A Summary and Brief Outline of Our Online Courses

Since conflict occurs in every aspect of human experience, from between two people to among many nations, it’s vital to better understand our choices in conflict situations. The Thomas-Kilmann Instrument (TKI) measures five such choices, referred to as conflict-handling modes: competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating, and avoiding. Taking the TKI assessment helps you learn which conflict-handling modes you’ve probably been using too much or too little, so you can learn to make better choices with every one of the five modes—depending on the particular attributes in a conflict situation.

Besides applying the TKI throughout our online courses, we also utilize several other self-report assessments, including the Kilmann-Saxton Culture-Gap® Survey, Kilmanns Organizational Belief Survey, Kilmanns Time-Gap Survey, and Killmanns Team-Gap Survey. These assessment tools help people learn more about themselves as well as their organization—which inspires change and systemwide improvement.

On this page, you'll find a summary and brief outline for our online courses, all of which have been designed to deepen your understanding of conflict management and to improve your skills in change management for a great variety of situations—both personal and professional. At the bottom of this page, we offer a free download of Dr. Kilmann's April 2011 article, "Celebrating 40 Years with the TKI Assessment," which provides a more detailed overview of the many principles and practices you'll experience during our series of online courses.

1. BASIC Training in Conflict Management (BTCM)

Our 80 minute BASIC course (including a 30 page Course Manual) focuses on the TKI and how to interpret your results (as well as those of other people) with regard to five conflict-handling modes: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. But first you'll learn about the underlying dimensions of conflict management: assertiveness and cooperativeness. And you will also be exposed to three additional dimensions for interpreting conflict-handling behavior: the distributive, integrative, and protective dimensions. If you haven’t had much exposure to conflict management and the TKI, this course is a great introduction in a short amount of time. We have found that people who begin with this course are soon eager to proceed with our next courses, especially when they see how easy it is to learn new knowledge and skills on their desktop computers or mobile devices.

Course Outline:

1. Welcome and Overview
2. Seeing the Big Picture and the Eight Tracks
3. Foundations of Conflict Management
4. The TKI: Instructions and Underlying Dimensions
5. The Five Conflict Modes
6. Your TKI Profile: The Meaning of High and Low Modes
7. The Eight Key Attributes of a Conflict Situation: When to Use Each Mode
8. Additional Dimensions of the TKI Conflict Model
9. Interpreting TKI Results: Six Examples of Different Profiles
10. Congratulations and Next Steps

2. ADVANCED Training in Conflict Management (ATCM)

Our 8 hour ADVANCED Training (including a 132 page Course Manual) provides an even deeper understanding of the TKI. For example, you will learn how certain enduring psychological traits predispose people to use different modes for resolving conflict. Once you become aware of the connection between your traits and your modes, however, you’ll find it easier to use each conflict-handling mode as needed. In this advanced course, you’ll also learn the ten key principles of group process and then you’ll learn the five steps of problem management. And finally, all these key principles and action steps are all combined in the Problem Management Organization, or PMO for short. In a nutshell, this more advanced material is precisely what will allow you to use the TKI to help resolve conflicts and problems in complex systems, including organizations, communities, and nations.

Course Outline:

1. Welcome and Overview
2. Learning Outcomes
3. Seeing the Big Picture and the Eight Tracks
4. Foundations of Conflict Management
5. Foundations of Psychological Type
6. Group Process and the Process Observer (PO)
7. Introduction to Problem Management
8. Analyzing the Paul Marshall's Department Stores Case
9. The Nature of Problems: Simple vs. Complex
10. The Problem Management Organization (PMO)
11. Graduation and Certificate

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3. Culture Management Course (CMC)

Building on all that is learned in the ADVANCED course, our 6 hour course on Culture Management (including a 130 page Course Manual) focuses on the culture track, the first of eight tracks for succeeding at systemwide change and improvement…which is now termed: quantum transformation. Without first establishing a culture that fosters trust, candor, openness, information sharing, and a willingness to work with diverse others, it will be most difficult for any work group or organization to manage its problems and conflicts successfully. Making use of our Culture-Gap Survey and a number of work sheets for identifying and closing culture-gaps, you’ll learn a very practical method—based on the steps of problem management—for establishing a satisfying and productive culture in any social system.

Course Outline:

1. Welcome and Overview
2. Seeing the Big Picture
3. Introduction to Culture
4. Identifying Culture-Gaps
5. Taking the Culture-Gap Survey
6. Defining Four Culture-Gaps
7. Problem Management and Culture-Gaps
8. Closing Culture-Gaps
9. Taking The Belief Survey
10. Defining Three Beliefs
11. Congratulations

4. Critical Thinking Course (CTC)

Also building on what you learn from our previous courses, in our 6 hour Critical Thinking Course (including a 96 page Course Manual), you’ll learn how to uncover the false assumptions behind your most cherished beliefs, which is based on the powerful method of Assumptional Analysis. Because there has been so much dramatic change in the world during the past few decades, most of us are unconsciously making assumptions about key stakeholders that ONCE might have been true, but are now clearly false. By using the steps of assumptional analysis (in the second track of eight tracks of quantum transformation), you’ll be able to uncover and then revise your false assumptions, so your decisions and actions will now be based on today’s updated reality, not yesterday’s outdated fantasy.

Course Outline:

1. Welcome and Overview
2. Seeing the Big Picture and the Eight Tracks
3. Reviewing Problem Management: The Five Steps
4. Two Inquiring Systems: The Lockean and the Hegelian Method
5. Assumptional Analysis: The Descriptive and the Normative Approach
6. Using Descriptive Assumptional Analysis for Atwater County Hospital East
7. The PMO for Addressing the Most Complex/Important Problems
8. Applying What We Learned: Normative Assumptional Analysis
9. Graduation and Certificate

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5. Team Management Course (TMC)

As compared to our other online courses, Team Management spends relatively less time on presenting new concepts and theories. Instead, Team Management provides consultants, trainers, and work groups with expert guidance on how to make the best use of team-focused assessment tools and work sheets for experiential learning. Concentrating on behavioral learning and change will enable groups to readily apply all the key principles and practices from the first three tracks of quantum transformation—directly into the workplace and on the job. By taking our Time-Gap Survey and Team-Gap Survey, and then exploring the illuminating results with our specially designed work sheets, you'll learn some very practical tools for transforming the language of teamwork into actual behavior.

Course Outline

1. Welcome and Overview
2. Seeing the Big Picture
3. Holistic Team Management
4. Introducing Time Management
5. Taking the Time-Gap Survey
6. Defining Five Time-Gaps
7. Closing Time-Gaps
8. Reuniting the Work Group
9. Taking The Team-Gap Survey
10. Defining Four Team-Gaps
11. Identifying Team-Gaps
12. Closing Team-Gaps
13. Congratulations

6. The Complete Program (TCP)

If you would like to take ALL of our online courses, you can purchase them as one complete package (at a considerable savings versus purchasing our online courses separately). You'll have access to all five manuals (for a total of 576 pages of materials), just as if you had purchased the courses one at a time. And for your convenience, all five courses will be available to you on the same webpage—in the recommended sequence. Moreover, if you successfully complete the three exams for (1) ADVANCED Training, (2) Critical Thinking, and (3) EITHER Culture Management OR Team Management, you'll receive a special recognition to signify that you have mastered The Complete Program: Certificate in Conflict Management and Change Management. NOTE: As additional online courses become available, The Complete Program will include them.

Program Outline:

1. BASIC Training in Conflict Management
2. ADVANCED Training in Conflict Management
3. Culture Management Course
4. Critical Thinking Course
5. Team Management Course

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

We invite you to spend some time on our website: You’ll find more detailed descriptions of all our online courses, including the unique FEATURES & SEQUENCE for taking our integrated coursework. We also provide the specific guidelines for using these COURSES FOR GROUPS, which combines the many advantages of taking online courses (so everyone receives the same exact principles and practices from the author himself) with the many benefits from experiencing a live workshop (where groups members can discuss and then practice what they learn with their workplace colleagues, whether in a face-to-face or virtual setting).

To get the best sense of the breadth and depth of our online courses, see the Overview of Our Online Courses, which provides a detailed syllabus and shows the Certificate for Advanced Training in Conflict Management. We also offer a Certificate for Critical Thinking. Lastly, every course includes a very comprehensive Course Manual (ranging from 30 pages to 188 pages), which includes a reduced image of every presentation slide, Dr. Kilmann's personalized notes, reference material, case studies, work sheets, and additional assessment tools.

Naturally, If you have any additional questions about our online courses, please feel free to Contact Us.