Description

Style Matters is a 24 page conflict style inventory that gives users a score for each of five conflict styles. Different instructions are given for users from individualistic and collectivist cultures. Each style has several pages outlining strengths of that style and dangers of over-using it, plus hot tips for working with people who favor this style.

The 2008 version, released in October, is available in full-color or in part-color (the cover and center page are full-color and the rest is black and white), and has been simplified at several points in response to trainer feedback.


Why Trainers Love Style Matters

• Familiar and easy to use. Based on the widely-used five-styles-of-conflict model. If you have worked with the Thomas Kilmann previously you won't have to learn a whole new framework.
• Cross-cultural flexibility gives it a credible feel to people from multiple cultural backgrounds. Helps people talk about cultural differences.
• Indepth information on each style helps people see the benefits as well as the costs of excessive use of each style.
• Practical tips on how to work effectively with each style. Participants come away with insights that really make a difference.
• Step by step, online trainers' guide makes it easy for you to plan your own workshop. Fourteen pages of clear guidance, free!
• Stimulating discussion questions. Put people in small groups and watch discussions take off with proven starters.
• Low-cost. You'll never have to scratch your head again about whether a group's budget can handle a conflict style inventory.

Useful in many settings

• Individuals use it as a take-alone tool to improve their response to conflicts.
  Partners take it separately and then discuss the results together.
  Teams who want to work together better can take it as individuals and then discuss the results as a group
• Managers and project leaders will learn how to bring the best out of each team member.
  Human resources professionals help individuals, departments and teams develop better conflict resolution skills and create a better working atmosphere.
  Mediators and negotiators improve their effectiveness in working with others, or use it to train people entering talks.
• Trainers in conflict resolution or leadership skills structure training sessions ranging from one hour to half a day around it.
  Consultants give clients specific feedback to improve handling of conflict.
• Pastors and other religious leaders strengthen their skills in congregational conflicts.
  Teachers and professors lead students in a quick, easy, and practical introduction to conflict resolution skills and concepts.

Time Required
Take the conflict style inventory in about twenty minutes. Score and interpret the results in as little as half an hour. However, to do this inventory justice, two hours of interpretation and reflection time are recommended. Trainers can easily plan an entire day based on this inventory, and the booklet contains two pages of suggested discussion questions.

Satisfaction Guaranteed

We are so confident you will like Style Matters: The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory that we'll cheerfully return your money if you are disappointed and you return booklets in good shape (less shipping costs where involved).

Are you a trainer who has previously worked with other conflict style inventories? Most trainers prefer our conflict style inventory over others. Because the underlying logic is similar, the transition from other five style inventories to ours is a piece of cake. If you use our inventory in a training workshop and do not agree that it beats any conflict style inventory you have used as a teaching tool, keep the booklets you've already used and we will refund 50% of their purchase price (less shipping). We will also refund 100% of any booklets you return in good shape and 100% of any rights to reproduce you purchased if you made your own copies.

To Order

Payment by Paypal or credit card (multiple currencies accepted), or checks by approval. Note: Credit card purchases are handled through Paypal. You can use any major credit card to pay through Paypal even if you do not wish to start a Paypal account. After you have placed your order in the shopping cart, you will be taken to a Paypal page where you can fill in credit card info.
NOTE: In November 2008, we are upgrading our site. If you have any difficult ordering, please send us a note at: Center@RiverhouseEpress.com. We will get back to you within 24 hours.

24 page book in quality stock cover. Available in full color or black and white.
Price: $4.95-8.95, depending on color and quantity plus shipping
Recommended for: Quantities of 20 or more (for less than 20 copies please see next option)

PDF file copy of the print version.  Purchase one PDF original, print it, and make your own copies.
Price: $4.95 for the PDF file plus $2.95 per user.
Recommended for: quantities of less than 20 or when you need copies immediately.

Style Matters Online (available December 2008)

Contains the same text as the above with many additional additional features
Price: $9.95
Recommended for: Immediate use, trainers who want users to take the inventory before arrival at a workshop, digital classrooms, distance education and consulting

Validation of Style Matters: The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory

A recently completed doctoral research study using Style Matters: The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory found that the instrument performed well in reliability testing and is “valid and reliable”. Jean Chronis Kuhn, who received her Doctorate in Nursing Practice at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions, administered Style Matters to Massachusetts nursing home directors to assess conflict management styles before and after a conflict management teaching intervention. In her conclusion, Chronis Kuhn wrote: “One unintended consequence was the unanticipated finding that the adapted version of the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory (KCSI) performed so well during reliability testing, leading to the conclusion that the model and conflict measurement tools have immense applicability to other nursing settings as well as sustainability.”

Style Matters was developed by conflict resolution expert Dr. Ron Kraybill in the 1990s as a low-cost tool for teaching awareness of differing styles of personal conflict management. Like the widely-used Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, Style Matters is based on the Blake and Mouton five-styles-of-conflict axis. However, Style Matters adds unique optional additional features, including an element that recognizes cultural differences.

Easy transition for trainers from other five-style conflict style inventories

Like the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, Style Matters works with five basic styles of responding to conflict mapping them as the interplay of task vs. relationship (or assertiveness vs. cooperativeness). Examples of such instruments include Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann in their Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (Tuxedo NY: Xicom, 1974) Also, Jay Hall in his Conflict Management Survey (Teleometrics International, Inc., The Woodlands, TX, 1973), as well as Robert Blake and Jane Mouton, The Managerial Grid (Gulf Publishing, Houston, TX, 1964) Of these, the most widely used is the Thomas-Kilmann Instrument, which names the styles competing (equivalent to Directing in Style Matters), collaborating (equivalent to Problem-Solving), compromising, accommodating (equivalent to Harmonizing) and avoiding.

Any trainer who has worked with any of the above instruments will find the transition to Style Matters simple for the underlying logic is the same. You will be able to use the same illustrations and learning sequences you used previously. But you can significantly enhance them with the added features of Style Matters: the differentiation between calm and storm, the extended tips section that gives specific, practical suggestions for working with each style, the two-page discussion guide at the end, and if you choose, discussion of how differing cultural backgrounds affect people's responses.

We have consistently found that people who used other inventories and try Style Matters prefer ours. And for that reason we guarantee that you will not be disappointed.

History of Style Matters

The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory was developed by Ron Kraybill, then director of Mennonite Conciliation Service, based in Akron, Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Many users of the commercial inventory he was using at that time complained about the "forced choice" format of that inventory. And many groups needed access to a conflict style inventory at low cost. In repeated training workshops, Kraybill tested and refined a user-friendly inventory that was published in the Mennonite Conciliation Service Training Manual. Like the widely-used Thomas Kilmann inventory, it identifies five styles of responding to conflict. Like the Gilmore Fraleigh personality style inventory, it gives users two sets of scores, one for "calm" conditions and one for "storm".

In the years since, the KCSI has quietly established itself as a favorite among trainers around the world, its reputation spread by word of mouth. A large number of conflict resolution organizations and websites have reproduced it, though it is rarely identified as the KCSI.

The early version of the Kraybill inventory can be taken online at no cost.

Recognizing the widespread use of the KCSI that had developed completely unattended, in 2004 Kraybill revised it, incorporating ideas and comments accumulated from users over a period of many years. In 2005 the upgraded version was published by Riverhouse ePress, titled "Style Matters: The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory".

The updated version is culturally sensitive, differentiating between users from collectivist versus individualist cultures. It contains more in-depth instructions than previous versions. It has a lengthy section of tips for bringing out the best in each style. It also has a two-page discussion guide at the end with many questions useful for group reflection.

Over 120,000 users have taken the KCSI. Riverhouse ePress retains the commitment of Ron Kraybill, the author, and Mennonite Central Committee, the original publisher, to make this instrument available to all who wish to use it, regardless of cost. We have priced it at less than half the cost of our competition, and offer more features. We welcome hearing from any group truly unable to afford the KCSI even at the current price. We will not let cost stand as an obstacle to groups committed to building a more peaceful world.