by Lorraine Segal | Jun 17, 2024
Us versus Them “We have met the enemy and they are us.”—paraphrased from Walt Kelly in the Pogo comic strip. How inclusive is your “us”? And how can you expand it? I write a lot about the power of the stories we tell about ourselves and others to exacerbate or heal...
by Lorraine Segal | May 20, 2024
Is there an elephant in your meeting room? If so, it may be fueling conflict and blocking solutions to problems. You might have heard the term “the elephant in the room”, which refers to a situation or crisis that everyone knows is there but are afraid or reluctant...
by Lorraine Segal | Apr 15, 2024
Do employee complaints help or harm the workplace? It depends. Like conflict itself, complaining has a bad reputation. That’s partly because we tend to think of the negative kind of complaints first. According to Alyson Meister and Nele Dael in their Harvard Business...
by Lorraine Segal | Mar 18, 2024
Habit and Conflict Do your habits affect how you experience and deal with conflict? The short answer—yes! Our habits, for better or worse, are part of what makes us human. And they can make life easier. When I stumble into my kitchen in the early morning, half awake,...
by Lorraine Segal | Feb 17, 2024
Where peace is lost to conflict, how can we find it? Drawing inspiration for conflict transformation from science fiction. I often find science fiction novels thought provoking and inspiring. The ones I love most offer a hopeful vision of a better universe, and often...
by Lorraine Segal | Jan 15, 2024
Trigger stacking and conflict. A series of emotional triggers can set off even the most centered person! The role of emotional triggers in conflict. I have frequently taught about and coached people through emotional triggers, also called hot buttons. When something...
by Lorraine Segal | Dec 18, 2023
Cooperation not Violence in the Real Lord of the Flies Lord of The Flies Like me, you might have read Lord of the Flies by William Golding when you were young. It is a grim story of a group of British schoolboys marooned on a deserted island after a plane crash who...
by Lorraine Segal | Nov 20, 2023
Mobbing and the Tallest Poppy: How Women’s Achievements at Work Are Cut Down. One crucial part of transforming conflict to harmony at work is addressing workplace mobbing and bullying. I myself experienced mobbing when I was a tenured faculty member at a community...
by Lorraine Segal | Oct 16, 2023
Forgive without apology Is an apology necessary before you can forgive someone? Absolutely not. Of course, forgiveness is a decision that only you can make for yourself, at a time you are ready, but, despite what you may have heard, there is no rule that says...
by Lorraine Segal | Sep 18, 2023
An uncomfortable listening level can guide a difficult conversation. Are there topics or deep conversations that feel uncomfortable to you? Maybe you want to stick a finger in each ear and say, “la la la, I can’t hear you!” Can you hear me now? Recently, I went for a...
