Will Work for Food Presents Different, Not Difficult: Understanding Conflict Dynamics a New Way

We often hear that a party is difficult before we ever meet them. It comes in the referral note, the intake call, the warning from counsel about the other side. When we accept that label, or apply it ourselves, we have made a judgment about someone whose process we are supposed to hold, and that judgment shapes what we hear, what we assume, whose story we probe, and where our patience runs out. Parties feel it. Once they do, our credibility may be gone, and credibility is what trust and influence are built on.

Conflict capacity is shaped by nature and nurture both: personality traits we are born with, values formed through experience, and skills we may or may not have learned along the way. This session examines those dynamics and turns the lens on the practitioner first. Through self-assessments on values and personality traits, participants will identify their own conflict responses and the party profiles most likely to pull them off neutral. Because disagreement does not mean opposition. It often just means difference. We will look at why values-based conflict feels so personal, why some parties engage while others withdraw, and how to make room for difference at the table.