Conflict Coaching

What is Conflict Coaching?

• 1-on-1 support for navigating conflict
• 75-min call, up to 3 sessions
• P1 wants to resolve conflict, but no clear P2 (doesn't exist currently, unidentifiable, unresponsive, doesn't want to engage)
• Parties interested in mediation, but logistically unable to come.

Process of Conflict Coaching

• Share story: Listen, EARS
• Explore other party's perspectives
• What they heard, understood so far about P2
• What they think are needs & fears of P2 
• Brainstorm strategies - 15-30 mins
• What they tried
• Highlight what they did well and worked in this or past situations
• Share tips
• Commitment
• Help create next steps - brainstorm, reality test
• Takeaways
• Our next steps/ meeting
• Time Keeping:
• I really hear what's happening for you, are you ready to move on to the other person
• I just want to pause for a second. I heard you said ... I want to keep us moving so we
• We have about this much time can find something you can act on after this

Demo

• Hard to talk to anyone. Sheltering in place.
• Agreements: whom we interact with, couples in the house. Thorough about our partner be very tight with whom they see.
• Roommate: lost income, partner moves to coop. He is not taking enough precautions.
• Wanted more notice
• We sacrificed a lot, but what is that for?
• No more information, how long is he staying in coop?
• Careless, not thoughtful
• I want to acknowledge that it's happening in the context ... So much going on in the background that's adding to the stress (pandemic, sheltering)
• I just want to reflect back. Right now you cannot talk to people whom you usually can discuss - roommates
• Very aligned in the beginning, you actually were walking together very well
• I'm imagining that felt really good, things were working really well
• Bombshell got dropped, her bf in your bubble now bursted now, in connection with a WHOLE lot of other people (good tone)

C: Things I tracked

• Threat to the original agreement
• How it was delivered, doesn't feel thoughtful
• Another piece I was tracking was: You don't feel anything you can do. Presented as a done deal, kind of a helplessness here. Things are being done TO you, no ability to impact.
• What happens when he comes over.
• You need safety, creativity. She's in financial hardship. Access to boyfriend is something you all value. The suddenness of this is also sort of problematic.
• Which one bothers you the most? I think how it happened. So tell me more about that.

P1:

• Normally it wouldn't affect much, but now. The timeline - lack of acknowledgement how that affects so many people. All the other precautions is wasted.
• All this hard work out of the window. How this impacted your relationship? It seems like broken trust maybe? Tell me more about that?
• Tricky: not most confident, youngest, a lot of way she might be nervous about having conversation. Definitely rupture in trust. It just calls the in question: "Maybe you could go live there?" Not nice, not real solution.
• When you think about her, maybe you think she did unds the impact but didn't know how to go about it, I was wondering what's going on with her.
• Maybe she's not compatible with the group anymore. Seeing it as a game: my needs or her needs. You acknowledge that as not being kind. There's a way to figure it out without that mindset.
• Could be win-win, but don't know yet. Possibility for social distancing. Want her to say "this just puts a bunch of ppl in a bad spot". Possibly bad for her.
• Acknowledgement & accountability about impact of this. Odd to invite everyone, but the context of this. Naturally you wouldn't be putting in your 2 cents about what someone's boyfriend is doing. That's kind of how I'm tracking.
• The other thing I'm tracking that in the house not a lot of space for 1-on-1 conversation. Have you thought about talking to her directly?
• I wanted to know what my other roommates thought without talking behind her. I'm not sure what the ask is. Reestablish some trust that we still live together.
• It sounds like talking to her is a possibility. Just to share from conflict transformation POV, no solution but as long as you are willing to hang in there and listen, there'd be possibility.
• We can talk to how you talk to your roommate. Sorry to wrap this up so early but we can do it in the next session. 

Homework possibility

• Summarize
• It might be helpful for you to work on some of this, write down 2-3 things you most want to resolve

Process-driven, not giving solution

• I could recommend, but we can role-play, write things down, share a few helpful tips. I can share the answer but it won't be helpful.
• You're the expert in your problem/ this relationship. I think if we talk more YOU will figure out what to do, let's talk more?
• Name the barrier, what's the barrier? Is that true? What other ways?
• If nothing can be done, they did everything, what can you do for self-care?

Notice

+ Acknowledge context & added stress

+ Named the time we have at the start & ongoing

+ Great tracking & breaking down --> We have 50 mins, which one bothers you the most?

+ Put future issue in the future

+ Named needs: safety, creativity to solve

+ How this impacted your relationship?

+ Named the conundrum: you're thinking of this as "my way or the highway" which makes it hard

- Use too many words

Notice

Reassure P1 that no need to have a solution

Goal: Build the agency. The person in a rock & a hard place, nothing changed, but the attitude changed. Thinking partnership. 

SEEDSCRC - Conflict Coaching Guide

Techniques and Tools

1. EARS
2. Iceberg: Dive down to fear (faster will drive conversation)
1. Descriptive language not labelling. Can show them iceberg and tell our guesses about the other person.
3. Clarify Intent, Communicate Impact: Validate intent of P1, encourage people to speak from the place of impact, can show pictures to boost understanding
1. Let me show you this drawing. One person speaks, the other person gives feedback, so many ways it can break down. We talked about how the breakdown in your situation was the timing, surprised.
4. Impact Statements: I noticed you ... I felt ... I would like you to ... *Impact statements don't protect listeners from hearing difficult feelings, nor remove accountability from listeners. These statements help to clarify impact.
1. E.g. Sara I heard you at this point want to talk to your roommate. I think that's fantastic. We always encourage such direct communication. One barrier is people don't know how to, often fear that they can make things worse. There's a formula we usually use, very helpful, easier to hear. It's not blaming, people don't feel defensive or shut down. It helps you communicate. We focus on the impact for you, not what they did. It might look something like, describing behaviour "When you share about" then feelings, "I feel really scared...". One of the request I like is to just start a dialogue, "Can you tell me more about what you were thinking when you said that ...". Can you try that?
2. When you shared that he was moving, I was surprised and concerned, would you be willing to share with me about when you knew it was happening, how the decision was made and the timeline?
3. How did it feel Sara, sometimes it feels clunky, not quite how we usually talk. It sounds quite blame-y. I think I could...
4. It's not you're the expert telling them how to speak, but this way can be useful.
5. Activators: separate external events from our filter & reaction, point out what triggers them in the other person

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Feb 14, 2024 - Family Case

STRENGTHS

I empathized with the immense sadness of seeing one's children having to contort themselves to have their dad's acceptance.

I kept the conversation focused to the goals the client stated for the session. I brought meandering thoughts back to the main goals, clarified and differentiated each points.

Overall, I believed I covered all the goals of the coaching session (addressing concerns about mediation, clarifying her goals & boundaries, devising strategies to stay grounded and maximize the chance of having her interests heard).

CHALLENGES

I prioritized time in this session for empathy with the client, instead of pushing her to empathize for her ex, since the client has spent 25 years trying to cope with this relationship.

I asked her what she thinks about sharing her impacts, and she said her ex-husband doesn't care about his impact on her in the past and he won't do so now. As for the impact on his child, the child already sent him very clear texts and letters and he still doesn't take that in. In the end I said I trust that she knows him better than I do, and although I keep a small hope in my heart that some human corner of his heart will take in what she says, I will not force her to share if she's unwilling. I hope that during mediation, the ex-husband can be supported to take in the impact of his actions.

Nevertheless, during coaching, other than sharing my own vulnerability and respecting the client's choice (that she prefer to work on her impact in therapy and not mediation), I didn't think of anything else I can do. I also shared that, after empathizing for her, if I am her ex, I can take in her feelings/needs if they're expressed in this clean form without blame, and how what I hear is new/ valuable for me. I can underscore this in future sessions.

On a similar note, when I tried to ask the client to empathize for her ex, she could guess what he needs and she still hold judgment for those needs. For example, he wants connection with his son, but only a fake connection to the mask his son always wears around him. He wants to be at peace with himself, because he is a narcissist and isn't willing to be accountable. I tried to put it out there that instead of assigning intent (e.g. isn't willing), we can use a language of capacity (e.g. perhaps he isn't cognitively or physically capable of receiving feedback). All of this is so that on the emotional plane, he will feel more settled while talking to someone who can hold his needs with tenderness. 

On the practical plane, I asked whether the client can think of different strategies to attend to her ex's needs, so that he won't rely on her as his only strategy. She thought of a few ideas which is limited to their nuclear family. I hope that during mediation, they can expand their bases of support.

Accountability. What does it mean for each party to be accountable? What if one cannot fulfill the expectations of the others? This is not the first case where I can characterize the ex-husband as someone who can express some regret about the situation, and ultimately doesn't offer a lot of material help, thus his ex-wife is frustrated and think that he just pay lip service.