AFTERWORD

Whenever two or more people come together to live, play, or work, there are going to be differences. In the best of situations, there’ll be creativity; in the worst, there’ll be conflict.

In The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook, we presented a variety of situations in which people at work were in conflict. Through these examples, we tried to help our readers understand why these conflicts might exist. Our intent was to provide tips and insights into managing conflict in your workplace. However, conflict is complicated and often complex. Each encounter has to be acknowledged, assessed, and addressed on its own circumstances and merits. Managing conflict takes time, patience, and practice. It doesn’t come easily for many people and there’s an art to perfecting conflict resolution. The next time you encounter it, go to the balcony, take a deep breath, and thumb through this book again.

After we finished writing The Big Book of HR, we jokingly told people, “We’re still talking to each other!” We recognize that our working styles are different, but we don’t let our differences interfere with our work. We don’t have time for interferences. We’ve got more books to write!

Cornelia Gamlem

Barbara Mitchell

Washington, D.C.