Hot Buttons: How to Resolve Conflict and Cool Everyone Down

COMM 332 - Negotiation

First Summer Session 2005

INDIVIDUAL PROJECT

BOOK REVIEW

Title: Hot Buttons: How To Resolve Conflict And Cool Everyone Down

Publisher: Cliff Street Books

Place of Publication: New York

Year of Publication: 2000

Number of Pages: 336

Price of the Book: Price ranges from $ .46 to $23 depending if the

book is new, used, hard cover, paperback, or collectible.

The book “Hot Buttons: How To Resolve Conflict And Cool Everyone Down” talks about conflict management. The following is a background on the contributors:

- Sybil Evans is a nationally recognized specialist in conflict resolution and diversity issues. As president of the consulting firm Sybil Evans Associates, Evans is a widely sought after trainer and speaker, enriching the relationship skills of individuals and Fortune 500 companies, including Campbell’s Soup, Avon, Lucent Technologies, and AT&T. She is also the author of “Resolving Conflict in a Diverse Workplace”.

- Sherry Suib Cohen is the author of eighteen Books, a contributing editor to McCall’s, and an award-winning member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

The book is organized as follows:

Chapter 1 -- What's a Hot Button?

Chapter 2 -- Hot Buttons Everywhere!

Chapter 3 -- Hot Buttons: Hazardous to Your Health!

Chapter 4 -- What Pushes Your Buttons?

Chapter 5 -- Hot Buttons and Intimacy

Chapter 6 -- Hot Buttons and the Family

Chapter 7 -- Hot Buttons and Children

Chapter 8 -- Hot Buttons and Friendship

Chapter 9 -- Hot Buttons and the Workplace

Chapter 10 -- The Magic of Your Mind

The book's core concept is to develop cooperative collaborations that generate win-win solutions that everyone wants to implement. These are built from a five-step process:

1) Watch what's going on like you are a part of an audience to a play so you experience detachment and objectivity. This helps calm you down.

2) Confirm the validity of the other person's point of view to them in order to help calm them down and positively engage their attention.

3) After the other person's anger is sufficiently diffused, ask questions neutrally and respectfully to get more information.

4) Assert your own interests and needs in terms of the other person's perspective and story. The other person now listens to you because you first listened to them.

5) Find common ground for a solution. Brainstorm possible solutions, and then deal with both of your issues to find the optimum ways to build a win-win direction that works well.

The authors include a story that has been repeated many times in mediation/conflict resolution literature to make the win/win point --we even used a very similar example in one of our class group exercises.

"The Orange Story"

Two kids both want the last orange. They fight over it. They reject a compromise - cutting it in half - that won't satisfy either, really. Mom walks in. She knows about collaboration and win/win. She knows she has to find out their needs, try to be fair, and come up with options so that each child feels she has won. "Why do you want the orange?" she asks one child. "I'm thirsty - I want juice," is the answer. "And why do you want the orange?" she asks the other. "I want the rind to make orange icing for my cake" is the answer. Mom gives all the rind to one child and the whole orange to the other. Both win. The lesson is that the first step to agreement is understanding each point of view.

The authors appear to believe that conflict is the result of people pressing each other's hot buttons. As stated in the book, "A hot button is an emotional trigger." Your hot buttons get pushed when people call you names, don't respond to you, take what