Conflict Management: Successfully Solving Conflicts during your Postdoc and beyond

Target group

The online workshop targets postdoctoral researchers.

Content

Throughout your professional career you will encounter conflicts, for example due to different interests, goals, estimations, or expectations. The reasons for conflicts can have structural, like the distribution of resources, or intra-personal (individual) or  inter-personal (social). When leading a team, you will have to deal with conflicts within the team. Many people avoid addressing conflicts or feel unsatisfied by the way they handle them. Rather than reacting on a purely emotional level, you can learn how to manage disputes and disagreements constructively and proactively, and to control your emotion and deal with the emotions of others.

You will learn about different conflict types and the related dynamics. You will further get the chance to reflect your own behaviour.

Topics

• The different types of conflicts
• Conflict dynamics
• Personality types and conflict behaviour
• How to address a conflict actively, clearly, and constructively
• How to respond to criticism
• Conflict escalation stages
• Guidelines for preparing and leading a conflict talk
• Giving and receiving feedback
• How to detect conflict within your team and when and how to react
• Dealing with your own emotions and that of others in conflict situations
• Discussing selected real cases of the participants

Objectives

• You will become aware of conflict types and dynamics

• You will learn how to address conflict and how to respond to criticism

• You will increase your individual range of possible responses to conflicts, based on a thoughtful understanding of conflict characteristics
• You will reflect your own behavior and set clear goals how to behave differently after the workshop

Methods

The course consists of a mixture of trainer input, practical exercises, and self-reflection. You will gain ideas about how to improve your own communication behaviour and practice this. The seminar will be highly interactive and online using Zoom with the focus on small group work.

Technical Requirements

We will use Zoom. Please participate in a quiet place. You will need a PC/laptop with a video camera, a microphone, headset/speakers, and a stable internet connection (> 1,5 Mbit/s up-/downstream).