Category 12 · 10 frameworks

Conflict & Difficult Conversations

Tools for handling disagreement so it improves decisions and relationships instead of damaging them.

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Modes

Kenneth Thomas & Ralph Kilmann Five ways of handling conflict, plotted on assertiveness and cooperativeness: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. 02

Crucial Conversations

Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan & Al Switzler, Crucial Conversations (2002) A method for high-stakes, emotional conversations where opinions differ. It centres on keeping dialogue safe and sharing views with a mix of confidence and humility. 03

Nonviolent Communication

Marshall B. Rosenberg A four-part way of speaking and listening: observations, feelings, needs and requests. It separates what happened from your judgement of it. 04

The Three Conversations

Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton & Sheila Heen, Difficult Conversations (1999) Every difficult conversation contains three: the 'what happened' conversation, the feelings conversation and the identity conversation. 05

Principled Negotiation

Roger Fisher & William Ury (Harvard Negotiation Project), Getting to Yes (1981) Negotiate on the merits rather than through positional haggling, by separating people from the problem and focusing on interests. 06

Ladder of Inference

Chris Argyris; popularised by Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline (1990) A model of how we jump from observable data to conclusions and actions through selected facts, meanings and assumptions, often without noticing. 07

Left-Hand Column

Chris Argyris & Donald Schön A written exercise that compares what was said in a difficult conversation with what you were thinking but did not say. 08

DESC Script

Sharon Anthony Bower & Gordon H. Bower, Asserting Yourself (1976) A four-part assertive script: Describe, Express, Specify and Consequences. 09

Drama Triangle

Stephen Karpman (1968) A model of three roles people slip into during conflict: Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim. People switch roles, which keeps the drama going. 10

Glasl's Conflict Escalation Model

Friedrich Glasl Nine stages of conflict escalation grouped into three levels, from hardening positions to mutual destruction, each needing a different kind of intervention.

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