Chapter 1 - The Nature of Conflicts

1.00 Course Intro (7 min.) Sample Lesson
1.01 The Nature of Conflicts (8 min.) Quiz: 1.01 The Nature of Conflicts
1.02 Finding the Root Cause: The Coherence Trap (15 min.) Quiz: 1.02 Finding the Root Cause: The Coherence Trap
1.03 Understanding the Impact of Complexity (8 min.) Quiz: 1.03 Understanding the Impact of Complexity
1.04 Why Conflicts are not Negotiations (9 min.) Quiz: 1.04 Why Conflicts are not Negotiations

Chapter 2 - Some Science on Complex Conflicts

2.01 The Theory: Nonlinear Dynamical Systems (12 min.) Quiz: 2.01 The Theory: Nonlinear Dynamical Systems
2.02 The Power of Agent-Based Modelling (8 min.) Quiz: 2.02 The Power of Agent-Based Modelling
2.03 Design Thinking Like an Engineer (11 min.) Quiz: 2.03 Design Thinking Like an Engineer
2.04 The Seven Principles of Focal Thinking (8 min.) Quiz: 2.04 The Seven Principles of Focal Thinking

Chapter 3 - The Focal Thinking Process

3.01 Why We Are The Obstacle (8 min.) Quiz: 3.01 Why We Are The Obstacle
3.02 Managing Conflicts by Key Moments (11 min.) Quiz: 3.02 Managing Conflicts by Key Moments
3.03 Change the Interactions (7 min.) Quiz: 3.03 Change the Interactions
3.04 How to be Persuasive in Conflicts (12 min.) Quiz: 3.04 How to be Persuasive in Conflicts

Chapter 4 - Navigating Your Office Environment

4.01 Roadblocks at the Office (6 min.) Quiz: 4.01 Roadblocks at the Office
4.02 How To Use Organizational Change Management (6 min.) Quiz: 4.02 How To Use Organizational Change Management
4.03 A Practical Roadmap to Collaborative Decision Making (8 min.) Quiz: 4.03 A Practical Roadmap to Collaborative Decision Making
4.04 How to Stay Resilient for the Long Term (8 min.)

Megaproject Conflicts: Hard Science on Handling the Human Element / Chapter 1 - The Nature of Conflicts

Lesson 1.00 Course Intro

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Transcript

01. Lesson 1.00: Course Intro 02. Course Outline 03. Course Outline...

01. Lesson 1.00: Course Intro

Hi, I'm Dr. Mark Zabo. Welcome to the Megaproject Conflict course. I'm very happy that you're here. Just a little bit about me. I've got my Ph.D. in complex conflicts. I'm the founder of the Zabo Center for Complex Conflict. And I'd like to kind of ease you into this course to give you a sense of what you're in for and hopefully this will give you a good look at what you're going to be learning in the next little while.
So one of the biggest challenges of large public facing megaprojects is dealing with the non-technical requirements, especially the human element. As engineers and business leaders, project managers and technical experts, we're trained in everything we need to know to make the project work, but not always for what happens when the project is released into the wild. That's when things get really complex. Opposition starts to come up out of nowhere, things spin out of control. People take things the wrong way, protests will crop up. And it doesn't seem to matter how much fact based evidence we give people about the benefits of the project. Even more frustrating, our extensive negotiation training just seems to make things worse sometimes. So spoiler alert, conflicts and negotiations are not the same thing as we'll find out. It's frustrating for folks like us sometimes who are trained in STEM in hard sciences because we're not always trained on how to deal with large groups of people at the scale which you run into in megaprojects. In fact, I would argue that our collective inability as an industry to manage those non-technical requirements is one of the biggest Achilles heel that the energy industry faces. We're just not equipped and we're getting outperformed by the people who are.
There's plenty of training material on how to deal with conflict within an organization or within teams. What we're talking about is conflict outside of the organization. Once your project has been launched into the wild and has become public facing, that's when things get really interesting. The human mind is complex enough to begin with, but when you start dealing with large groups of humans, things take on a whole new dimension of complexity. What we need is a model that can handle the human non-technical requirements. As many of us can relate to, the cost of getting that wrong can be catastrophic.
The good news is there actually is some hard science on how to deal with large groups of conflicting people. Once you learn a little bit about that science, then it becomes way easier to understand what we need to do to manage the complex nature of the kind of conflicts that inevitably arise around big public megaprojects.
This course will equip you with some important tools that may be missing from your toolkit right now. We're going to spend just a little bit of time on the hard science behind complex conflicts. Then we'll look at what the implications of that hard science are for how to deal with those types of public facing conflicts.
Next will outline some very practical steps that you and your team can put into place to help you survive, but also thrive in a complex environment. We'll also be applying some tools from various other disciplines who are already well equipped and adept at dealing with these sort of situations.
Finally, we'll spend a little bit of time talking about how to navigate your own internal office environment. This last point is going to be really important because the tools that you'll learn are going to be disruptive. We can't expect to keep doing the same thing and anticipate different results. So the fact that we're going to adjust our approach is going to be inherently disruptive for folks back at the office. Once you learn all of these tools and how to apply them, you're going to need to be as persuasive back at the office as much as you are with the folks in the public.
This course will cover the main tenets of the book Fight Different, the power of vocal thinking and systemic conflicts.Mark Szabo, "Fight Different: The Power of Focal Thinking in Systemic Conflicts" You'll have the opportunity to absorb and engage with the content in an easy to understand way and reflect on how you can make immediate practical application to your current work environment. After each lesson, you'll be expected to complete a little quiz and then engage in a time of focused self-reflection about how you might apply what you've learned to your own situation. At the end of the course, those reflections will be a roadmap for you to use in your own situation. That will be arguably the most important, tangible outcome from this course.

02. Course Outline

The lessons will be divided into four modules. Module One will look at the nature of complex conflicts so we can understand what we're actually up against. You'll learn how your own mindset is the key to leading in complex conflicts. That the root cause is something I call the Coherence Trap, the impact of complexity and why conflicts are not negotiations.
Module Two we'll pull together some practical tools from complexity science. You'll learn about non-linear dynamical systems. How engineers use agent based modeling. How we can apply design thinking tools. And the practical principles of focal thinking.

03. Course Outline...

Module Three will get even more practical. You'll learn why humans are the obstacle. How and why to organize your activity around key moments in a conflict. How and why To focus on changing interactions between individuals. And how conflict persuasion actually works.
Module Four will get you equipped for winning at the office. You'll learn how to navigate the obstacles you'll face with coworkers. How to leverage organizational change management tools. A roadmap for collaborative decision making. And then, how to stay resilient in the face of constant change.
When you complete this course, you'll have a science-based approach to dealing with the human element of your non-technical requirements. This will equip you to show leadership in the midst of complex conflicts. You'll understand how you can focus your effort and that of your team to survive and thrive on complexity. You'll be persuasive with your detractors and with your own coworkers. The best part is you'll be able to use this to your advantage, but you can also use it to the advantage of those who may be currently standing in your way. Not to be dramatic about it, but the world needs efficient ethical energy. The better you can navigate the human landscape, the more you can be part of making that reality. Sound good? Okay, let's get started.