Conflict Resolution Jeopardy

Conflict styles, active listening, and difficult conversations as a team game. Copy the board free for your workshop and let people buzz in on their phones.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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Conflict Styles

$200
In the Thomas-Kilmann model, this mode gives up your own concerns to satisfy the other party.
What is accommodating?
$400
This mode sidesteps or postpones the conflict altogether.
What is avoiding?
$600
Splitting the difference so each side gets part of what it wants is this mode.
What is compromising?
$800
This assertive, uncooperative mode pursues your own concerns at the other party's expense.
What is competing?
$1,000
The Thomas-Kilmann model places its five modes on two axes: assertiveness and this.
What is cooperativeness?

Active Listening

$200
Restating what the speaker said in your own words is called this.
What is paraphrasing?
$400
Questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no are called this.
What are open-ended questions?
$600
Nodding and saying mm-hmm are examples of these small signals that you are following along.
What are minimal encouragers?
$800
Naming the emotion you hear, as in you sound frustrated, is this listening skill.
What is reflecting feelings?
$1,000
Stephen Covey's fifth habit is to seek first to understand, then to be this.
What is understood?

Cooling Things Down

$200
Lowering the intensity of a heated situation is called this.
What is de-escalation?
$400
Starting with I feel rather than you always is using these kinds of statements.
What are I-statements?
$600
Agreeing to pause and come back later when tempers flare is taking one of these.
What is a time-out?
$800
Stepping back rather than crowding an upset person respects this.
What is personal space?
$1,000
John Gottman advises a break of at least 20 minutes to recover from this state of physiological overwhelm during an argument.
What is flooding?

Difficult Conversations

$200
Good feedback focuses on this, what a person did, rather than on their personality.
What is behavior?
$400
Rather than by email or text, a hard conversation is usually best held this way.
What is face-to-face?
$600
The book Crucial Conversations defines them as talks where stakes are high, opinions vary and these run strong.
What are emotions?
$800
Stone, Patton and Heen say every hard talk contains a what happened conversation, a feelings conversation and this one.
What is the identity conversation?
$1,000
Tucking criticism between two compliments is this technique, which many experts now discourage.
What is the feedback sandwich?

Interests Versus Positions

$200
This 1981 negotiation classic by Roger Fisher and William Ury urges focusing on interests, not positions.
What is Getting to Yes?
$400
In a classic example, two sisters quarrel over this fruit, though one wants only the peel and the other only the fruit inside.
What is an orange?
$600
Principled negotiation says to separate these from the problem.
What are the people?
$800
In negotiation jargon, BATNA stands for best alternative to this.
What is a negotiated agreement?
$1,000
Expanding the pie by inventing options for mutual gain is the mark of this kind of negotiation, the opposite of distributive.
What is integrative negotiation?

Mediation Basics

$200
A mediator is this kind of third party, taking no one's side.
What is neutral?
$400
Unlike an arbitrator, a mediator has no power to impose this on the parties.
What is a binding decision?
$600
What is said in mediation is typically kept this, not shared outside the room.
What is confidential?
$800
A mediator meeting privately with each party in turn is holding this.
What is a caucus?
$1,000
Mediation and arbitration are both forms of this, which settles disputes outside the courtroom.
What is alternative dispute resolution?

Final Jeopardy — Conflict Styles

In the Thomas-Kilmann model, this conflict mode is both highly assertive and highly cooperative, seeking a solution that fully satisfies both parties.

What is collaborating?

How to run this board

Conflict at work is normal. Handling it badly is optional. This board covers the five classic conflict styles, active listening, calming a tense exchange, planning a difficult conversation, finding interests behind positions, and the basics of mediation.

It works well to open a workshop, because a friendly competition gets people talking about disagreement in a way a lecture does not. Keep teams small and mix people from different groups so no one is sitting across from their usual sparring partner.

For the scenario clues, accept any answer the team can defend and ask them to explain it. The discussion that follows is often more useful than the point.

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