When you meet someone, you leave impressions on each other. You can't know for sure what impression you leave, but you can guess. And, then you'll behave as if your guess is correct. Feeling misunderstood and judged? You'll act as if you are misunderstood and judged. Maybe you're right; or maybe you're misunderstanding and judging. Your thoughts and beliefs direct your actions, so it's a conflict competence to pay attention to them. Here are three automatic thought biases to be aware of, with suggestions to help you own them.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Have you been uncomfortable when someone you disagree with insists on telling you why you're wrong? We discuss some conflict competent responses to bridge the gap between you and the person who is scolding you. We use examples of polarizing topics, and suggest sample questions that turn the division into conversation.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Perhaps you ask: "What's a conflict communication audit and why do one?" It isn't like a corporate communication audit of executive memos and such. Do you understand how you show up in a conflict? Your conflict communication audit includes your words, actions, and impressions you give during conflicts. Your conflict communication audit takes all your conduct and context into account, from the perspective of the person you're in conflict with. 
What you say and do might not be what they hear and observe. Check in with them even during emotional moments, elicit their feedback, and listen to their opinion with humility. They have information that will help you improve your conflict competency. Each conflict communication audit builds your skills.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Conflict drops a lot of decisions on you, and there's no perfect decision that guarantees the outcome you prefer. Your decisions in conflict depend on many factors, some of which are out of your control. When you think about bias limiting or helping your decisions, you increase your conflict competence. Deborah discusses how that works.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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When does a relationship end? At the breakup over a conflict? Or when you stop reliving it in your mind? After the breakup, do you go over what happened, supplying all the dialogue with brilliant responses you  wish you had at the time the conflict got bad? Deborah and Tyson discuss some strategies to let go of that tightly coupled ended relationship you carry in your mind.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Taking emotional risks in conflict is like a leavening agent that helps your conflict competence rise. In this mini-cast, Deborah discusses how you can combine your skills like ingredients in a recipe.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Words we use show others how we view the world. If common expressions use fighting and battle language, what does that say about our mindset, and what common words would convey peace instead? Deborah and Tyson have suggestions.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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There isn't one perfect way to get the result you want in a conflict, so it's helpful to have options. Here's an exercise that can give you more strategies for defusing situations, and managing conflicts. Deborah shares an entertaining and easy strategy.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Dial down conflict heat with Dialogue as a process. When high emotion makes dialogue for resolution seem impossible, try process Dialogue. Deborah and Tyson discuss how that works.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Integrating subjective and objective ideas helps the conflict analysis of your thinking, your assumptions, the context, and other variables that affect your conflict. 

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Even when you agree on almost everything, you can still have conflict over the details. You may all want the same thing and disagree over how to accomplish your goal. Deborah and Tyson discuss what to do about it.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Analyzing your conflict ensures you answer the right question and solve the right problem. Deborah gives tips for conducting your conflict analysis.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Send us a text. We love hearing from you.

Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Here's what's unique about this podcast: 
Our belief is that you already have skills to manage conflict. We help you practice your skills, so you improve your conflict competencies. Rather than focusing on resolving any particular conflict, in each episode we point out one or two of your skills that are useful with most people in many contexts. We show how resolution can emerge as a result of you owning your conflict. 
In this episode, Tyson and Deborah record in the same room for the first time, and Deborah shares the secret of her wearing the dandelion logo shirt. You can watch this episode, and see the shirt @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGlj7QiQJO4 

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Conflicts are different than disagreements, so it's helpful to define the word. Deborah offers a useful definition that also shows you where you can change the conflict dynamic.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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You have more power and opportunity to change a conflict situation than you might believe. 

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Conflict is like a dandelion. A weed is unwelcome and hard to eliminate, but also has a use. In this mini-cast you will hear tips for managing and for using conflict.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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What you most often do in conflict becomes your default pattern, and gets stronger than conflict strategies that you don't choose as often. It's a choice.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Send us a text. We love hearing from you.

Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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The movie, Superman, is a fun practice tool for analyzing how intentions matter in conflicts. As you intend, your actions follow. As Superman fights Lex Luthor's metahumans on the battlefield, they also wage a media war of words to win public belief over who is to be believed. Which one of them has true intention for good and which one has secret intention for evil? Luthor undermines trust in Superman's intentions, but Superman has allies uncovering the secrets of Luthor's intentions. In the end, the fight over intentions holds as much power among us humans as the beatings does among the metahumans.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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It's achieved international newsworthiness that people are offending and being offended, cancelling and being cancelled, silent and being silenced. The headlines exist because someone insists that they have the only correct opinion. And, it might be the correct opinion, but is it the only allowable opinion? We discuss some conflict competent approaches when you're feeling offended or have been accused of being offensive.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Would you like to have the secret to resolving your conflict? The secret is: improve your conflict competency so you have skills to handle almost any conflict. No model or script is needed for the skills we encourage you to practice and use. They are: (1) conflict analysis, (2) self-awareness, and (3) appropriate conflict styles. The details are in the episode, just as two small cute dogs come to check what's happening in the office. To see the dogs, go to YouTube.com@conflict-owners-manual.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Elite athletes heal faster and manage pain better than most people. We can apply their techniques to improve our conflict competence and manage conflicts better than most people. So, what are those techniques, and how can we apply them to conflicts?


Show notes:
Research paper:
Carole A. Paley, and Mark I. Johnson. 25 June 2025. Human Resilience and Pain Coping Strategies: A Review of the Literature Giving Insights from Elite Ultra‐Endurance Athletes for Sports Science, Medicine and Society. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-025-02277-4

Conflict Owner's Manual episodes about these coping strategies include:

Episode 64: How is self awareness a conflict competency?
Episode 78: How do you use and practice conflict analysis?
Episode 81: 81 How conflict competence impacts loneliness for the better.
Episode 85: How to stay non-defensive when verbally attacked, respond rather than react.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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When someone posts about a conflict on social media, they can expect comments and judgment to pile on. Did the person who posted talk to the other parties in the conflict before asking everyone in cyberspace to judge? In this conflict analysis of a social media post, we discuss assumptions, boundaries, expectations, public grievances, and who might be taking advantage of whom. This episode is part of our series of conflict analysis using popular culture for practice.

show notes:
These episodes of Conflict Owner's Manual discuss topics covered in this episode:

Binary choices
Episode 37 What if you are given an "either this or that" forced choice?

Assumptions
Episode 42 What connects assumptions, beliefs and intentions in conflicts?

Boundaries
Episode 29 When conflicts outgrow their original boundaries

Expectations 
Episode 17 Are disappointed expectations causing your conflicts?

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Why would you want to own your conflict? When you don’t manage yourself in conflict, do you make the situation worse? Here are three steps to take towards owning your conflict, so that you can be the conflict competent person you want to be.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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We recorded this episode before this week's political assassination, but as I listen to the recording before posting it, that's what I think about. If we reduce a human being to just their politics, or to a single trait, or to one note of their personality, we lose more than we can possibly 'win' (whatever winning might even mean). So, can you disagree, or have a conflict with someone and not have it degenerate into a fight? We discuss how.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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You can practice conflict competence almost anywhere, using every interaction, even characters' dialogue in cartoons. Using two cartoons as examples, we analyze the scripts for the opportunities to understand each other that the characters missed. (Please accept that we changed the character names).

show notes:
Cartoon #1, Between Friends, by Sandra Bell-Lundy 
Parent: Wear your boots. It’s snowing.
Child: I’m not wearing boots. It’s spring.
Parent: But it’s snowing.
Child: But it’s spring.
Parent: But it’s snowing.
Child: But it’s spring.
Parent: What do I have to do to make them understand?
Child: What do I have to do to make them understand?



Cartoon #2, For Better or Worse, by Lynn Johnson

Deborah: I see your sister is going away to university
Tyson: She’s not too excited about it though. She doesn’t want to leave her friends.
Deborah: Yeah, long distance relationships don’t work out too well.
Tyson: Deborah, you know I’d go to school here if I could, but I can’t.
Deborah: What makes you think I was talking about us? You didn’t hear what I said.
Tyson: I heard what you didn’t say.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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What happens when your discomfort with taking risks clashes with someone's need to be on time? Or, you think your comment is realistic but someone calls you a negative thinker for saying it? 
We show how to use Perspective Taking to turn differences in opinions and values into conversations before they become conflicts.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Some conflicts expand beyond their origin story, so you lose track of who started the conflict, and what your original conflict conflict goals were. That's conflict creep, where conflict exceeds the simpler scope and more limited objectives you had when the conflict started. After a conflict creeps, parties forget about solving the problem, and just want to win. So, how do you stop conflict creep? Using John Paul Lederach's six stages of conflict escalation, we look at how you can recognize the stages, and stop conflict creep.

show notes:
Lederach, J. P. (1999). The Journey Toward Reconciliation. Waterloo, ON, Herald Press.
conflict escalates through six changes. 
1, people place blame instead of accepting responsibility. 
2, everything that’s wrong replaces the simpler issue that began the conflict. 
3, language becomes accusatory, generalized and defensive. 
4, people seek allies, and categorize others as friends or enemies. 
5, people believe they're justified to react to the latest insult and aggressions.
6, no middle ground remains, and people stop communicating.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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What skills help in a conflict where you're willing to talk but the other person is avoiding you? We discuss conflict styles, so that you can choose what's most conflict competent to use in the context, situation, and relationship. 

show notes:
episode 46: How to decide whether to engage in, ignore or avoid conflict
episode 50: What you miss when you respond the same to every conflict

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Even regular folks like us are affected by this era of polarized conflict. It isn't just politics and social media that has become polarized in how conflicts play out. What does it mean for our personal relationships and ourselves personally when we fall prey to polarizing conflict in our personal relationships?

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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You have at least five conflict management styles available to use, depending on the context and the relationship. Your conflict competency is using the most appropriate conflict management style for the situation, and the outcome you hope to achieve. But you likely use one or two conflict styles you're most comfortable with. We discuss the conflict style known as competing. When is competing an appropriate style to use, and when does competing not serve you and your relationships well?

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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What does a good wellness program at work offer? The 2024, Wellhub State of Work-life Wellness Report lists some of the benefits of a good wellness program. Mostly missing is the benefit of a good conflict management system. Here are tips for discussing a conflict management system design at work, even before you get the job, because the stress of conflict is incompatible with wellness, unless it's well managed.

show notes: 
https://wellhub.com/en-us/resources/work-life-wellness-report-2024/

Episode 31:  Is conflict competence a "soft" skill?

Conflict management systems, examples, https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/preventing-and-managing-team-conflict/

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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We continue exploring the conflict management styles you have available to use, depending on the context and the relationship. Your conflict competency is using the most appropriate conflict management style for the situation, and the outcome you hope to achieve.
You have a choice of five broad categories of conflict management styles, but you likely use one or two conflict styles you're most comfortable with. We discuss the conflict style known as compromising. When is compromising an appropriate style to use, and when does compromising not serve you well?

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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You use your conflict competencies in every conflict. You can choose how your conflict competency and managing conflict work together. The key is your awareness of your conflict management mindset. Here are a few tips for powering the mindset that will help you do conflict better and improve the quality of your relationships.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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There is no 'best' conflict management style to use in all contexts and for all relationships. Your conflict competency is using the most appropriate conflict management style for the situation, the context, and the relationship.

You have a choice of five broad categories of conflict management styles, but most likely you usually default to using only the one or two conflict styles you're most comfortable with. We discuss the conflict style known as accommodating. When is accommodating others an appropriate style to use, and when does accommodating not serve you well? 

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Sometimes, even when you try hard to resolve a conflict you hit an impasse. There are many possible reasons that a conflict resists resolution, and one is when your communication styles are so different that you become impatient and frustrated with each other. You want to find a way forward, but you just can't seem to understand their approach to the problem. Here are some conflict competencies for dealing with this communication mismatch.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Being able to analyze conflict is one of the most important conflict competencies. You will want to know what's really going on, underneath the issue that seems to be what the conflict is about. If you understand what the actual conflict reveals, not the surface issue someone is yelling about, you have a better chance of coming up with the right questions to solve the right problem. But, how do you learn conflict analysis skills without creating a conflict for practice? We use popular culture, in this case, the TV show titled "Plan B". It's an excellent example of characters desperately trying to fix relationships while solving the wrong problem.

show notes:
Episode 67: Is trust a necessary ingredient for managing your conflicts?

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Are you more polite to strangers than to friends? Do friends trigger you in ways that co-workers don't? Why do you listen and react differently to your loved one than with a friend? 

Listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give for free. Despite costing nothing and improving much, listening can be rare in relationships. We discuss some conflict competencies for listening better, because listening improves the quality of relationships.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Tyson and I are grateful to have Conflict Owners Manual listeners ranging in age from teen to seniors. Who is too young and who is too old to improve their conflict competence? Only you can decide when you're ready. But, there's one more consideration. Conflicts also age. The common wisdom is that managing a conflict early is easier, but that doesn't mean an old conflict can't respond well to your conflict competency. Here are some suggestions for how to be conflict competent at any age you and your conflict are.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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When others verbally attack you, it's hard to keep your cool. Three common but ineffective arguments an opponent might use against you are: 
1. ad hominem attacks, (attacking you personally rather than discussing what you said)
2. "straw man" arguments, (misquoting you and attacking you for the misquote as if you'd said it) and 
3. simply being a jerk. 
We offer strategies for being conflict competent, even during the many ways you might be misquoted, misunderstood, accused, and called out. We don't recommend that you verbally attack in retaliation.

Show notes:
Episode 56: What's the disconnect between your intention and the impact?

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Some conflict competencies are subtle and invisible to others. Two skills start as small differences in your approach to conflict that lead to a big difference in outcomes. One skill applies to your mindset, and what you believe. The other skill applies to your behaviour, and what you do. Together, these two conflict competencies are powerful tools in your conflict competency toolbox.

Show notes:
Episode #5, How to change the other person in a conflict.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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What would your situation look like if you weren't afraid? Fear is a 360 degree driver of conflict, from starting conflict to escalation, to creating impasse, to preventing implementation of an agreement. There are conflict competencies for meeting the fears that hold you back from having difficult conversations. We discuss some of those conflict competencies, and demonstrate how they might improve the quality of your relationships.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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No one is born conflict competent. Over time, we learn complex communication. The quality of our relationships improves. In this second take on what skills we wish our younger selves had known, we move up a decade to slightly more advanced conflict competencies: perspective taking, and graciously accepting that loving critics give feedback we might need to hear (even if we don't like it).

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Conflict competence improves quality of relationships. Building community improves quality of life. In this era of loneliness, where friends are so important, are your relationships dependent on your friends having opinions you agree with or like? Here are some strategies for sharing conflicting points of view (POV) without it causing conflict. Improve your conflict competence, have friends, build community, improve quality of life.

Show notes
Episode 64: How is self awareness a conflict competency?

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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No one is born conflict competent. Babies don't negotiate, they demand. Over time, we grow up and learn people skills. The quality of our relationships improves. For some, with homes that nurture learning these skills, conflict competence comes early and easy. For some, like me, home wasn't a calm and conflict competent environment. My learning conflict competence was a long, slow and deliberate undertaking. After breaking up with my family at 20, I learned to appreciate them using my conflict competencies. Now, we're close and loving. Learning conflict competencies improved the quality of my relationships with dozens of family members. Here's what I'd tell my 20-year-old self, to speed up the learning process.

show notes
Episode 52: When conflict competency doesn’t work for you.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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If you find yourself sharing space, whether with a partner, roommate, family, or stranger, it's a good idea to agree with them on a conflict management plan. But, if you didn't have an agreement on how to resolve conflicts before you have a conflict, it isn't too late to invite the discussion. Here are some suggestions.

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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The conflict competency I use most often is conflict analysis. You want to answer the right question and resolve the correct conflict, which means analyzing what's really going on. Look beneath the surface, and dig deeper than motives and personalities. These two novels demonstrate the types of analysis that get to the heart of the conflict.

show notes:
The two novels are:
The Man Who Saw Seconds, by Alexander Boldizar. (2024)
Blue Ticket, by Sophie Mackintosh. (2020)

Other episodes about conflict analysis are:
Episode #8, What is a conflict analysis?
Episode #10, How integrating ideas helps you manage conflict.
Episode #75, What movie, show or book shows conflict well done?

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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This is the third episode on what makes a good question in conflict situations. We look at the purpose you want your question to serve in the conflict you’re having. The conflict competence is to use good questions as an invitation into a conversation. We show you how. 

Show notes
Episode 72: what’s a good question when you’re calm may not land the same way on someone you’re in a conflict with. Here are suggestions for asking good questions in conflicts.
Episode 74: what’s a good question at the start of a conflict may not be the right question for a different time in a continuing conflict. Here are suggestion for asking good questions at the right time in conflicts.

A Conflict Analysis of Why: In conflict situations, questions starting with the word ‘why’ can make the conflict worse. Here’s why, outlined in my article A Conflict Analysis of Why: https://deborahsword.com/a-conflict-analysis-of-why/

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

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Have you ever dumped a friend? Did you do it well? Would the dumped friend agree you did it well? Or, have you stayed friends with someone for a reason other than enjoying their company? We discuss some conflict competencies for breaking up with a friend, to give choices, set boundaries, speak up sooner, respectful decision making, accommodating discomfort, and answering (or not) their question, "why?"

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Dr. Deborah Sword is a conflict specialist with decades of experience and training to share.

Please subscribe to our podcast, like it, share it, leave comments (we love comments), ask questions and suggest topics you'd like to hear. Thank you for listening.