S.A.I.L. (Students Actively Involved in Leadership) held a Conflict Resolution workshop Tuesday, Feb. 21, at 3:30 in Sykes Student Union. S.A.I.L. programs focus on promoting and encouraging leadership development and interaction among students. The programs, which take place once or twice every week, emphasize different leadership skills to enhance student organizations and communities.
Robby Essaf, a S.A.I.L. leadership consultant, led the program, which teaches and encourages students to work towards successful and positive conflict resolution. He explained that communication breakdown is the problem and solution for resolving conflict.
Essaf went over a seven step plan for confrontation as well as eight ways to improve listening skills. The steps include initiate contact, establish rapport, identify the issue, agree on the issue, obtain attainable commitment, decide to keep commitment and praise others’ success. These steps are important to handle confrontation successfully.
The program stressed that communication is 90% listening, therefore listening skills are crucial in resolving conflict. Eight ways to improve listening skills are to listen for facts, for names, for things to agree with, for specifics, until speaker is through, for opinion, for solutions and to yourself.
The next S.A.I.L. program, Collaboration and Consensus Building, will be held on Friday, March 3 in Sykes 209 at 12:00 p.m.