Conflict Doesn't Blow Up. It Slowly Drains the Room

Hilton Garden Inn

3119 Colorado Blvd

Denton, TX 76210

Presented by: Jeff Lay

Conflict rarely explodes — it slowly drains the room, the team, and the culture around it. In this session, HR professionals will discover why most workplace conflict begins not with poor communication but with no communication at all. You'll gain practical frameworks for navigating conflict yourself, and tools to coach your managers through the situations they're avoiding. Practical, data-backed, and immediately applicable.

3 Learning Objectives:

1. Identify the root causes of unresolved workplace conflict including unexpressed expectations and uncommunicated needs

2. Apply a practical framework for navigating sensitive conflict situations with clarity, empathy, and legal defensibility

3. Develop coaching strategies to equip managers with the skills to address conflict before it escalates to HR

Jeff Lay is the founder of The People Curve, a boutique HR advisory and conflict resolution consulting firm based in Tyler, Texas. With more than 20 years of progressive leadership experience — including nearly two decades at Pine Cove Christian Camps, one of the largest camp and conference organizations in the United States — Jeff has built his career at the intersection of people, leadership, and organizational health.

As Vice President of Human Resources at Pine Cove, Jeff served as the senior strategic HR partner to the executive team, overseeing all people functions for an organization with more than 2,500 employees annually across multiple sites. In that role he built and led a centralized Employee Relations function, designed and implemented HR governance frameworks, led complex investigations, coached senior leaders through difficult personnel decisions, and used data to identify systemic workforce risks before they became crises. He also led a recruiting team of 50+ professionals and oversaw the full employee lifecycle across a complex, multi-site operation.

Through The People Curve, Jeff now serves multiple organizations simultaneously as a fractional HR advisor and conflict resolution specialist — partnering with executive directors, senior leaders, and HR teams to navigate the people challenges that require both expertise and trust. His clients span the nonprofit, ministry, corporate, and faith-based sectors.

Jeff holds the SHRM-SCP certification — the Society for Human Resource Management's senior-level credential — and is a Certified Conflict Resolution Specialist through Peaceful Leaders Academy. These credentials aren't just letters after his name. They reflect a genuine conviction that HR professionals have a responsibility to do this work well — with integrity, with skill, and with the kind of courage it takes to have the conversations most people are avoiding.

Jeff's speaking and teaching centers on a core belief: conflict doesn't blow up. It slowly drains the room — the team, the relationship, the culture — until one day something is gone and no one is quite sure what happened. His sessions are built to help HR professionals understand what conflict actually is, why it starts long before it surfaces, and what to do about it — both for themselves and for the managers they support.

He is known for a teaching style that balances research-backed frameworks with the kind of honest, grounded storytelling that comes from two decades of navigating real situations with real people. His sessions are practical, immediately applicable, and — importantly for anyone who's sat through a long conference day — genuinely engaging.

Jeff has presented to SHRM chapters and leadership audiences across Texas, including Rose City SHRM and Brazos Valley SHRM, and has submitted speaking proposals to HRSouthwest Conference and the Christian Camp and Conference Association National Conference. He is building a speaking practice anchored in conflict resolution, employee relations, and leadership development — topics he has lived, not just studied.

Prior to his HR leadership roles, Jeff served for nearly 15 years as a Camp Director across multiple Pine Cove properties — an experience that gave him an irreplaceable foundation in leading diverse teams, navigating complex interpersonal dynamics, managing organizational culture under pressure, and developing leaders at every level. It is also where he developed his deep conviction that the health of an organization is inseparable from the health of its people.

Jeff is a graduate of Texas A&M University and completed graduate coursework in counseling and organizational development at Denver Seminary. He is a Christ-follower, husband, and father, and is actively involved in the East Texas business and faith community.

He founded The People Curve on a simple belief: organizations don't have HR problems. They have people problems that HR has the unique opportunity — and responsibility — to help solve. That belief drives everything about how he works with clients, teaches in rooms, and shows up for the leaders who are carrying the weight of their organizations' most difficult people situations.

Jeff is based in Tyler, Texas, and available for speaking engagements, workshops, and organizational consulting nationwide. Learn more at thepeoplecurve.com.