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When was the last time you took a listening class? If you are like most people, the answer is probably never.

During my eight years of post-secondary education and my 30+ years working in the corporate world, I know I never had any listening training. I received training on almost every imaginable topic (and some that were unimaginable), but never listening.

However, I repeatedly heard this cute phrase: “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak” (Epictetus 55-135 BC) — but no one ever taught me HOW to do what I was supposed to be doing when I had my mouth shut.

Sure, over the years I received a spattering of simplistic advice (e.g., look people in the eye, don’t check your phone) — but that was about it.

The Benefits Of Being A Good Listener

My experience is almost universal despite the fact that listening is one of the most valuable human skills. The benefits of being a good listener include:

• Increases productivity
• Speeds problem solving
• Improves decision making
• Generates trust and respect
• Defuses conflict
• Boosts self-confidence
• Reduces mistakes
• Improves customer service
• Enhances teamwork
• Motivates others to take initiative
• Demonstrates empathy
• Improves negotiation outcomes
• Facilitates products/services improvement
• Causes you to be viewed as a “good conversationalist”
• Makes you more popular

In addition, you will likely learn new things:

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while, he knows something.” – Wilson Mizner — American Playwright 1876 to 1933

In 1992, a commission was put in place by then Secretary of Labor, Lynn Martin, to determine the skills people need to succeed in the world of work. The benefits of listening were highlighted in a report by the Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) (http://www.academicinnovations.com/report.html).

As you might expect, the commission identified a wide range of skills (37 skills to be exact) but just five were specified as “Basic” skills — and “Listening” was one these five (the others were reading, writing, speaking, and math).

Here is how “Listening” skills were defined by SCANS:

“Receives, attends to, interprets, and responds to verbal messages and other cues such as body language in ways that are appropriate to the purpose; for example, to comprehend; to learn; to critically evaluate; to appreciate; or to support the speaker.”

Why Don’t We Get Trained In How To Listen

You would sure think that, with the many benefits of listening and with listening being widely recognized as a critical success skill, more effort would be put into teaching people how to listen — but that doesn’t happen. We all get plenty of training in reading, writing, speaking, and math, but not listening.

I’ve wondered over the years why that’s the case and I haven’t been able to come up with a good answer.

Maybe listening is like walking. No one taught us how to walk; we just figured it out. Possibly that’s the expectation for listening — we’ll each just figure it out.

But, even that explanation doesn’t seem right. Although most people don’t pay any attention to it, there’s actually a lot of training on how to walk. There’s even a “Walk Magazine.” I looked and looked and I can’t find any magazine about listening.

Again, I just don’t get it. If I was running the US education system, I would make sure a block of instruction on listening was required at every grade in primary and secondary school and that there was at least one required class in college about listening. I’d also push for every organization to provide a class on listening to all employees.

Now — obviously — I’m not the first person to recognize the importance of listening. Here are some quotes from several well-known individuals:

“Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.” — Bernard M. Baruch, economic advisor to six presidents (1870 to 1965)

“It takes a great man to be a good listener.” — Calvin Coolidge, thirteenth president of the United States (1872 to 1933)

“The art of conversation lies in listening” — Malcolm Forbes, publisher of Forbes Magazine (1919 to 1990)

“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.” — Bryant H. McGill,  author, Nobel Prize nominee (1969 to present)

We Need To Learn How To Listen

There are plenty of people who have recognized the importance of listening over the years but few who have taught us HOW to listen.

The late Steven Covey, the author of the best-selling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (sold over 25 million copies in 40 languages), is probably one of the world’s biggest advocates of listening. His fifth habit was labeled “Seek First To Understand, and Then To Be Understood” but it was all about listening.

I read this book when it first was published in 1990 and have read it several times since. I reviewed the chapter about Habit 5 again in preparation for writing this article. Covey’s main point is that you need to practice “empathic listening” — listening with the intent to understand, to fully and deeply understand from a reference point of the other person’s perspective, not yours.

He describes how most people listen “autobiographically” — they evaluate (agree or disagree), they probe (ask questions from their own point of view), they advise (give counsel based on their own experience), or they interpret (try to figure people out based on their own motives). In other words, most people listen from their own frame of reference rather than the frame of reference of the speaker.

In the 25 pages Covey writes on listening, he does an outstanding job of selling the value of listening, with some great stories. Also, unlike almost everything I’ve ever read about listening, he actually teaches a couple of skills about HOW to listen — and he demonstrates how to apply those skills via an excellent example of a dad trying to listen to his son who is complaining about school.

If you haven’t read Covey’s book, it is worth getting a copy just to read this six-page example. He ends this section of the chapter with this:

“I have gone through the skills of empathic listening because skill is an important part of any habit. We need to have the skills. But, let me reiterate that the skills will not be effective unless they come from a sincere desire to understand.”

This is an incredibly important point. Without this attitudinal foundation, the application of any listening skill will not be effective and, in many cases, might even come across as manipulative. Note, there’s a second approach to not coming across as manipulative that I will cover in a future article.

Must Have A Foundational Understanding of Empathy To Be A Good Listener

You may know from my past articles that I work for a company called Vistelar. We are a conflict management training company and we’ve learned over the last thirty years that effective listening is one of the most powerful methods of managing conflict. However, we also know how easy it is for people to seem manipulative if their attitude isn’t right.

Therefore, before we share any listening skill in our training, we work hard to develop in our students a foundational understanding of empathy, as well as a strong buy-in to empathy’s critical importance in the management of conflict.

We’ve learned that without this foundation, applying “listening skills” can actually cause negative outcomes. Again, I will elaborate on this point and explain the second approach we teach in a future article.

Effective listening is such an important element of conflict management that we go far beyond the couple of skills that Covey teaches. In fact, we teach eight “active listening” techniques. Additionally, people frequently don’t say what they mean in conflict situations so we teach another listening tactic we call Beyond Active Listening that has six elements.

I don’t have room in this article to cover all eight of our “active listening” techniques and all six elements of our Beyond Active Listening tactic, but I do want to describe one of the six.

The Reflect Tactic

We call this element “Reflect” and its one of the most powerful, but also one of the most rarely used, listening tactics. Here is how we describe this tactic in Vistelar’s conflict management training manual.

Reflect — Acknowledge the person’s emotions and give him or her the opportunity to talk out his or her feelings (rather than act them out). State your view of what the other person is feeling and why — succinctly and precisely as possible.

“Hmmm. You’re feeling anxious because you’re not sure where your mom is. Do I have this right?”

Keep your Reflection tentative and be sure to give the other person time to respond to your question.

Note that strong emotions — anger, hate, fear — usually don’t need reflecting because the other person is often well aware of these feelings. Instead, use the Reflect element to bring out more subtle emotions that the other person might not recognize he or she is feeling.

This element helps you understand the nature and intensity of the other person’s emotions. Be sure to always end this tactic with a confirming question.

As you may know, I spent a fair amount of time in the hospital during 2017 and most of my interactions with hospital staff are now a blur. However, I distinctly remember the few times when this Reflect element was used, because — at the time — it was like a mammoth breath of fresh air.

“Mr. Oelschlaeger, you must be concerned that you’ve been here for four days and we still haven’t figured out what’s going on. Is that right?”

“Mr. Oelschlaeger, you’re feeling worried about this procedure because it wasn’t successful the first time we tried it. Am I right?”

“Mr. Oelschlaeger, you’re sounding frustrated because the doctor hasn’t come to see you yet this morning. Do I have that right?”

“Mr. Oelschlaeger, you’re looking pleased that you are going home today. Am I reading you right?

Do you know what my reaction was with each of these incidences? “Finally — someone seems to be paying attention to my feelings rather than just going through the motions of their job.”

It is really quite amazing the memorable impact these simple comments had on me. It’s not like I was treated badly otherwise. The reality is that I was treated quite well. During my multiple hospital stays, everyone was competent, friendly and nice — and they all must have done a pretty good job since I’m alive to write this article.

But, still, it was these few Reflect comments that were so refreshing at the time and have stuck with me many months later.

To be effective at the Reflect tactic, you must must go “beyond active listening” to discover the meaning and feeling behind the other person’s words, tone of voice, and non-verbals (e.g., facial expressions, eye contact, hand position, body language, posture) — always with the awareness that people often don’t say what they mean and that feelings are often disguised behind non-feeling words.

The goal is to accurately express in your own words, tone of voice, and non-verbals what you perceive are the meaning and feeling conveyed by the other person.

The Four Developmental Stages of Listening

Covey discusses the four developmental stages of empathic listening: mimic content, rephrase content, reflect emotion, and, finally, our Reflect approach, where you rephrase content and reflect emotion.

In the first example above, the content is the four days I was in the hospital without a diagnosis and the emotion was concern.

In the second example, the content was the need to repeat the procedure and the emotion was worry.

In the third example, the content was the absent doctor and the emotion was frustration.

In the fourth example, the content was getting out of the hospital and the emotion was pleasure.

Note that you can Reflect both negative and positive content/emotions. In either case, the goals is for the other person to feel: a) he or she has been heard and understood, and b) you are interested in what he or she is trying to communicate.

When you Reflect negative content/emotions, the negativity is lessened and when you Reflect positive content/emotions, the positivity is deepened.

As Covey says, “What happens when you use this fourth stage of empathic listening is really incredible. As you authentically seek to understand, you rephrase content and reflect feeling, you give him psychological air. You also help him work through his own thoughts and feelings… [If you do this], there will be times when you will be literally stunned by the pure knowledge and understanding that will flow to you from another human being.”

As stated in Vistelar’s conflict management manual in the section about the Reflect element of the Beyond Active Listening tactic, “Keep your Reflection tentative and be sure to give the other person time to respond to your question.”

If you are reasonably confident in your perceptions, you could start the Reflection with a lead-in like, “It seems to you,” or “As you see it,” or “You figure.” However, if you are less confident or if you’re unsure if the other person will be receptive to your listening, you might start with a lead-in like, “It seems like,” or “It might be that,” or “I’m guessing that.” Such lead-ins set the right stage for the next step — to state your view of what the other person is feeling and why, as succinctly and precisely as possible.

You always want to end a Reflection with a confirming question and then to actually listen to the other person’s response.

Let me give you one more example of the use of the Reflect element, which is based on the story in Covey’s book about the dad trying to listen to his son.

Son: “Boy, Dad, I’ve had it. School is for the birds.”

Dad: “You’re really frustrated about school. Is that right.”

Do you see how this response provides so much more psychological air to the son than these more common responses:

Dad: “I don’t think that’s true.” (evaluating)

Dad: “What’s the matter son?” (probing)

Dad: “You need to suck it up.” (advising)

Dad: “You just don’t want to go to school today.” (interpreting)

What To Do In The Face Of Anger, Hate, or Fear

Before ending this article, I want to elaborate on one more point from the Reflect section of Vistelar’s conflict management manual: “Note that strong emotions — anger, hate, fear — usually don’t need reflecting because the other person is often well aware of these feelings.”

For example, consider the reaction you’d likely get if someone was conveying considerable anger via their words, tone of voice and non-verbals and you said “You’re feeling angry because someone stole your car. Do I have that right?”

Do you think that would defuse the situation? Or, do you think it might make things worse — “Duh, darn right I’m angry. Someone stole my #$@&%*! car.”

Given this possibility, it’s best to not use the Reflect tactic when the other person is conveying strong emotions.

However, there may still be times when using the Reflect element can lessen the negativity. For example, that might be true if someone is “in crisis.”

Crisis occurs when an individual has an experience that exceeds his or her coping skills and is actively displaying at-risk behaviors (e.g., behaviors that could cause emotional or physical harm to the individual in crisis or to others).

At Vistelar, we have a systematic and multi-step approach for how to effectively manage such situations and the Reflect tactic is one element of this approach. People in crisis can lose cognitive, emotional and/or behavioral control where they’re not in touch with their feelings. Therefore, it can sometimes help — in addition to a wide range of other crisis intervention tactics — to say something like, “You’re feeling some strong emotions. But you’re safe with me. Let me help. Is that OK?”

This crisis-intervention Reflection is even more tentative than a Reflection where you’re trying to accurately express another person’s more subtle emotions. Note the use of “strong emotions” rather than an explicit label of the emotion (e.g., anger, hate, fear).

I will dig deeper into HOW to listen in future articles. But as a result of this one, I hope you now understand:

• Listening is one of the most valuable of human skills (if not THE most valuable)
• People frequently make common listening mistakes
• Training on HOW to listen should be vastly more prevalent in our schools and organizations
• How to use the Reflect element of Vistelar’s Beyond Active Listening tactic

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.” — Ralph G. Nichols, author Are You Listening (1957) and widely considered the father of the field of listening.

Hello,

This is Gary Klugiewicz.

Check out the post that we found on the wall at a Roundy’s Supermarkets Loss Protection Workshop that Vistelar conducted last week in Madison, WI.  The poster says it all in terms of retail store customer services – especially when the contact deals with possible shoplifting incidents where conflict can become intense.

“Are you ready for your next customer?”

Vistelar is working with Roundy’s Supermarkets to develop a loss protection conflict management program that addresses the entire spectrum of human conflict.   The focus of this training program is to train loss protection staff in ways to non-escalate potential conflicts, de-escalate conflict situations, manage persons in crisis, and training staff in how to manage distance, positioning, and hand placement to keep everyone safe.

This program is being create in conjunction with Tony Sherman and Pablo Velasquez from the Genesis Group who have decades of loss protection expertise.  Vistelar is working with Roundy’s Supermarkets will develop a loss protection workshop that will be easily translated to all types retail stores.  Emphasis will be focused on threat assessment, how to make initial contacts, in store escorts, conflict management strategies while waiting for law enforcement to arrive, and turnover procedures.  Watch for future postings as this program is developed.

Hello there.

Gary Klugiewicz here.

Vistelar introduced a number of significant changes to our courseware at the recent Beyond Conflict Conference held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  At last week’s Rockville Centre, NY Police Department Verbal Defense & Influence Instructor Class, Dave Young and I first presented this material.  We introduced the new manuals, workbooks, and PowerPoints.   The material was very well received.

Watch the video below that explains how we now review incidents using the Point-of-Impact 6 C’s of Conflict Management.  This new incident review concept included Context, Contact, Conflict, Crisis, Combat, and Closure to describe how conflict can be prevented and/or managed.  This video also describes how the revised Communication under Pressure Card helps contact professional to manage these conflicts.   Please comment below on your thoughts on my explanation of these changes.

Let’s keep everyone safe.
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Hello.

This is Gary Klugiewicz.

Vistelar has introduced the 6 C’s of Conflict Management that examines how conflict develops and what we can do to recognize it, prevent it, manage it, and resolve it.

The 6 C’s in include Context, Contact, Conflict, Crisis, Combat, and Closure.

Dave Young and I have been focusing on the Closure Component of the 6 C’s of Conflict Management in order to minimize the changes of conflict escalating to crisis and combat due to the need to physically control an out of control person or prevent a physical assault.   We have discussed exit strategies in the past, i.e. how to verbally or physically exit a situation where “communication is breaking down and personal safety might be compromised.”  Jeff Mehring, a security consultant and Vistelar advisor, expands on this concept and takes it to another level.   I think you will enjoy his article posted below.   Everyone needs to spend some time developing their EXIT LANGUAGE so they safety disengage before verbal conflict escalates to a crisis or combat situation.

Please post you comments below.

“EXIT LANGUAGE”

By

Jeff Mehring

Security Consultant and Analyst

Security Assessments and Analytics LLC

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

All of us at one time or another have been involved in conflict management situations in which words alone fail, creating the need for us to leave the situation.  The difficulty at the point the decision is made to leave, is how to accomplish the exit?

It is great to be able to tell someone, “just leave”, but how one goes about doing this can escalate a situation, or it may set up the next person, who needs to assume the interaction, to fail before he/she even arrives on the scene. Some examples:

• If you leave an interaction with someone without an explanation as to why you are leaving, or providing some kind of next step information, the person you are interacting with will become more agitated, because you have just given the impression you are “blowing them off.” Then again, if your explanation sounds something like this, “You are rude and I don’t need to put up with this kind of behavior!” and then you leave, you may have just pushed the individual off an emotional cliff, with escalated behavior to follow.

• There is also the exit language which sets up the next person to fail. That sounds like this, “I’m calling security.”  Now think for a moment, when someone from the general public is informed security is on the way, what is the expectation of what is about to happen?  Most individuals equipped with the knowledge that security is coming prepare themselves for World War III, after all most individuals assume security comes to either kick someone out or hold them for the police, thus setting the stage for aggression before the fact.

Exit language needs to be tailored to the situation one is trying to leave.  It must convey to the other individual that you have listened to what is being said, it must acknowledge that you need assistance in some form or another to help the individual with the concerns that have been voiced, and it must be open ended enough so as to not limit your response options, or set the next person up to fail before he/she even has a chance to say a word.  The language should advise the individual that you are going to continue to work to address the concerns which have been voiced, but at the same time inform the individual that, for whatever reason, you aren’t the person who can resolve the issue(s).  Some examples of “exit language”:

• I don’t seem to be able to help you with your concerns, but I will contact someone who can and get right back with you.
• You have concerns I don’t seem to be able to help you with, but I think I know someone who can help. I’m going to step out and make a call and get back with you.
• Your concerns deserve greater attention than I can give them, but I think I know who to call to help you.
• Your concerns are important to me, as a next step let me talk to my supervisor to see what can be done.

It is important not to identify who you will be calling, as some contact options represent a step of escalation, or are even seen as a threat.  Once you have made your exit, contact the person or people best suited to advance the conflict management process to a peaceful resolution.  Who you contact can vary greatly depending upon the concerns and needs.

It is equally important that you don’t set up the individual you are dealing with to “lose face” or suffer embarrassment through the response option you select.  For instance, if you need to involve security, be prepared to explain to the individual why security is the most appropriate party to address the concern(s), or at the very least prepare security to provide that explanation if reentering the scene is not safe or prudent for you.

Additionally, stay away from words such as “problem” or “issue” in your exit language, i.e. “I can tell you have problems.” Or “You have lots of issues.”  These are trigger words. You might just as well tell the individual “You are the problem” or “You are the issue.”  The word “concern” works very nicely in these situations as it conveys that you have picked up on the person’s distress and want to help elevate the causes.

There is a second set of exit language which also must be considered.  This is language that is used by someone else to extricate us from a confrontational situation, or in a situation where it is immediately realized that the potential for harm is more than you can handle and you need to “get out” gracefully and warn others in the area.

In the former, I recommend language which would appear to be common in the workplace, but is actually “code language” for leave the situation.  For instance, in a hospital setting the code may be “MRI 99” and could be employed by saying, “The doctor needs to see you in MRI 99, let me see if I can help this person.”  Then transition and leave the situation.

In the latter, one may have a situation in an office setting where a customer comes through the door angry and intimidating and approaches a receptionist and states in a demanding voice, “I want to see someone right now about this letter I received!”  The receptionist responds, “I have to step down the hall to get that person’s attention.  I also have a printer alert which I just received, so as I go down the hall I need to let the office staff know about the alert, which takes me in the same direction.  I’ll be right back.”  Then leave the desk and start letting individuals know there is a “printer alert” which is the code language to begin a preplanned practiced response in such situations.

Whether you are the person responding to try and resolve the conflict, or the conflict comes to you, you need to take time to think about the exit language that will best suit you and your workplace.  Usually two or three practiced statements will allow you to exit safely, maintain the emotional safety of the person you are interacting with, and keep everyone physically safe.

Hello,

This is Gary Klugiewicz from Vistelar.

I would like to share an e-mail that Charles Bell sent to us. Charles is a private security contact professional who attended one of our recent VDI Instructor Classes. He wanted to share one of his positive real life experiences with us. See the e-mail that he sent me posted below. What is interesting about his experience is not so much that he made a good impression on someone he didn’t know was an important person but that he reminded that person of an important lesson. This lesson was that no matter who you are that the Universal Greeting with 1. an appropriate greeting, 2. a professional introduction including your name and affiliation, 3. an explanation of why you are there, and 4. an appropriate question that opens the door to a pleasant, professional, meaningful contact.

Thank you Charles for sharing this important lesson with us.
______________________________

Good afternoon Gary,

This is Charles from the Shelby County class. Just wanted to pass along an experience I had at work earlier today. I was assisting customers and people parking in a busy part of the building and outside in the parking area. One gentleman parked, exited his car, and walked towards me. I immediately went into the Universal Greeting, using the Five Maxims (Four Appeals). He then informed me he was the property manager in charge of this particular site and gave me his business card. He seemed impressed with how I treated him, even though I had no idea who he was at the time. He even mumbled “I should’ve told you ‘who’ I was”, as we were walking, talking, and he was passing on valuable information about the site.

He was a very nice gentleman and I’m thinking it left a good image for my company, as he noticed my command presence and professionalism. And, as a major decision maker and influencer in our company’s relationship, he was assured that this is how I was treating everyone. (dignity and respect), just as I had been doing all week. I have been using these tactics in some form or another since the early 90’s in law enforcement, but this class really helped me solidify the techniques by reinforcing the concepts through practicing, and having that powerful pre-planned response.

Thanks sir for all you do!

Charles
____________________________

Please consider sharing your written, audio, and video stores along with your photos with us at our blog

Just follow this link to http://www.vistelar.com/floodgate with a password of “vistelar” and submit your material.

Please add an e-mail or phone number so that I can contact you with any questions.

I just wanted to report on my presentation at the 18th Annual Upper Midwest Intelligence Gathering Conference.   This conference brings together casino gaming security professionals who share intelligence having to do with persons and technology that pose a threat to the casino industry.   Featured above is a photo of me and Brian Lehnhoff, the conference host who is the surveillance manager at Jackpot Junction Casino Hotel located in Morton, MN.

1. Context consists of all approach considerations, including your personal mindset, decision if you should be there, physical positioning and assessment of risk. Here the goal is effective preparation.
2. Contact situations are when an initial interaction occurs. Here the goal is to prevent conflict and, if necessary, turn a defensive atmosphere into a supportive one.
3. Conflict situations are when anger, verbal abuse or resistance enters into an interaction. Here the goal is de-escalation to prevent the conflict from progressing to emotional or physical violence.
4. Crisis situations are when someone is showing irrational behavior or rage. Here the goal is recovery – to end the crisis – so normal communication tactics can be used.
5. Combat situations are when resistance or aggression results in physical engagement initiated by either party. Here the goal is everyone’s physical safety.
6. Closure consists of all follow-through considerations, including assessing everyone’s wellbeing, reviewing/reporting on the incident and establishing a strong foundation for the next interaction. Here the goal is to achieve the best possible outcome.

Since Vistelar believes in the importance of conducting Fire Drills – activities and not just Fire Talks – lectures,  we did a number of activities during this workshop.  This included the application of scripts to how to best make initial contact, manage verbal abuse, and persuade someone to do what you want them to do.  Pasted below in the script for deflecting and redirection of verbal abuse.

Remember that proper response requires that you remain alert, be decisive, and have a pre planned practice response in mind.    For best results, a conflict management tactic needs to be developed and practiced.   Do you have several verbal abuse scripts thought out, practiced, and ready for use?  If not, we have a YouTube Video ready to go viral.

I wish to thank all of the casino gaming surveillance professionals who attended my workshop for their attention and participation.

Hello.

This is Gary Klugiewicz.

Dave Young and I just completed a Verbal Defense & Influence Instructor Class for the Park Rangers from the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).  These thirty-two (32) instructors came from throughout the United States and represented the decision to create an agency wide communication training program for their organization.   The USACE have been conducting conflict resolution training since 1998.   I have had the pleasure of previously training several of their instructors.   Bill Jackson,  supervisory ranger, was our host for the class held at the Ouachita Project Management Office located in Royal, Arkansas.

Watch the I Phone Video that Dave Young created the shows highlights from the class.

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We had a great time training these highly experienced contact professionals.    Their experience and previous training made this class both easy to teach and beneficial  for both them and us.   The instructors especially like the fact that we conducted fire drills instead of just doing fire talks – we created conflict prevention and management scripts that we practiced to improve skills.  The instructors also like the way that the class is now designed to be taught in its entirety or in modules depending on time available for training.

We also launched the our new Situations Training Drill Activities at this class that analyzed Real World Conflicts in order to answer the importance questions of What to Do?  In this activity, students review real incidents that could have gone better in order to “brainstorm” alternate and, hopefully, more positive outcomes.  While this activity can be performed breaking the class into pairs, it can also be done as a small group and/or full class event.   By analyzing real world events that happened to persons in the class,  the entire class is able to make the “translation” from general conflict situations to agency specific applications.  In debriefing the activity in this class, the instructors commented on the importance of this training in teaching their personnel how to review an incident in order to debrief it in order to improve future performance.  This shared review allowed for a “group think” that enable the entire class to focus on potential solutions.  This sharing allowed the entire class to add additional tools to their conflict prevention and management tool belts.   We use the analogy of adding additional arrows to your quiver.  Everyone felt that they left well armed.

We at Vistelar look forward to the enhancing our relationship with the USACE Park Rangers.    This partnership will be a collaborative effort with all parties involved benefiting from our continued relationship.  Dave and I would like to thank all the instructors who attended for their professionalism and contributions to the success of this class.