A constructive Approach to Managing Faculty Conflict: An Action Research Study

Step Three. In the design of the workshop curriculum, the researcher chose to include interactive games as a method to engage the participants in fun, yet direct

activities that would motivate them to openly discuss situations of conflict in a safe environment and equip them to think and react to conflict differently. While there are several books on conflict resolution games to use in the workplace, the researcher utilized the reference guide, “The Big Book of Conflict Resolution Games: Quick Effective Activities to Improve Communication, Trust and Collaboration” written by author and corporate trainer, Mary Scannell (2010), to incorporate conflict resolution games in both workshops.

The book was instrumental to the conflict management strategies workshops due to the conflict resolution games being able to, “reveal real conflict-along with emotions, personalities misunderstandings, and reactions. Through games, the team experiences conflict in a safe environment” (Scannell, 2010). From the book, the researcher selected conflict resolution games for the workshops based on: (1) the objectives of the game that would provide the most context from activity engagement,
(2) the amount of people needed for the activity to ensure the break-out sessions included an equal number of participants, and (3) the time required to complete the conflict resolution game and answer post-discussion questions from the book which accompanied the activities.
The researcher chose three conflict resolution activities from the reference guide she felt would be the most beneficial; two were selected for small group activity/discussion for the first workshop and one activity for the second workshop to engage all ten participants in large group activity/discussion. It is important to be reminded these activities were initially supposed to be conducted in-person, however, the shift to conducting them online still proved to be effective.

The first activity selected from The Big Book of Conflict Resolution Games (Scannell, 2010) was titled, “Anything Goes” (see Appendix E). This activity involved engaging the participants in a mini-conflict in order to practice the skills of dialogue and build consensus in a non-threatening manner. The purpose of the activity was to provide the essential difference between debate and dialogue in order to work towards shared understanding and strength and value in each other’s positions.

The second activity (see Appendix E) selected was titled, “Positive Spin”. This activity involved the participants changing their perspective on conflict in the workplace by considering the positive aspects of conflict. The challenge was to define conflict without using negative terms (Scannell, 2010).
The third activity selected was titled, “Check It Out” (see Appendix H). This activity required the participants to develop a step-by step process to resolving conflicts by using a check-list building guide included with the activity. The objective of the activity involved the buying-in of conflict resolution techniques and to develop a standard process by which to resolve conflict (Scannell, 2010).
All three activities were able to transition from being conducted in-person to online with relative ease. However, due to being online and not in-person, the online platform did not provide the researcher as observer with the opportunity to record and observe non-verbal communication between the participants. The researcher as an expert in observing body language due to her professional background and training, understands the value and oftentimes importance of non-verbal communication.
Therefore, when people are together in one room in-person, the detection of body language can play a key role to the researcher-observer. Non-verbal

communication can provide the researcher with additional clues into the participant’s reactions and feelings about a situation they are discussing or an activity in which they are engaged. While the researcher could view faces, facial expressions and listen to the tonality in a participants’ voice, the researcher missed the value of observing the totality of non-verbal communication, a component that an online platform does not provide. In addition to the games, the researcher included group discussions to take place before and after the conflict resolution games in order to provide the participants the opportunity to discuss their experiences with conflict and for the researcher to collect narrative based qualitative data for the implemented study.