Episode 4 - Pastors, Music Directors, and Conflict Resilience

How many times have you wanted to flip the table of your own parish staff meeting? How much psychological safety do you experience in your workplace? Who makes the decisions when multiple voices of expertise are at the table, and how can the hierarchy of power dynamics hinder our relationship building on our own pastoral staff? How do we train our leadership to set up the right kinds of environments to make optimal the kinds of decisions you need to make? Explore all these questions and more with the co-founder of the Cambridge Negotiation Institute, Bob Bordone, to see how best practices in conflict resolution can benefit the working relationships between pastors, musicians, parish staffs, and the diversity of gifts in the congregations they serve alongside. Guest: Bob Bordone, Cambridge Negotiation Institute Robert C. Bordone (Bob) is an internationally-recognized expert, author, speaker, and teacher in negotiation, conflict resolution, mediation, and facilitation.  A Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School, he served on the full-time faculty at Harvard Law School for more than twenty years as the Thaddeus R. Beal Clinical Professor of Law, Director, and Founder of the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program before launching his full-time consulting, advisory, speaking, and training practice.  He also serves as the Director of the Consensus Building Institute Training Academy and as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. Bob has has also been a Visiting Clinical Professor of Conflict Transformation at Boston University’s School of Theology. Bob’s current research and writing interests include the assessment, reform, design, and implementation of dispute handling systems and developing and testing methods of effective public dialogue on issues that cut to the core of identity, meaning, belonging, and belief. As part of this work on healthy dialogue, Bob has teamed with a media company called The Disagreement that fosters engaging and respectful conversation across lines of difference. In addition, he is currently writing Conflict Resilience: Negotiating Disagreement Without Giving Up or Giving In (HarperCollins Business, 2025) with Joel Salinas, MD and is the co-author of two books: Designing Systems and Processes for Managing Disputes, 2d. Edition (Wolters-Kluwer, 2019) and The Handbook of Dispute Resolution (Jossey-Bass, 2005). He has also published articles in leading business and dispute resolution journals including the Harvard Business Review, the Harvard Law Review, the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, the Journal of Dispute Resolution, Negotiation Briefings, Dispute Resolution Magazine, and Negotiation Journal. Bob’s writing and commentary have appeared in various print and broadcast media outlets including NBC News, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, America, The Chicago Tribune, CNN’s Situation Room, and BBC Radio. Bob received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, and his A.B., summa cum laude, from Dartmouth College where he majored in Government.Follow him on Twitter with the handle @bobbordone on his website at www.bobbordone.com or by subscribing to his YouTube channel.