Tim Scudder & Michael Patterson 
Have a Nice Conflict 
How to Find Success and Satisfaction in the Most Unlikely Places

How to successfully navigate and prevent conflict

From the publishers of the popular Strength Deployment
Inventory, Have a Nice Conflict follows one man’s fight to
rescue his sinking career. Sales manager John Doyle would consider
his career a success–he’s his company’s top revenue driver,
and his take-charge attitude gets the job done. However, when he is
passed over for promotion–again–after losing two direct
reports, who cite his abrasive style as their reason for leaving,
John is forced to reassess how he approaches his relationships.
With the help of Mac, an expert in the art of Relationship
Awareness Theory, John learns the three stages of conflict, and how
he reacts in each.

Once John recognizes his own values and trigger points, as well
those of other people, he becomes able to better navigate terse
situations, express his points in a way that resonates for other
people, and even avoid conflict altogether. Equipped with this new
understanding of how other people interpret and react to conflict,
John soon finds all the relationships in his life–both at
work and at home–improving.

* Reveals a practical understanding of how conflict really
works

* Shows how to recognize its initial stages of conflict, how to
navigate it better to diffuse a situation, and how to understand
the values of the other person to better frame your point for
them

* Provides guidance for moving beyond conflict to enhance
relationships

* Includes a five-step framework (anticipate, prevent, identify,
manage, and resolve) and tools for locating conflict triggers in
ourselves and others

Anyone can profit from the tools in this book to understand and
take control over conflict.

Table of Content

Acknowledgments ix

About the Authors xi

Introduction 1

The Fable 3

Letter from John 199

John’s Notebook 203
A summary of learning

Dr. Mac’s Statement of Philosophy 219
A philosophical approach to learning as written from the perspective of Dr. Mac Wilson

Character Assessment Results 227
SDI assessment results for the characters featured in John’s story

About the author

Tim Scudder, CPA, is the chief executive officer of Personal
Strengths USA and has consulted with the organizational
development, training, and human resources departments of many
corporate, government, education, and not-for-profit organizations.
He is also the author of several experiential training programs.

Michael Patterson, Ed.D., is the vice president of
business development at Personal Strengths USA and an adjunct
professor in the doctoral program at Pepperdine University’s
Graduate School of Education and Psychology. He began his career as
a U.S. Army officer and then spent twenty years in a variety of
sales, marketing, and training roles in the pharmaceutical
industry.

Kent Mitchell is the vice president of communications for
Personal Strengths USA. He is also an award-winning playwright and
copywriter, and for nearly ten years, ran an advertising design
agency in the Los Angeles area.