1) The document discusses avoiding and unavoidable conflicts in the workplace and provides strategies for managing conflicts constructively. 2) It identifies personal frustrations and opinions that cause offense as avoidable conflicts, while strategic or client disagreements are unavoidable. 3) The document recommends three strategies for debating conflicts productively: de-personalizing the issues, avoiding logical fallacies, and demonstrating empathy and understanding toward opposing views.

1. A Debater’s Guide to Conflict
Management
Lessons for the modern Workplace
The School of Life – 13th November 2014
By Tony Koutsoumbos

2. Avoidable v Unavoidable Conflict
Avoidable
• Personal frustrations boiling over
• Voicing a personal opinion that
may cause offence
• Challenging the authority of a
line manager over an operational
decision
Unavoidable
• Division between board members
over strategic vision
• A client rejecting the advice they
have received
• Risking personal integrity for a
professional commitment

3. Why it matters
Avoiding conflict can lead to…“loss of productivity, the stifling of
creativity, and the creation of barriers to cooperation and collaboration.”
(Mike Myatt, leadership advisor and author of “Hacking Leadership” and
“Leadership Matters”)

4. #1 – De-personalising Conflict
• Create a separate space purely for dealing with conflict
• Set ground rules: respect for your opponent and equality between you
• Play devil’s advocate: adopt and defend opinions other than your own
• Define your position and explain your thought processes
• Clearly state what each side needs to prove to win the debate

5. #2 – Logical fallacies escalate conflict
• The Straw Man - wilfully misrepresenting someone's argument
• Ad Hominem - attacking the person instead of the idea
• Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc - the confusion of correlation with causation
• Non-sequitur - Jumping to a conclusion without providing the evidence
• Appeal to tradition – rejecting change without examining it

6. #3 –Empathise and Engage
• Attempt to understand your opponent’s argument without
misrepresenting it (“so what you’re saying is….”)
• Show empathy by attempting to validate your opponent’s argument
(“I would agree with you if the following were true…”)
• Analyse their argument through the prism of their own world-view
(“even if your assumptions were correct, I would still object because…”)

7. Want to know more?
See Tony K – The Debate Coach
www.debate-training.co.uk