Best Conflict Solutions, LLC

18/09/2026

Why should healthcare teams rehearse difficult conversations the same way they rehearse procedures? New on the blog: Mediator Kimberly Best, RN, MA joins Dr. Lee Sharma on the Scalpel and Sword podcast to explore practicing conflict skills, the Best Conflict Conversation Cards, and how rehearsal improves patient care and team safety. Read more: https://wix.to/C6KiKXW

Mediator Kimberly Best, RN, MA returns to Dr. Lee Sharma's Scalpel and Sword podcast for Ep69 to talk about practicing conflict skills in healthcare, the Best Conflict Conversation Cards, and why a hard conversation deserves the same rehearsal as any procedure.

18/09/2026

I am excited for the Association of Missouri Mediators 2026 Annual Conference, The Art of Resolution, happening October 2nd on Zoom, with small group viewing sites in Liberty (Kansas City) and St. Louis.

I will be presenting on Mediating Healthcare and End of Life Decisions, digging into the ethical, legal, and moral layers of these conversations and how we help families hold the balance between preserving life and honoring someone's autonomy. Here is a short preview if you want a feel for the session: https://youtu.be/Mj2zdnNKyAE

The full lineup is excellent. Professor Stevenson Carlebach on The Influence Equation, Kim L. Kirn and Michael Giegerman on ABA Formal Opinion 518, Val U Baul French on Mediating the Political Divide, and Zena Zumeta and Marya Kolman leading a Mediation Ethics Game workshop. Six hours of continuing education are approved, including 2.5 ethics hours.

Early bird registration ends today, so if you have been on the fence, now is the time. You can register at www.momediators.org/2026-conference.html

Association of Missouri Mediators, Inc. Carlebach Kirn Giegerman French Zumeta Kolman

Register now for AMM's 2026 annual conference -

16/09/2026

Our LinkedIn newsletter just surpassed 1,700 subscribers.



What an honor, and a responsibility.



Every one of you showed up because conflict, in some form, touches your work or your life. Maybe it is a team that cannot seem to get on the same page. Maybe it is a family navigating a hard season together. Maybe it is the quiet burnout that comes from carrying tension no one names out loud.



I do not take that trust lightly. My goal with every issue is to give you something you can actually use, not just something to read.



So I would love to hear from you. What topics do you want more of? Workplace conflict? Healthcare and burnout? Family and caregiving dynamics? Something else entirely?



Let me know in the comments. This newsletter is for you, and I want to keep shaping it around what is actually useful.

Association of Missouri Mediators, Inc.

14/09/2026

I am delighted to be co-facilitating a cohort of the ABA DR Practice Incubator alongside Molly Thomas.

One detail I love: the first meeting has no slides. It is about people. The group gets to know each other, writes its own charter, names itself, and sets the vision the whole year hangs on. That hour is why the group still functions in month seven, and why members tend to stay in touch long after June.

Nine months, October through June, with the two of us there the whole way. The application window closes September 14, and that is a firm date. Nine months is a real commitment, but I keep saying yes because I learn as much from the cohort as they do from us. If it has been on your list, this is the week. practiceincubator.com

12/09/2026

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7503036612855906304/

Be part of the improvement that the healthcare system needs - whether as a consumer or a practitioner. Thank you Dr. Lee Sharma for your commitment to better healthcare culture, and for including me in the conversation.

“We’ve normalized a system that’s not our best.” 🔥 THIS. One of my favorite parts of this conversation with the absolutely awesome Kimberly Best, RN, MA is her recognition that healthcare doesn’t have to accept dysfunctional conflict as simply “the way it is.” A healthy system chang...

11/09/2026

Some news that makes me smile! I'm now writing a weekly “advice” column, "We Need to Talk," for The Kewanee Voice and The Henry-Stark Voice in Illinois.

This one is personal. My dear friend Sherri Welch, RN, MHA, FACHE has spent years helping revitalize the local paper in the town where she grew up. I've listened to her talk about Kewanee with so much pride, and I kept wondering how I could support what she's building. When we found this, it was a true win/win: she gets a column for her readers, and I get to do what I love most, helping people find their way through the conversations they've been avoiding.

Here's why her work matters so much. When a national chain bought Kewanee's longtime newspaper, local coverage nearly disappeared. Two local journalists refused to let their town's stories go untold and founded The Kewanee Voice as a nonprofit, independent news organization. It has since grown to include a weekly print paper serving communities across Henry and Stark counties. Local journalism introduces us to our neighbors, celebrates our accomplishments, and holds our communities together in ways national news never can. Supporting it means supporting informed citizens, accountable government, and thriving communities, and ensuring the stories of small-town America continue to be told.

Fun fact: I wrote an "advice" column for my high school paper back in the days of dinosaurs. Funny how life circles back around.

Each week I'll answer readers' letters about the hard conversations at home, at work, and in the family. The things we say "it's fine" about when it is not fine.

Have a conversation you've been avoiding? Write to me at [email protected]. Your letter might help a whole town full of people having the same conversation.

Association of Missouri Mediators

Kimberly Best did not set out to become a conflict specialist. She got there the way a lot of us find our second calling, by living through something hard and refusing to believe it had to be that way. The something hard was a divorce, and a bad one. She describes it now with the… Continue reading...

09/09/2026

I'm back for a second year as a facilitator for the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Practice Incubator, co-facilitating with Molly Thomas and I can't wait!

Last year I watched a cohort of talented dispute resolution professionals stop building their practices by accident. They priced their work, found their people, and finished with business plans that actually exist. Watching that happen twice a month for nine months will make a believer out of you.

Here's what the Incubator is: a small cohort, two facilitators who stay with you the whole way, meetings twice a month from October through June. Not a webinar. Not a certificate. A practice.

If you're excellent at the work and less certain about the business behind it, this program was built for you.

Applications are open through the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution and close September 14.

A special thank you to Susan E. Guthrie, Melinda Feldman, and my last year facilitator, Charles McDaniel, Jr. for all of your hard work putting this together.

Everything you need is at practiceincubator.com. I'd love to see your name in my cohort.

08/09/2026

Why do arguments spiral so fast? In our new blog post, Best Conflict Solutions debunks the idea of the “amygdala hijack.” The amygdala isn’t a fear center that seizes control — it’s a relevance detector. Stress shifts thinking to habit (handoff, not hijack). Learn how triggers, overreaction, and rapid escalation work — and practical ways to train a calmer response from mediator Kimberly Best. Read more: https://wix.to/ubt9N1s

Best Conflict Solutions debunks the amygdala hijack. The amygdala is not a fear center that seizes control of your brain. It is a relevance detector, a smoke detector that flags what matters, and stress chemicals hand thinking off to habit. Handoff, not hijack. Learn why conflict escalates so quickl...

07/09/2026

Happy Labor Day from Best Conflict Solutions! Today we pause to honor the work, dedication, and resilience of the people who keep our organizations running. Wishing you rest and good company.

04/09/2026

I just finished my final submission for Thomas Hübl's Foundations of Trauma-Informed Coaching and Consulting program.

My learning with Thomas Hübl, PhD started years ago, when I joined him and William Ury in a two year co-lab called Mediate and Meditate. I came back for this program because something kept nagging at me in my work.

I have always believed that people need to feel seen, heard, validated, and valued before they can problem solve. That still holds. But sometimes I did all of that and the person still could not move. Not would not. Could not.

This program gave me the missing piece. Trauma here does not mean only catastrophe. It means anything that overwhelmed someone's ability to cope, and the armor they built to get through it. That armor does not come off because a mediator is kind. And some of my own habits, like moving too fast to the next question, could quietly replay the original experience of not being met. Without meaning to, I could be part of the pattern.

Now I have language and a mechanism for what I used to only sense. It changes how I sit in the room.

Grateful to Thomas, the faculty, and a remarkable cohort. More to come on how this shows up in mediation, conflict coaching, and healthcare work.

Best Conflict Solutions, LLC Association of Missouri Mediators