• The Art of Conflict Management: Achieving Solutions for Life, Work, and Beyond

  • By: Michael Dues, The Great Courses
  • Narrated by: Michael Dues
  • Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (2,117 ratings)

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The Art of Conflict Management: Achieving Solutions for Life, Work, and Beyond  By  cover art

The Art of Conflict Management: Achieving Solutions for Life, Work, and Beyond

By: Michael Dues,The Great Courses
Narrated by: Michael Dues
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Publisher's summary

In 24 lectures brimming with practical tips, tools, and techniques everyone can use to better manage conflict in his or her professional and personal lives, gain the essential skills of conflict management. As presented by Professor Dues, these lectures will show you how to effectively deal with conflicts of all kinds, using the "win-win" model that has dominated the field for the past six decades.

You'll gain effective techniques for handling conflicts in your workplace, other organizational settings, or your personal life, whether you're dealing with supervisors, coworkers, acquaintances, close friends, or family members. You'll learn the best ways to analyze conflicts and work through the steps toward resolving them, including clarifying goals, handling difficult emotions, and negotiating agreements. And you'll grasp the fundamental tricks of the trade that experienced negotiators have long used to deal with even the most seemingly intractable moral and cultural conflicts.

While drawing on the latest groundbreaking research, Professor Dues has designed these lectures to be as practical as possible. Requiring no background in conflict management, negotiation, or psychology, they offer you not just knowledge, but strategies and tactics you can put to work in your own life right now. Best of all, you'll be able to see those strategies and tactics in action through 70 professionally acted dramatizations that illustrate different conflict situations at home and in the workplace.

You don't have a choice about becoming involved in conflict. You do, however, have a choice about learning to manage it successfully by using the invaluable tools these lectures can give you.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2010 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2010 The Great Courses

What listeners say about The Art of Conflict Management: Achieving Solutions for Life, Work, and Beyond

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Surprisingly Good

This was my "backup book" for a long time. That's what I keep on my player for the times when I need a break from the story I'm *really* listening to, or when I get caught away from the computer with nothing else on hand.

The first few hours are very basic information. Nothing new, and a little boring. Still worth listening to just to refresh yourself. Since I usually reversed 30 minutes or so every time I listened, I didn't get very far into the series.

Then I hit Lecture 7. Things started to get very, very interesting. This is where it goes beyond the usual business book advice. It gets practical. And enlightening. And gut-punching. There are points where I think, "I do that! Why do I do that? When did I start doing that? How can I stop?"

The illustrations (audio clips) are contrived and overacted and cheesy. The format (introduction of each lecture and applause at the end) gets tedious. But a little fast-forward solves that problem.

I think this will stay my backup book for a long time to come.

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220 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent Frameworks

I thoroughly enjoyed this course. The lecturer is an excellent narrator and sounds very empathetic and understanding. He breaks down the topic into very logical lectures, each focused around very useable frameworks. He frequently references outside studies, but doesn't get bogged down in the details, making it relate to the issue at hand. There are some dramatic enactments of examples which are sometimes cheesy, but overall add to the course. This audiobook is good from start to finish (arguably getting better as it goes), rather than many books, where it's one good idea re-hashed 50 times.

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129 people found this helpful

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Very interesting and valuable information.

I absolutely loved this lecture. It was frank and jam packed with extremely valuable information. I found the lecturer's habit of summing up really helpful.

** My only quibble is that there were no accompanying materials. It would have been great to have a synopsis of the key topics and at least a few key points for each topic. And it was disappointing not to have one. **

I, like most folks I imagine, listened to these lectures while driving and could not make notes. And as this is a 12+ hour lecture series, it is not practical for me to sit down at a desk to re-listening and make notes. Truth be told, I would really rather not have to do this at all. I'd rather the publisher did it for me.

Since the lecturer covered a lot of fascinating points and was not shy to summarize them for us, why, Great Courses, could you not provide your clients a written summary? Please re-consider.

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98 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Delivers what it promises

The course is slightly long and some real life examples are in my opinion a bit unrealistic. These are maybe the only flaws in this otherwise excellent course. The narrator is very good and delivers his points in a way that's easy to remember.
I definitely recommend these lectures.

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59 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Super practical, well crafted

This is very well organized with each chapter taking on another aspect of conflict management, from interpersonal conflict with loved ones, cohort conflict at work, conflict with superiors, with employees, the various types of professional help available, how to help others ... and much more.

I found the style of delivery to be excellent, it appears to be ad lib in that the professor is quick witted and enthusiastic, but without losing the brisk pace and clarity, or digressing into repetition or long anecdote. At the end of each chapter there's a quick summary and a short suggested "homework."

I've taken several dozen great courses and this is among the best crafted and most immediately practical. l'll come back to this course and use it in my personal and professional life

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42 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Everyone should listen

This has been a very enlightening coarse. Lots of insight into working through conflicts and how to handle them gracefully. I wish I had listened to this years ago.

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30 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Do not Avoid the Argument...

Instead of avoiding conflict, I highly recommend hearing out Professor Dues, learning and honing this Art.

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25 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Theory and Practice on Conflict Management

This lecture is a combination of theory and practice for conflict management. For example, the professor gave a history of how the Greeks used rhetoric to resolve disagreements (as opposed to using brute force). The type of information isn't necessary for dealing with conflict but some people might appreciate the background and know there are more civilized ways to resolve a disagreement. There are also examples of people using different styles to handle conflict. The professor then returns to those examples with better techniques to create win-win solutions.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Very useful, practical and simple

Well structured and presented. Immediately relates to daily situations and offers great advice. Presented with passion and experience, highly recommended.

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18 people found this helpful

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Excellent Course. Will re-listen.

This was very informative, useful content to manage conflicts in my marriage, as well as in my work environment.

The pacing of the narrator was excellent. It made for an easy and attentive listen.

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14 people found this helpful