As part of its mission to support conflict resolution, UNLV’s Ombuds Office is dedicated to providing faculty, staff, and students with quality training opportunities that meet the diverse needs of specific campus groups. These sessions are designed to help individuals and groups communicate and resolve conflict better, as well as foster productive interpersonal relationships.

Workshops are highly interactive, featuring quick bursts of material punctuated with discussions, role plays, exercises, and even games.

To book a workshop or session, or to discuss which one(s) might be appropriate for your unit, please contact ombuds@unlv.edu or 702-895-1823.

Brief Introductions

Introduction to the Ombuds Office

This brief presentation discusses the role of an organizational ombuds, addresses some common misconceptions about what ombuds do and don’t do, details the services that the Ombuds Office provides at UNLV, and explains how to contact the office. All questions answered.

(Typical time: 10-30 minutes)

Speed Conflict Resolution the Wrong Way

Want to meet new people? Have fun trying to resolve conflict scenarios? And maybe win a prize for doing it wrong? This interactive session combines speed dating with conflict role play, letting you explore the worst way to resolve conflict in brief rounds. Along the way, we will get to know each other and discuss some good techniques for productive conflict resolution.

(Typical time 20-40 minutes; can be combined with "Introduction to the Ombuds Office" for a 45-60-minute presentation)

Communication

Interpersonal Communication: Say What You Mean

In this interactive workshop, participants explore three critical aspects of effective communication. First, we focus on bridging the gap between the intended message, the actual delivery, and the recipient's perception by providing valuable tips to ensure clear and successful communication. Then we explore how nonverbal cues, like tone, body language, and timing, can enhance or undermine a message. Finally, we explore the pros and cons of email communication, uncovering potential pitfalls and benefits. Each segment includes group discussions and roleplays to help participants incorporate the concepts into daily practice

(Recommended time: 90 minutes)

Listening Thoughtfully: A Skills-Building Workshop

This interactive workshop helps participants master three essential skills: respectful listening, reflective listening, and productive listening. These skills collectively form the principles of thoughtful listening. After learning about each skill, the group participates in an interactive exercise to demonstrate mastery.

(Typical time: 90 minutes)

Clearer Communication with Your Supervisor

Communications with one’s supervisor is the most frequent concern brought to the Ombuds Office. In this interactive workshop, participants explore better ways to communicate and work collaboratively with their immediate supervisor, with strategies for overcoming several common complications. Roleplay scenarios and exercises give them a chance to practice skills and examine new concepts.

(Typical time: 60 minutes)

Difficult Conversations: Making Them Less Painful and More Productive

You might need to speak with a colleague about behaviors that are making your job harder. Or a supervisor about performance expectations that you think are unreasonable. Or a subordinate who is under-performing. Whatever the subject, this will not be an easy conversation to have. In this in-person workshop, we will explore, through interactive roleplay and group discussion, what makes conversations difficult, how to make them less painful, and how to make them more productive.

(Typical time: 60 minutes)

Today Matters: How Bystanders Can Help Others, Their Organization, and Themselves

See something, say something? There are many reasons, some of them quite reasonable, why bystanders don’t speak up about misbehavior. This interactive session explores how biases may complicate interpersonal communications, how microaffirmations can enhance them, and what bystanders need to feel confident when they act.

(Typical time: 90 minutes)

Leadership

Flash Workshop: Using Feedforward to Look Ahead and Improve

Based on an exercise developed by renowned leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith, this 20-minute session, which can be incorporated into any meeting type, guides participants through an interactive, future-focused exercise that circumvents many of the downsides that traditional feedback presents while allowing for an open exchange of ideas. Suggested for leaders and groups who want to improve.

Conflict De-Escalation for Leaders

This interactive workshop sketches how conflicts escalate and how they can be de-escalated at each step. By understanding the “Triangle of Satisfaction,” leaders can help their teams reach better and more lasting resolutions.

(Typical time: 60 minutes)

How Bugsy Blew It: Leadership Lesson from a Made Man

You’ve heard of Bugsy Siegel and the Flamingo Casino. The innovative gangster who invented modern Las Vegas and paid the price. The reality is trickier: Benjamin Siegel’s tenure at the Flamingo was marked by ambition, envy, and incompetence, and the casino seems to have succeeded in spite, not because of, him. This interactive seminar breaks down the seven leadership mistakes Siegel made, and suggests seven ways you can do better.

(Typical time: 60 minutes)

Managing Conflict

Working Better with Challenging Individuals

This interactive workshop will help participants work more effectively with challenging people. Whether it is a passive-aggressive co-worker, an inept supervisor, a know-it-all colleague, or politically-minded schemer. We will discuss these and other common workplace personality types and, through small-group discussion, role plays, and collective problem-solving, learn how to be less frustrated and more functional, even when challenging people may abound.

(Typical time: 90 minutes)

What Are We Arguing About?

This session explains how the underlying drivers of conflict can perpetuate disagreements and complicate resolutions and uses Friedrich Glasl’s model of conflict escalation to help better understand how conflicts escalate.

(Typical time: 75 minutes)

Understanding Conflict Drivers: Different Causes, Common Dynamics

In this interactive workshop, we explore five common conflict drivers, and get a window into how understanding the drivers can lead to better conflict resolution by participating in role-play scenarios and group discussion.

(Typical time: 75 minutes)

Exploring Conflict Styles: An Interactive Role-play

Prior to this session, all participants will take an online assessment that will determine their preferred Thomas-Kilmann conflict style. After a brief introduction to Thomas and Kilmann's theory, we will explore, through interactive polling and group discussion, how conflict styles can exacerbate disagreements and complicate productive resolutions.

(Typical time: 75 minutes)

Resolving Workplace Conflict Skillfully

This interactive workshop helps participants learn their conflict style, better understand the role of conflict styles in exacerbating conflict, and explore strategies and techniques to skillfully resolve work-related conflicts. Interactive elements include group discussions, games, and case studies.

(Typical time: 90 minutes)

Resolving One-on-One Conflicts (Workplace)

Are you having a conflict with a peer, supervisor, or subordinate? This interactive session walks you through a few common threads in each type of conflict, explains a few techniques to use to resolve these kinds of conflicts productively, and provides resources for those who find themselves in conflict.

(Typical time: 60 minutes)

Resolving Group Conflicts (For Students)

Whether it is at your dorm, in a study group, or with a Registered Student Organization, you may find yourself enmeshed in a conflict involving multiple peers. This interactive session explores how conflicts in each of those areas can unfold, and suggests techniques and resources for resolving them amicably.

(Typical time: 60 minutes)

Resolving One-on-One Conflicts (For Students)

As a student, you may have a problem with your instructor or fellow students. This interactive session walks you through a few common classroom conflict scenarios, explains a few techniques to use to resolve conflicts productively, and provides resources for those who find themselves in conflict.

(Typical time: 60 minutes)

Navigating Conflict: Talking and Acting to a Better Tomorrow (For Students)

Want to build conflict resolution skills tailored for settings like dorms, study groups, and student organizations? Through interactive activities, participants will explore common conflict scenarios, learn productive techniques to resolve conflicts, and discover available resources for navigating conflicts effectively.

(50 minutes)

Team Building

Trusting the Answers: Solving Problems as an Effective Team

In this interactive workshop, participants will explore what trust looks like for them and how to best build trust in a team setting. Next, using case studies, the group will apply techniques to tackle problem solving as a high-performing team. Strategies discussed will include trust-building, strategic thinking, and outcome-based planning.

(Typical time: 120 minutes)

Building Trust in Teams

In this interactive workshop, participants explore how they collaborate and come together as a group, building trust. Examining what creates, maintains, and destroys trust, this session includes real-life scenarios and group discussions.

(Typical time: 90 minutes)

Group Problem Solving

This workshop examines how people come together to solve problems, and what barriers they face. With multiple discussions and hypotheticals, this session features a real-life case study that participants solve together as a group.

(Typical time: 90 minutes)

Conflict and Cooperation: Game Break

In this fun, interactive session, Professor Tina Vo (Teaching and Learning) shares a selection of easy-to-learn, quick board games that will help your group explore how they can achieve individual and team goals by working together--or separately.

(Typical time: 60-90 minutes)

Facilitated Conversations

These sessions give groups a chance to discuss important subjects and tackle crucial issues with the help of a trained facilitator.

Begin Again: Successfully Manage Change Together

Perhaps your unit has a new leader. Or maybe you are finally ready to confront old problems. In this interactive session, we will explore five common change management models, discuss which one best fits your unit, and create an outline for future action. To get the most out of the workshop, Ombuds Office staff will meet with participants individually beforehand and will conduct a follow-up session within three months.

(Typical time: 90-120 minutes)

Leadership Styles: What You Want, What You Need, What You Will Get

If your unit is in the process of transitioning to a new leader, or would like to have a discussion with their current leader, this guided conversation will help you reach a consensus on how you want to be led. To get the most out of the workshop, Ombuds Office staff will meet with participants individually beforehand.

(Typical time: 60-90 minutes)

Communication: Setting Ground Rules for Productive Conversations

It’s not uncommon for both small and large groups to suffer a communications breakdown. There is no simple, one-size-fits-all solution for getting back to open, productive conversations. In this guided group exercise, you will develop mutually agreed-upon ground rules for what respectful and appropriate communication looks like. To get the most out of the workshop, Ombuds Office staff will meet with participants individually beforehand.

(Typical time: 120 minutes)

Discussing Our Problems Together: A Guided Conversation

Your area may agree that it is facing one or more problems, and feels that the most productive way to tackle these issues is to bring in an outside facilitator. Before the session begins, the Ombuds Office will meet with all participants and solicit information about the nature of the difficulty and potential solutions, and will present this information without attribution to start the in-person (or remote) discussion, leading to a productive conversation. A resolution in one session is not guaranteed, but having a guided, respectful discussion will be a step in the right direction.

(Typical time: 90-120 minutes per session)

Where Are We Going (And How Will We Get There?)

Your unit is at a crossroads, and you would like some help having the discussion about which path to take. This conversation is about the group coming together to make a decision--or determine how they will make a decision. Before the session begins, the Ombuds Office will meet with all participants, solicit information about the choice to be made and potential solutions, and will present this information without attribution to start the conversation. This workshop is recommended for groups who have any future-focused task, including setting group norms, performance expectations, and strategic planning.

(Typical time: 90-120 minutes per session)