Style Matters

The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory

Description

Style Matters is a pyschometrically-validated 24 page conflict style inventory that shows users their preferred style of conflict management and provides detailed suggestions for each style.   Several pages are devoted to each style, outlining strengths of that style and dangers of over-using it, and giving tips for working with people who favor this style.   A unique feature of Style Matters is that it works for people from diverse cultural backgrounds since different instructions are given for users from individualistic and collectivist cultures.

Trainer friendly. Style Matters was written by and for trainers and is supported by a free detailed, eighteen page Trainers Guide that is keyed directly to the inventory.   Any experienced group leader can lead a successful workshop on conflict styles at the first try by following the outline in the Trainers Guide.  An Online Version is available with an indepth tutorial for independent users or trainers who want users to arrive at a workshop with scores in hand. 

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Why Trainers Love This 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 can take it as individuals and then discuss the results as a group
Managers and project leaders 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 conflict resolution, and 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 fifteen minutes. Score and interpret the results in as little as half an hour. However, you will get best results with two hours of interpretation and discussion time.    Each booklet contains two pages of suggested discussion questions, so you can easily tailor discussion according to the time available. You can fruitfully spend up to a day of learning and discussion around this inventory.

Tight on training time?  Have participants take the inventory in advance - clear instructions make this easy.  Better yet, use the Online Version, which provides an online tutorial.  Users arrive at your workshop ready to discuss and reflect on their scores.

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).

If you use our inventory in a training workshop and do not agree that it is more effective than any  other 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.   (As of March, 2010, we have yet to receive a single request for a refund.)

To Order

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Summary of Options (please click on "Place an order" in the menu to left to order) :

Validation Research

A 2005 doctoral study using Style Matters 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.”

A larger research project conducted by researchers at West Chester University of Pennsylvania 2009-2010 administered Style Matters to more than 300 subjects and tested various wordings of questions for validity and reliability, standard benchmarks of consistency and accuracy of measurement in testing.   Based on the results of their research , the researchers rated Style Matters well on both counts, and will be reporting their findings publicly to the academic community in  October, 2010 [Braz, M.E., Lawton, B., Kraybill, R.S., & Daly, K. (2010). "Validation of the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory." Submitted to the 96th Annual Convention of the National Communication Association, San Fransisco, CA.]

Riverhouse ePress actively supports objective scholarly research into conflict styles by providing access to Style Matters at no cost to serious academic research projects, while maintaining a policy of complete objectivity regarding findings.   No financial or other resources have exchanged hands in these research projects.

Easy Transition for Trainers from Other Five-Style Conflict Style Inventories

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) as well as Jay Hall in his Conflict Management Survey (Teleometrics International, Inc., The Woodlands, TX, 1973).  Both the Thomas Kilmann and the Kraybill instrument use the widely-known "managerial grid" created by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton in their book, The Managerial Grid (Gulf Publishing, Houston, TX, 1964) The Thomas-Kilmann Instrument names the styles competing (equivalent to Directing in Style Matters), collaborating (equivalent to Problem-Solving), compromising, accommodating (equivalent to Harmonizing) and avoiding.

Trainers who have worked with any of the above instruments find the transition to Style Matters simple, for the underlying logic is the same. You can use exactly the same illustrations and learning sequences you used previously. But if you wish, you can also use the additional features of Style Matters: differentiation between calm and storm; specific, practical suggestions for working with each style, a two-page discussion guide at the end, and discussion of how differing cultural backgrounds affect people's responses.  

Trainers so consistently prefer Style Matters that we guarantee a refund to any trainer who has used other inventories, tries Style Matters, and does not find Style Matters a superior inventory.   For the Online Version and the Digital Version we will provide a 100% refund; for the print version, 50% of purchase price less shipping.

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 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.
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.

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 years. In 2005 the upgraded version was published by Riverhouse ePress, as 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, 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.

Place an order.
Free  eighteen page Trainers Guide to Successful Conflict Styles Workshops
Product comparison between Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and Style Matters: The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory
Slide show introducing basic concepts of conflict styles – perfect for starting a workshop.
Free review copy of Style Matters:  Send This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Discussion questions for groups large or small wanting to reflect on conflict styles.
An essay on culture and conflict and impact on conflict styles.
A large list of web resources on conflict styles.