Controlling the Costs of Conflict: How to Design a System for Your Organization

Written for non-experts in jargon-free language, this work shows how to create systems within organizations that preempt the monetary, strategic, and emotional costs associated with on-the-job conflict. Its clear and simple approach translates advanced concepts into practical how-tos and provides readers with four guiding principles they can follow to create conflict control systems of their own. Amply illustrated with real-world examples, it details the policies, procedures, and practices that make for successful control systems and tells precisely how to implement them.

KARL A. SLAIKEU is president of Chorda Conflict Management, a consulting and training company that specializes in conflict management systems. He has taught in the psychology departments of the University of South Carolina at Columbia and the University of Texas at Austin, and is the author of When Push Comes to Shove: A Practical Guide to Mediating Disputes (Jossey-Bass, 1996). RALPH H. HASSON is vice president of Chorda Conflict Management. He also serves in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches negotiation.