Social Innovation and Better Conflict Skills
The Conflict Transformation Collaborative at Middlebury College is partnering with nuwave Equity Corporation to support its efforts to bring social innovation to the workforce.
nuwave is an award winning, Burlington-based business intelligence technology company. For founder Emiliano Void, there is a clear connection between culture and organizational performance. If we can build more inclusive cultures, Emiliano argues, companies and organizations can transform the work that they do as well as their wider communities.
nuwave uses an interdisciplinary team of experts and emerging technologies to map out cultural strengths and gaps across organizations. The nuwave team then offers education and resources to build individual skills and transform organizations.
That is where Middlebury’s Conflict Transformation Collaborative comes in. Over the past three years, the CT Collaborative has helped expand the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to foster constructive conflict. Through experimentation and wide input, the Collaborative has identified a core set of skills that can help people feel prepared to stay grounded, listen, ask curious questions, and find the deeper issues that drive a conflict episode.
“Emiliano and I met at a See Change Sessions lunch at Hula several years ago,” said CT Collaborative director Sarah Stroup. “We had a great conversation about the importance of fostering interpersonal skills for constructive conflict in the workplace. After several more conversations he invited the Collaborative to contribute to the skill-building work they are doing with their clients.”
Middlebury is one of several academic partners supporting this work, including Champlain College and St. Michael’s College. The videos that the Collaborative will develop in Spring 2025 will also be available on our website so that community members can take advantage of the same opportunities to build constructive conflict skills.