The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Conflict Management Tools

Experiential Learning Activities: Conflict and the Organization

This section offers six experiential learning activities—all role plays—that confront participants with conflict on a wider scale: interdepartmental budget fights, culture clashes in a merger, and more. Two exercises, "Crime Fighting Task Force" and "Piccadilly Manor," take participants outside the workplace altogether for a taste of the sort of infighting that goes on in community politics. The learning points, however, are very much back to business.

• Budget Cutting: Conflict and Consensus Seeking"—Realistic role play involving an interdepartmental clash over company resources.

• Winterset High School: An Intergroup Conflict Simulation—Role play illustrating conflicts that arise from ...