In my role as a litigator, and generally in my personal life, I have certainly been guilty of this. As a neutral, however, my default is to talk less and listen more. I cannot help the parties move towards resolution unless I first understand the issues from each party’s perspective and find ways to facilitate a mutual understanding between them. While I don't have to think twice about this in mediation, sometimes it is as though a switch turns off in my brain when I’m faced with certain types of conflict in my personal life. I am curious—how many trained conflict resolution professionals feel the same way? You have no trouble focusing on listening and understanding at work, but in your personal life, you sometimes default to listening with the intent to reply? For me, identifying my triggers and consciously working on reconditioning my reactions is a good lesson and reminder that people respond differently when confronted with different types of conflict.

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