Bridges

Resources for Surfacing, Holding & Moving Through Conflict

Photo by Tim Swaan on Unsplash

In a community of practice that I belong to someone recently requested recommendations for conflict¹ supports. I responded with a few of my favorites, as did other community members, and I found the resource exchange inspiring.

So — as this month’s “pebbles” — I offer you an expanded brain dump of my favorite books and practical tools/processes to surface, hold, and practice conflict. I hope they’re helpful!

Books

• Decolonizing Nonviolent Communication by Meenadchi

• Difficult Conversations: How To Address What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton & Sheila Heen

• Collaborating with the Enemy: How To Work with People You Don’t Agree with or Like or Trust by Adam Kahane

• Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair by Sarah Schulman

• Changing the Conversation: The 17 Principles of Conflict Resolution by Dana Caspersen

• Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm by Kazu Haga

• Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation by adrienne maree brown, especially the chapters:

  • “Consensus Reflection” by Autumn Brown,

  • “What Is Principled Struggle?” w/ N’Tanya Lee, and

  • “An Invitation to Brace Space” by Micky ScottBey Jones

• Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger by Lama Rod Owens

• The Power of Bridging: How To Build a World Where We All Belong by john. a powell

• Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea by Leah Hunt-Hendrix & Astra Taylor

Practical Tools/Processes

• Fist To Five

• Good Conflict’s Starter Toolkit

• Judy Ringer’s “We Have to Talk: A Step-By-Step Checklist for Difficult Conversations”

• Mia Mingus’ “The Four Parts of Accountability & How To Give A Genuine Apology”

• Nonviolent Communication Scripts (Observations, Feelings, Needs & Requests)

• Ramapo for Children’s “W.O.W.” conflict conversation framework:

  • What’s Up?

  • Own Up

  • What Now?

• Spring Up’s Free & Low Cost Worksheets/Tools (so many great resources here!)

• “The Three Levels of Listening” (infographic, blog)

• “Working Together On Purpose” (guidance on how to do collaborative/consensus decision-making) — in Radical in Progress’ Mutual Aid: A study guide of Dean Spade’s 2020 book ‘Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next).’

• And here are six practices I invite people to experiment with when I facilitate:

  • Embrace complexity, hold space for contradiction — think: "Yes, and..."

  • Lead with curiosity — aim to listen first

  • Be the expert of your own experience – use “I” statements² + own your contributions

  • Monitor your air time — think: “Three before me…”

  • Try not to hear attack — think: “Conflict is a place of possibility…”³

  • Expect and accept non-closure⁴

Are there conflict resources that you rely on that I haven’t mentioned? Please share them in the comments!

1. When I use the word “conflict” in this post I’m referring to disagreement and/or conflict as both are defined by Spring Up:

Disagreement: A lack of consensus or agreement; there is a difference of opinions.

Conflict: A disagreement stemming from deeply-rooted opposing wants and needs; there could also be opposing interests, values, and directions. This is often what a disagreement looks like within collaboration.

While some of the books shared in this post are also relevant to scenarios that also involve harm (verbal, emotional, psychological, economic, physical, et cetera), many of the practical tools/processes may not be appropriate for those scenarios because of their potential to be manipulated to reinforce abusive power dynamics.

2. I was first introduced to “I” statements by Marshall Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication.

3. This practice is borrowed from this talk by Dana Caspersen.

4. I was first introduced to this practice by Sonya Kaleel.

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