What Is Your Conflict Style? Exploring the Thomas Killman Conflict Mode Instrument & Considering Conflict Mode Preferences in the Light of Gender & Culture Program

What is Your Conflict Style? Exploring the Thomas Killman Conflict Mode Instrument& Considering Conflict Mode Preferences in the Light of Gender & Culture

This program is co-sponsored by The Dispute Resolution Section of the New York State Bar Association and The New York Women’s Bar Association, ADR Committee.

Program Co-Chairs:
Marcy Einhorn, Esq., NYSBA DRS & NYWBA
Tania Pagan, Esq., NYSBA DRS & NYWBA

In this highly interactive, Zoom-based CLE presentation, Simeon H. Baum, Esq. of Resolve Mediation Services, Inc. (mediators.com), will engage participants in an exploration of their preferred mode of handling conflict as assessed by the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKCMI). After introducing this model, participants will perform a self-test, intended to reflect the modes they tend to adopt in conflict scenarios: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. While the TKMCI is value neutral on these five conflict modes, contemporary negotiation theory (the Harvard School, Fisher/Ury model) tends to favor collaboration. Gender studies generalize that men tend to be more competitive relative to women who are said to be more accommodative.

Sociological studies in cultures suggest that different cultures tend to foster or favor different conflict modes – some favoring accommodation and avoidance where others might favor competition. Our program will foster reflection on the implications of these modes, conflict theory, and gender and cross-cultural studies with the opportunity to enhance self-understanding, appreciation of the validity and value of all modes, and development of greater personal freedom in the selection of the mode which is most appropriate to the conflict. The program is thus potentially empowering for female negotiators and can enhance cross-cultural understanding and acceptance.

Simeon H. Baum has practiced law in New York City for nearly 40 years as a commercial and general civil litigator, and has served as a neutral since the early 1990s. He is a principal of the firm of Simeon H. Baum, Esq., and President of Resolve Mediation Services, Inc. (www.mediators.com). He was the founding Chair of the New York State Bar Association's Dispute Resolution Section, and has conducted over 2,000 mediations, including numerous commercial disputes. Over the last 25 years, Mr. Baum has presented multi-day Commercial Mediation trainings to hundreds, if not thousands, of participants in his Part 146 programs designed for mediators who might serve on the ADR panels of New York’s Commercial Divisions. He has taught, lectured, and written extensively on ADR, including teaching negotiation, mediation, and processes of dispute resolution at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He was selected as "Lawyer of the Year" for ADR in New York by Best Lawyers for 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2020.