Working with conflict

  • When people are stuck in a conflict with each other, I can facilitate a process to support them to move through to the next step. The process will be customized based on the specifics of the situation, but often if involves a mix of 1-on-1 conversations with me to help me understand what’s going on, and facilitated pair/group conversations in which the folks involved talk directly with each other.

  • 1-on-1 work to support an individual building their skills around conflict, or to problem-solve a specific conflict they’re experiencing. This is a great option when someone is noticing a repeating pattern that’s coming up in multiple conflicts in their life. It’s also useful when one person involved in a conflict wants to pursue more reflection, learning, or resolution, and the other person/people involved do not.

  • Trainings to build your group’s skills to work proactively to invite healthy conflict, get out of unhealthy conflict ruts, and to build skills to handle conflict better when it arises.

Work together

What I offer:

I came to conflict work for two big reasons: first, I had spent years in social justice movements that were getting stuck or derailed because of internal conflict that we didn’t know how to handle well, and it was breaking my heart. And, much of my political work has focused on building a world without police, prisons, and surveillance. As I’ve knocked on doors and facilitated conversations about police abolition, I’ve realized that many people haven’t had many experiences of working our problems out with each other – and that makes it much harder to imagine a world without police and prisons.

My approach to conflict is shaped by what I’ve been taught in the movement for abolition: that punishment doesn’t change people, but that people are capable of change, and that change is most likely to happen when we’re in relationship with other people. As we face rising authoritarianism and climate crisis, it’s clearer than ever that we need each other, and so we can’t afford to let every disagreement blow up our relationships and our groups. But, we may need new boundaries, understanding, support, or clarity to keep moving forward. 

My conflict facilitation style is:

  • Direct – encouraging people to say the thing, especially when it’s hard

  • Curious – digging to understand what underlying needs people are bringing to a conflict, and inviting participants to do the same with each other

  • Open to heat & big feelings – not every conflict needs to be de-escalated or resolved; some need to burn a little hotter before anything else is possible. I can help people move towards that heat, without having to hold it on their own.

  • Attentive to power – When there are power differences between people involved in conflict (which there usually are!), things get more complex. I pay attention to power dynamics and have higher expectations for the people with more power in a situation, without assuming that identity or role tells the whole story of any relationship. 

Pricing:

I use sliding scale pricing for everything I do. We’ll sort out money and reciprocity as part of our initial conversation. These are general ideas of my rates:

$150-250/hour

$50-100/hour

Workplaces, organizations with budgets, people who have the money to pay.

All-volunteer community groups, neighbor or housemate conflicts, or other community situations where no one is getting paid.

Barter, low cost, or free

Conflicts in community where no one is getting paid, and money is tight. This isn’t always available, but I do it whenever I can - please reach out.

My training in conflict work:

"Working with Lex helped us discern what was interpersonal and what was structural in our team’s conflict. After 2-3 sessions we were able to have conversations and relieve barriers to our work that have dramatically improved my well being and made our organizing project successful. Lex provided insights and pushback to each of us individually and made sure we all saw power dynamics at play that are hard for a group to navigate on their own."

Testimonials

“Lex was a principled, attentive, and skilled mediator through every step of the process with our crew. We were seeking support in navigating a convoluted conflict that played out between multiple people in an organizing project over the better part of a year. I was moved by how smartly he thought about each of us and our conflict dynamics in the lead-up to mediation, holding comprehensive 1:1s to understand the full shape of things and taking over scheduling responsibilities to alleviate core tensions between us. During mediation he offered thoughtful "invitations," subtle interventions to guide our thinking in a generative direction given his read on where things had gotten stuck. Lex facilitated with poise and care through some difficult and surprising moments, holding the group through it all. He offered generous after-care through optional follow-up 1:1s to reflect together on how we had shown up, what we had learned about the conflict, and what we had learned about ourselves. I feel like I grew personally through this process and could not have done so without Lex's ability to invite vulnerability through strong confidentiality practices, nuance in understanding layered relationships, kindness and honesty in his observations, and rigorous reflection every step of the way.”

"Lex is able to stay visibly and verbally neutral while keeping folks on track to goal outcomes even when the participants involved lose sight."