Hot Situations, Cool Heads: How to Thrive When Conflict Arrives

Then the phone rings, or you read your email, or someone stops by, and suddenly things take a radical turn. Someone emailed your boss (instead of you) to say he doesn t like the layout you already approved for the company s home page. Or an angry customer has gone all the way to your District Manager to say you were rude to her. Maybe a sale you were sure was a slam dunk stalled overnight. A joke you told was taken out of context and an important colleague isn t amused.

It s only 9:30, but your day, a moment ago wide open and full of possibilities, has narrowed to a pinpoint: damage control. Depending on your personality, you may have immediate emotional and physical reactions: nervousness, muscle tightness, rapid heart rate, sweaty hands. For the moment at least, conflict has sapped your strength and pick pocketed your peace.

Does this have to be just a typical work day? Can you control the number of conflicts you have to face? The way you react to them? No. Yes. And definitely.

By the time you turn the last page of Hot Situations, Cool Heads, you ll have the tools you need to change how you see conflict, head it off before it has a chance to start, and handle hot situations in ways that save your sanity, build your reputation, and strengthen (yes, strengthen) your relationships. You ll go to work relaxed and confident that you can handle any conflict the day decides to lob at you.

In Part 1: Dare to Think Different, the authors challenge you to take a fresh look at conflict. Far from the spirit- and career-killer many people fear it is, conflict can be an opportunity.

. In Part 2: An Ounce of Prevention, you ll learn how to head unproductive conflict off before it has a chance to arrive at your office door.

Of course, there will be times when you ve simply got to face a conflict head on. It s real, it s intense, and it s right now. In Part 3: From Here to Harmony, the rubber meets the road with strategies for keeping an already hot situation from spinning out of control and ending it constructively.

You ll also get Doug and Diana s signature Working Wisdom and Leader Points, proven ideas from their years of helping clients create their own personal, team, and business breakthroughs.