A light hearted guide offering step-by-step advice that empowers readers to understand and overcome the conflicts they face at work.

Building on 20 years of workplace disputes, this book brings practical tools for resolving conflicts right into the employee’s hands. With a humorous and engaging approach, this book is a guide for everyone frustrated at work. The characters described are relatable, and the suggestions are described in a simple, easy-to-adopt plan.

Why is conflict in every workplace? Because there are so many different types of people with different needs, and no idea how to work together. Clare Fowler provides a hilarious overview of 2 wonderful personalities and 18 difficult ones (Micromanager, Chatty Cathy, The Hulk, Inappropriate Ivan, etc.) and gives you strategies for dealing with them. Explaining common processes for resolving conflict, she provides a quick and ready guide for any employee hoping to manage conflict, rise above the fray, and move forward successfully with everyone they work with. She offers suggestions for preventing conflict from reoccurring. Worksheets and solutions explorers will help you to find an easy plan for rising above your office conflict.

Clare Fowler, EdD, is the Executive vice-president at Mediate.com. She currently teaches workplace mediation at the University of Oregon School of Law and Pepperdine University. Dr. Fowler mediates and trains, focusing on workplace disputes.

Introduction..
1 – Conflict: Everybody Does It.
2 – Conflict: The Unwelcome Gift.
Positive effects on you
Positive effects on your family
Positive effects on your office

Part I. It’s Hard! Difficult Personalities, Difficult Situations, Difficult Communication..
3 –Clueless Carls.
4 – Snappy Sallies.
5 – Bad vs. Mean Communication..
6 – Horror Vacui

7 – Rude/Annoying Coworkers.
8 – Chatty Patties and Chatty Matts.
9 - Inappropriate Ingrids and Ivans.
10 – The Dude and the Dudette.
11 – Micromanagers.
12 – The Hulk..
Explosive Anger.
Angry, Rude, They-are-the-reason-I-drink Coworkers.
13 – Busier-Than-Thou People.
14 – Honey Badgers.
15 – High-Conflict People.
16 – The Passive-Aggressive.
17 – Neurodiverse Coworkers.
18 – Family Businesses.
19 – Dismissive Bosses.

Part II. Some Context on Conflict.
20 – Workplace Abuse—and What to Do About It?.
What Is Abuse?.
Preventing Abuse.
21 – Keeping Yourself Sane and Safe.
22 – This Is Your Brain on Conflict.

Part III. There Are Solutions!
23 – Preaching to the Choir.
24 – Why I’m Right and You’re Wrong...
25 – Vigilante Problem Solving…
26 – Keeping an Offer in Your Pocket.
27 – Delegating Disputes.
28 – Options for Empowering Yourself
29 – Rising Tides Raise All Boats.
30 – Faith-Based Problem Solving..
31 – Changing the System...

Part 4. Deciding to Stay or Go.
32 – Are Your Feelings Telling you to Go?
33 – What Are You Willing to Do?
34 – So You Stay…What Do You Do?
Resolving the Conflict.

Part V. Preventing Future Conflicts.
35 – Stick in the Mud.

36 – Straight, No Chaser.
Caramel M&Ms.
37 – The Road to Relationship Is Paved with Good Intentions.
38 – So, You Go…Changing the Devil You Know for the Angel You Don’t.
39 – Going Forward.

CONCLUSION.
About the Author.
Resources.

The Rosetta Stone for the workplace meets the Girlfriend’s Guide: pithy prose, punchy examples, pragmatic advice - and with plenty of references to baked goods, Star Wars, Princess Diana, and even Mother Theresa playing video games and scarfing Cheetos. The voicing is relatable, like you and your BFF in your jammies, painting your nails, gabbing about everything on your mind . . . and sorting it all out together. Well researched, thoughtfully structured with “sticky” and repeated thematic tools, this is no fluff piece. It’s versatile, offering depth and breadth - something for everyone, from the novice to the so-called expert. As a bonus, it will improve your vocabulary: if you don’t know what katagelasticism or thanatosis means, you’ll learn. Read to the end; you’ll be rewarded with a yummy bonus (but don’t skip to the end - that’s cheating!)
— S. Lucia Kanter St. Amour, Attorney, Mediator, Author, VP of Board, UN Women, San Francisco

Clare Fowler, a seasoned workplace mediator, has written a unique and much needed book, that is replete with nuanced insights and a broad understanding of the feelings, motives, and behaviors of the characters in the workplace. Her writing style is personal, charmingly self-effacing and self-disclosing, and overflowing with pithy humor throughout. This style functionally softens the impact of some of her tougher suggestions for managing challenging people in the workplace. Infused with her easy-reading style are practical and immediately useful perspectives and tools for helping the reader make the difficult choice of whether to stay or leave a difficult work environment. Her special emphasis on the “feminine side” of challenging workplace issues gives needed perspectives to shift the imbalance in gender power within the workplace, from overpowering to empowering women.

With a skillful integration of her fascination with baking into useful workplace metaphors, Clare’s book includes way more than a pinch of logic, a dash of intuition, a smidgen of science, and a hint of nice recipes (both conceptual and culinary). Together with a heaping dollop of research documentation, she has created a delicious metaphoric cake of rich substance and deep, complex flavors.

I highly recommend this delightful book, so filled with practical wisdom for anybody who seeks an in-depth understanding of the difficult colleagues they work with, along with effective tools for trying to continue working with them or deciding to move on to a better work environment.
— Donald T. Saposnek, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Family Mediator, and Author of Mediating Child Custody Disputes, and Co-Author of Splitting America

Large conflicts draw the most attention but it is the ongoing, small conflicts in our day, often in the workplace, that can have the deepest effect on our mental health and wellbeing. Dr. Clare Fowler’s new book, Rising Above Office Conflict, is the antidote we all need as she provides effective yet simple insights for managing the conflict in your life. Delightfully lighthearted with real-life examples and relatable personas, the book identifies the most common conflict behaviors and shares bite-sized strategies for managing those behaviors. This is the book that will help not only managers, HR professionals and employees, but truly, anyone and everyone, to better cope with all conflicts and to live a happier, healthier life.
— Susan Guthrie, Attorney, Mediator, Speaker, Trainer, and Host

In her engaging book Rising Above Conflict Clare gifts readers with a practical, interesting, and supportive resource to effectively find our way through workplace conflict. I particularly appreciate the rigour that went into Clare’s research and that it extended well beyond theory by for instance, providing copious real-life examples of common relatable disputes for which she suggests constructive ways to get through them. And it is a fun read that makes the serious palatable. I smiled lots!
— Cinnie Noble, Author of Conflict Management Coaching: The cINERGY Model and Conflict Mastery: Questions to Guide You

Fowler provides a practical toolkit for dealing with difficult personalities at work.
— Dr. Susan S. Raines, Professor of Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University