Date: Thursday, 11 March 2010

Effectively managing conflict requires knowing the five conflict-handling modes, which conflict-handling mode is the one that the individual in question uses most, the conflict-handling mode of the other party and, perhaps most important, which conflict-handling mode is best under each unique set of circumstances.

In this interactive workshop, Robert Perkovich leads participants to explore these five conflict-handling modes so that participants identify their preferred mode, while identifying the one used by the other party. Then, the group will discuss circumstances under which each of the five is best used and, if the situation calls for use of a conflict-handling mode that is not the preferred one by a particular party, the skills necessary to implement that conflict-handling mode. Finally, Perkovich discusses consequences if parties fail to engage in situational selection, such as ramifications of over using or under using any of the five.

About the Speaker

Robert Perkovich, a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators, is an arbitrator and mediator specializing in labor management and employment disputes. In that capacity, he has served in disputes arising in numerous industries and involving such issues as discriminatory or improper discipline and discharge as well as contract interpretation. He has served as an interest arbitrator in numerous disputes involving police, fire and public transportation. He serves on the arbitration panels of the American Arbitration Association, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, National Mediation Board and permanent panels, including the Chicago Transit Authority, PACE suburban bus lines, the State of Illinois and others.

Prior to establishing his dispute resolution practice he was a field examiner, and later a trial attorney, in the Chicago regional office of the National Labor Relations Board where he served for approximately seven years. He was subsequently appointed by Governor James Thompson as the first Executive Director of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board where he served approximately six years. Mr. Perkovich is also a member of the faculty at DePaul University as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Conflict Management Studies, teaching interest-based negotiations and conflict management, labor law, collective bargaining, human resource management and business law courses.

 031110 Managing Conflict (189.64 kB)