Introduction

Building Community & Embracing Diversity

The Art of Compassionate Communication

Facilitation Skills: Decision Making & Conflict Resolution

Personal Empowerment & Leadership Skills

Celebrating Life:
Art & Creativity

Conflict Escalation

Learning how to manage conflict involves being able to identify the steps in any escalating confrontation, and being able to stop the escalation and do emotional repair by reinforcing the positive aspects of the relationship.

The following list, from the book "Everyone can win", shows the escalating steps, from a first discomforting feeling to a big crisis leading to the dissolution of the relationship. In each level, when parties reach the point of no return, they escalate to the next level, beyond which the whole conflict changes because it sets up a different set of feelings and behaviour.

• Uncomfortableness: you have an inner, intuitive feeling that something is going wrong with somebody or with the group.
• Incidents: you feel a little bit irritated by small things that involve somebody else, but you tend to forget them.
• Misunderstandings: you don’t understand somebody else's words or behaviour. Communication is deficient and there is no clarity in people expectations.
• Tension: you feel tense each time you meet that person or that part of the group. There is an abundance of negative attitudes. Consciously or unconsciously people hurt each other.
• Crisis: repressed emotions release. Violence can appear.

• Types of Conflict
• Three Elements to Understand Conflict
• Conflict Escalation
• Attitudes Towards Conflict
• 9 Steps for Addressing Conflict Positively
• Rank Differences and Power Abuses

Everyone can win, By Helena Cornelius, Shoshana Faire and Estella Cornelius, has become one of the most recognised handbooks of practical CR skills.
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