you on a journey to discover healthy and unhealthy conflict story patterns. These insights provide you with the power to (re)-write your own, or help others (re)-write their, conflict narratives in a way that helps define new ways for moving forward and find peace with the past. A must for conflict specialists and people who want to critically reflect on their own approach to conflict.

Claudia Butler

Claudia Butler

Professional Conflict Navigator, Australia

Andrew Rixon PhD

Director, Babel Fish Group

Dr. Sam Hardy brings a unique research driven approach to working with conflict stories that is empowering and enabling for people to discover the range of choices available to learn and grow through conflicts. I love the focus on helping people become more aware of the conflict stories they are telling themselves and others. Sam's method to work towards more empowering choice filled alternatives is practical and inspiring. The book contains great examples, rich stories, and many references to other interesting authors, but most importantly shares a unique genre-based story approach to helping people find ways forward when stuck in conflict. I highly recommend this book!

Dr Samantha Hardy is one of Australia’s leading authorities on the theory, philosophy and practice of dispute resolution. The book will help people working with others in conflict to fully support them by understanding which areas of the conflict story to focus their attention on and using practical techniques will help people who are themselves in a conflict scenario to rewrite and enact a version of their conflict story that helps them to more constructively manage, and often resolve, their situation.

David Spencer

Professional Conflict Navigator, Australia

Rosemary Howell

Professorial Visiting Fellow, University of New South Wales

Dr. Sam Hardy brings a unique research driven approach to working with conflict stories that is empowering and enabling for people to discover the range of choices available to learn and grow through conflicts. I love the focus on helping people become more aware of the conflict stories they are telling themselves and others. Sam's method to work towards more empowering choice filled alternatives is practical and inspiring. The book contains great examples, rich stories, and many references to other interesting authors, but most importantly shares a unique genre-based story approach to helping people find ways forward when stuck in conflict. I highly recommend this book!

Through Samantha’s use of engaging and relatable cases, readers are bound to gain insights about how conflict stories are formed and conveyed. She also details a unique methodology for shifting such stories to be able to become its “hero” rather than remain in the more counterproductive stances commonly taken. To facilitate that shift Samantha shares a host of practical techniques for re-scripting perceptions and experiences in order to constructively find our own way through interpersonal conflict, and to support clients who want to do so.

Cinnie Noble

Author of Conflict Management Coaching: The CINERGY Model

Michael Lang

Author of The Guide to Reflective Practice in Conflict Resolution

In Conflict Coaching Fundamentals: Working With Conflict Stories, Samantha Hardy offers a step-by-step practical guide to conflict coaching that makes excellent use of examples from her coaching practice in a book that is well-crafted and eminently readable. Her approach is grounded in an abiding belief in the dignity of her clients and a conviction that they have the inborn capacity to be self-aware and that they are fully able to find creative and practical solutions to their dilemmas. Using the metaphors of the melodramatic and tragic stories, she explains how our view of a conflict situation can restrict our choices and actions or encourage and support us in developing effective and practical paths out of the conflict. This book is both engaging—in the she brings vividly to life, we hear the voices of her clients who confront the challenges and struggles of being stuck in the quagmire of conflict—and instructive—clearly and creditably setting out the benefits of conflict coaching.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Samantha Hardy provides coaching, conflict support and training to managers and leaders across the world.

Sam has been accredited as a mediator under the Australian National Mediation Accreditation System and is a Certified Transformative Mediator by the US Institute of Conflict Transformation. She is also a Certified Narrative Coach, an experienced conflict coach, and the founder of the REAL Conflict Coaching System.

In 2021 Sam was awarded the Resolution Institute Award for Service to Dispute Resolution for her leadership and innovation.

She has a PhD in Law and Conflict Resolution, as well as other postgraduate qualifications in adult education. She is committed to lifelong learning and continuing development.

Sam is a well known trainer and university educator, holding adjunct appointments at a number of universities in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the USA.

Sam has also published widely in conflict resolution, including her books: Dispute Resolution in Australia, Mediation for Lawyers, and Conflict Coaching Fundamentals.

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Product Subtotal
BOOK: Conflict Coaching Fundamentals (paperback)  × 1 $55.00
Subtotal $55.00
Tax $5.50
Total $60.50