This workshop will introduce ACLC students to some of the communication, conflict and
leadership skills being advanced through the “Insight approach to conflict”. This approach was founded by Dr. Picard to help conflict professionals engage conflicting parties in an interactive learning process as a way to change dysfunctional patterns of interaction and resolve disputes.

This relational approach to communication and leadership responds to how individuals
interpret everyday interactions; interpretations that are embedded in dynamic and emergent social relations from which individuals make meaning and then act. In the Insight approach conflict is viewed as an interpretation of threat to deep level values that lead people to respond with “defend” patterns of interaction that only serve to generate, escalate or sustain conflict. Helping individuals and groups to understand more about their values and how they contribute to their actions assists them to seek new ways of interacting that are less threatening and more productive.

In this workshop, ACLC students will learn: 1) new ways of thinking about difficult and conflictual interpersonal and group relations 2) how to deepen the learning conversation by listening to understand and asking about interpretation, meaning-making, feelings and values, 3) how to link, delink and verify insights, and 4) to advance their existing communication and leadership skills and develop new ones.