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Articles
Active Listening: The Key To Your Success
Active Listening: Tactical Communication (police/corrections)
Conflict: the 21st Century Taboo
Conflict Cycle
Conflict: Seeing Scripts
De-escalation: De-escalate Yourself First
Good Scripts Gone Bad: Scripts vs. Human Extinction
Good Script Gone Bad II:
Groomed to Lose
The Monkey is IN the buidling
Monkey Trap: Human vs. Monkey Conflict
Pulled Into Conflict: Not Getting Sucked In
Road to Conflict: How'd this happen?
Social vs. Asocial Violence
NEW:
Conflict Cycle
-- Conflict is
not only predictable, but if the scripts are followed it
is safe. However, problems occur when the cycle is not completed
or is mismanaged. this article introduces you to the cycle and
common ways it can go awry.
The Monkey is IN the building:
Recognizing the Monkey's presence -- How do you know when you or
someone else is in their monkey brain? It's actually quite easy,
if you know what to look for.
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If you want to make peace,
you don't talk to your friends.
You talk to your enemies.
-- Moshe Dayan |
Active Listening: The Key To Your Success
When someone talks, most people are busy preparing what they are going to say and
jumping to conclusions about what the other person means. All this before the
other person is even halfway done with his or her
sentence.
Given these conditions, it's no wonder
disagreements escalate into arguments, and arguments
escalate into fights (or physical assaults). Active
listening is a learnable skill fundamental
to preventing conflicts, managing and de-escalation.
It's also the first thing to go out the window when
you start down the road to conflict.
Active Listening: Tactical Talk
Primarily written for police, correctional officers
and conflict management professionals, this article
looks at active listening as a tactical
communication tool. And why -- despite the poor way
it usually is taught -- it is a critical tool
for professionals dealing with potentially violent
situations.
While administration would prefer you
learn to actively listen for indemnification and
community relationship purposes, we're suggesting
you apply this skill initially to keep from getting your nose broken.
Then comes doing a better job of interrogation and information
gathering.
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Never ascribe to an opponent
motives meaner than your own.
-- John M Barrie |
Conflict: 21st Century Taboo
Comparing conflict to sex is a rather bold statement
don't you think? While any analogy falls apart past
a certain point, it's a long way down the road before this parallel
stops working. Treating conflict and violence as a taboo subjects
doesn't make them go away. The current parochial attitudes toward
conflict creates many problems. First a lack of coping skills.
This makes conflict -- and especially violence -- far more
traumatic. Second, stress and fear, not only during
conflict but fear of conflict. This leaves people
unprepared and vulnerable to bullies, abusers and predators. And
in some cases, promoting ignorance of conflict invites physical
danger. Activists fought to get 'sex ed' taught, at Conflict Communications, we're fighting to teach 'conflict
ed.'
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The nation that insists on drawing a broad
line of demarcation between the fighting man and the
thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools,
and its thinking done by cowards
--
Gen. Sir William Butler |
Conflict Cycle
Conflict is not only predictable, but if the scripts are
followed it is safe. However, problems occur when the cycle is
not completed or is mismanaged. this article introduces you to
the cycle and common ways it can go awry.
Conflict: Seeing Scripts
How is it that an ex-thug and an
ex-correctional guard saw these things about violence when
most people don't? This article will not only answer that
question, but it will also show the three things that keep
you from seeing these patterns yourself.
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Never offer terms which you yourself
would not accept
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De-escalation: De-escalate Yourself First
It was once said "If they want peace, nations should avoid the
pin-pricks that precede cannon-shot" Keep that in mind when we
tell you the first person you need to de-escalate is yourself.
Before you can manage a conflict (much less prevent one) you
have to make sure that you aren't caught in your own emotional
'monkey brain' loop.
We're not just talking about screaming and swinging from the
lights by your knees 'monkey brain' emotional. We're talking
about everything from that extreme to saying through gritted
teeth "I AM CALM!" We're also talking about not
sending all the little, subtle signals and
actions that tell the other person, you're really not listening.
If you're not listening, then why should the other monkey?
Then we can start talking about all the little
'pin-pricks' we subconsciously send that lead to conflict.
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The heart has arguments with
which the logic of the mind is not acquainted
-- Blaise Pascal
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Good Script Gone Bad Part 1
Scripts vs. Human Extinction
People tend to wonder when we say "Scripts
aren't for your 'benefit but the survival of the group."
Simply
stated, it doesn't seem to match with their experience. What
these people don't realize is all their experience is within the
context of modern civilization.
Scripts weren't developed for
such a time.
They were developed in much harsher conditions over
the last few million years. Conditions where not only is
individual survival on the line, but the human species is too.
Under those circumstances, survival of the group was paramount.
This article looks at why good of the group was in everyone's
best interest
Good Scripts Gone Bad Part 2
This article Pending. It will be the second part explaining how these survival programs are vulnerable to 'hackers.'
Groomed to Lose
Ever had an emotion so strong you felt like you were caught up
in a flash flood or tidal wave; an unstoppable force that rips
your self-control away? Ever had something happen and you find
yourself reacting even though you know you're over reacting?
Your past has wired your brain so you have these emotional flash
floods. This article explains how, when 'triggered,' your
brain's 'wiring' takes control of your actions and leads to
inappropriate behaviors. Behaviors that, while they may have
served you in extreme conditions, aren't effective for the
current situation. Although written for the abused and
those with PTSD, this article is also extremely useful for those
with anger management issues.
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The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.
--William James |
Monkey Trap: Staying Human During Conflict
You can't control what you don't understand. Fundamental to
conflict management and resolution is understanding how conflict
-- and violence -- work. And not just on an individual level,
but in terms of evolutionary programming and species survival.
Recent experiments with MRIs and psychology show just how much
of our behaviors come from the non-rational parts of our brains
and follow predictable patterns. When we are functioning in this
state, we believe we are being rational; when in fact, we're
following behavioral and survival 'scripts' dating back to
prehistoric times. Scripts that unless you learn how to control
them, will control you.
Monkey Is
IN The Building
In the middle of a confrontation have you ever found yourself
asking "Where did that come from?" Have you ever found
yourself in a conflict and wondered how you got there? How did a
normal conversation turn into an argument? The simple answer is
somewhere along the line the Monkey crept into the room and
hijacked the situation. This article describes the common
signals that someone has slipped from their human brain and into
their monkey brain ... and that includes you.
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Be kind for everyone you meet
is fighting a hard battle
-- Plato |
Pulled into Conflict
There are some people who WANT you in your monkey
brain. Monkeys are stupid, emotional, predictable and most of
all, not much of a threat because they are operating on
instinct. There are toxic people out there who have learned that
if they trigger you, you are predictable and not all that
effective. In short, they're playing you like a fiddle. This
article talks about how not to get fiddled with.
The Road to Conflict
This article Pending.
Social and Asocial Violence
Most conflict and physical violence occurs within a 'social'
context. That means the goal of the violence is to change
unacceptable behavior of a group member. This is both a very
specialized and the most common kind of violence. Social
violence is NOT designed to
kill, maim or cripple an individual. This article looks at the
difference between social violence and asocial violence.
Asocial violence is designed to kill and cripple.
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You may have to fight a battle
more than once to win it
-- Margaret Thatcher |
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