Learning Outcomes:

1) Participants will be able to explain and compare the conflict styles of avoidance, accommodation, collaboration, compromise and competition.
2) Participants will be prepared to manage these five conflict styles to achieve organizational goals.

Resolving conflicts is central to a law library’s peration, but it can be a perilous quest as the conflict styles of different employees often vary greatly. The UVA Players have evolved an energetic performance that explores conflict resolution in the law library using the theme of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Using a style similar to their Situational Leadership presentation in New Orleans, this program will bring the conflict situations faced by Monty Python’s King Arthur and the Knights to a present-day library context. The Knights of the Law Library will demonstrate how different conflict styles can actually be a positive force in achieving organizational goals. Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann’s Conflict MODE Instrument (TKI) assumes that individuals have innate styles for handling conflict, based on their tendency toward assertiveness or cooperativeness. Using the TKI concepts as a frame of reference, the audience will learn how to resolve typical library conflicts by identifying and managing the styles of avoidance, accommodation, collaboration, compromise and competition. Video clips, skits and dialogue will be used to demonstrate different methods of handling conflict situations.