Archive for the ‘Conflict Management’ Category

Shaking up the cognitive egg: thoughts on bullying, conflict and the brain

3rd May 2010 by juliediamond 4 Comments

As I’ve written about before, solving the problems of bullying depends on the society’s tolerance for abusive interaction. My good friend and colleague, Dawn Menken, psychotherapist and conflict resolution educator, wrote this thoughtful piece for the Oregonian last week. She raises many thought-provoking questions, and asks us to look at how we define bullying. Until [...]

Notes on scandal: leadership and public learning

6th April 2010 by juliediamond 2 Comments

Last week news broke that 15 year-old Phoebe Prince killed herself after months of harassment and bullying by her classmates at a South Hadley, MA high school. School administrators initially denied knowing anything about it, even though Prince’s mother had complained to school officials, and a renowned bullying expert had been called in to consult [...]

Giving Due Process

16th March 2010 by juliediamond 3 Comments

In a move which I find hard not to characterize as deliberately antagonistic, Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard and City Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade are pushing for a vote this week on a resolution to strengthen the citizen police oversight board while Police Chief Rosie Sizer is out of town. This would be the first major [...]

Single, available hero seeking big messy problem

4th December 2009 by juliediamond No Comments

What’s the solution for solving the health care mess? Global warming? The economy? OK, these are bad examples, obviously if we knew, and if it were that easy, they’d be solved. But the question I want to ask is, why do we wait to tackle our problems until they are so complicated, so messy, so [...]

Workplace Bullying and Cultural Tolerance

2nd November 2009 by juliediamond No Comments

Just finished a weekend training seminar on bullying in Auckland, New Zealand. It was terrific to have so many participants there involved in workplace bullying and harassment work. What’s increasingly evident as I tackle this topic around the globe is the role of cultural attitudes. To adequately fight bullying, we have to reduce our cultural [...]

A Story of Cars and Bikes: Or, is bigger always more powerful?

29th August 2008 by juliediamond No Comments

I’m a cyclist, and in summer, I spend hours and hours sharing the road with cars. Mostly I try to avoid very busy roads, but at times, it’s inevitable. Thanks goodness I’ve never had an accident involving a car, but there have been a few tense moments, mostly involving Winnebagos on Highway 101 on the [...]

Leading under Fire

24th April 2008 by juliediamond No Comments

I don’t believe leadership is best served by the parallels drawn to war and sports. It doesn’t capture the sense of service and eldership at the heart of leadership. But I do see one reason why military and sports metaphors are so often used to describe leadership challenges. War and sport have in common the [...]