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Services for Conflict Professionals

       

 

Legal Justice System Professionals

People almost uniformly decry the incivility that is increasingly characterizing our institutions, including our courtrooms.

Yet…while bar associations require their members to receive civility training, there is a general lack of enthusiasm about such efforts because they have appeared to make little difference.

Arbinger offers compelling and high impact CLE-approved civility training for lawyers and judges that does make a difference.

Why civility efforts generally fail

The reason why most efforts to increase civility fail is that people fail to understand what incivility is and isn’t. We complain about the uncivil behaviors we see, and we therefore think that civility is primarily a behavioral issue. The standards of civility that have been adopted by nearly all jurisdictions (click here for a sample) define civility in behavioral terms.

The problem with this definition is that civility is not primarily a matter of behavior.

A new definition for civility

Arbinger’s work shows that whenever a person regards another as less then himself, everything the person says or does will feel uncivil to the other person even if the behavior itself is otherwise innocuous. (The reverse of this is also true: vigorous disagreement, for example, with someone that one regards with respect and dignity doesn’t feel uncivil even if it is tough.)

This means that incivility is located at a level that is deeper than behavior. Arbinger tackles the issue of civility where the problem actually lies—at the level of way of being. As a result, Arbinger’s programs offer a real solution to the incivility that surrounds us.

Next Steps

Mediator Training

Breaking the blame cycle

The trouble with most conflict situations is that all parties feel that the other is at fault. This means that the most successful conflict professionals, including mediators, are those that are able to invite people to reconsider their self-justifying narratives.

When this occurs, it feels like “magic happened.” The trouble is that something seems like magic only if it is not understood.

What if, as a mediator, you could recreate such “magic” every time?

This is precisely the effect of Arbinger’s work. Arbinger equips people to diminish the resistance that most people feel around questioning themselves and their own assumptions. Arbinger helps mediators to become more effective by training them how to create the open and collaborative space that makes successful mediations possible.

Next Steps

Law Enforcement & Military Training

For many years, Arbinger has worked closely with military and law enforcement professionals to help them in both their operational and their professional roles. Arbinger’s programs have been specifically tailored for the specific needs of military and law enforcement personnel.

Clients

We have conducted high level Arbinger training with the following roles and organizations:

  • Navy Seals
  • The leadership in the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines,
  • SWAT commanders, police chiefs, detectives, and patrol officers.

Next Steps

The Choice in Peacebuilding

Program Overview

Arbinger offers The Choice in Peacebuilding program for individuals and organizations engaged in change interventions. This program introduces a new language of connectedness and applies a set of Arbinger tools for helping to bring parties together. The Choice in Peacebuilding is a two-day training program.

Upon completion of the program, participants will have acquired the following competencies:

  • Gain the ability to have influence in a peacebuilding situation
  • Learn how to help others to change, when they may initially resist
  • Become an agent of peace in every peacebuilding interaction.
  • Become equipped to build a peacebuilding organization and/or strategy upon principles that enable success.

This training is for individuals and organizations that are engaged in change interventions at the interpersonal, community, organizational or international level of conflict.

Next Steps

Advanced Peacebuilding Training

Program Overview

Arbinger’s Conflict Transformation Advanced Training is an intensive, step-by-step journey that follows completion of Arbinger’s facilitator training course.

Over the course of five days, participants explore how to facilitate the peacebuilding process using Arbinger’s The Choice in Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation courses. This training is a hands-on laboratory designed to:

  1. Deepen one’s understanding of Arbinger’s philosophy of conflict and how conflict may be transformed.
  2. Equip facilitators with the tools they need to become effective in helping others transform conflicts at home, in organizations, and in communities.

Facilitation Tools

  • Facilitator preparations—Being the change
  • Creating out-of-the-box space or a place that invites peace
  • Setting the right expectations
  • Designing a helpful intervention
  • Trust building activities to build the facilitator’s relationship with the parties
  • Trust building activities to build the relationship between the parties
  • Transitioning to the conflict
  • Using the Arbinger diagrams to help transform conflict
  • Using the Arbinger language to problem solve
  • Using Arbinger to help create systems of accountability going forward

As with all Arbinger applications, the goal is to dig deep to the root causes of conflict in order to foster reconnection and reconciliation between the parties.

Delivery options

Individuals can join public offerings of this program or organizations can sponsor on-site training for groups of 5 or more people.

Next Steps