Sometimes, when people quarrel about whose opinion is correct and who is wrong, I use a simple easy demonstration. Afterwards, they still might not agree who has the best opinion, but they will agree that each of their opinions depends on where they get their viewpoint. Try this at home, work, socially, or wherever you want to practice your conflict competence.

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

Conflicts over disagreeable opinions get personal so fast, and, too often, they get insulting. How can you hold such a wrong opinion, you may ask them? Here's an alternative that lets the discussion over opinions stay civil instead of turning into a fight that heats the house.

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

Conflicts follow patterns. Changing your conflict patterns improves your conflict competence. Here are three different approaches to changing your conflict pattern. Try all three. Use whichever works for you. You’ll be glad you did.

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

Close friends and family members can trigger your heated reactions even when you like or love each other. They think they know you even when you've grown past their image of you. You defend yourself even when you want to not react. We offer a simple (hard) technique to change the script so you can have a peaceful conversation. Our holiday gift to you.

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

Conflict overwhelms your calm conversational skills that connect you to the other person. So, how do you stay in touch with your calm conversational competence, to carry it into conflict competence? Deborah shows you how to hack your conversation competencies for conflict competencies.

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

It's great to have norms, manners, policy and structure that foster healthy relationships. But - if those aren't supporting your efforts, you can give yourself permission to be a role model for conflict competence. Here's how.

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

Change your conflict script; change your conflict. Here's a creative way to rewrite your conflict script to skip the conflict part of the script. Deborah shows her method for changing the future conflict by changing the present script.

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

When you expect something and it doesn't happen, who's to blame? What better ways are there to have your expectations met to your satisfaction? We discuss how to prevent conflict from disappointed expectations.

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