As managers, leaders and top executives within your organization you’ve got to kill the conflicts in your workplace first before dysfunction takes hold. 

Read the entire story here!

Technorati Tags: Business Conflict, Conflict in Workplace, Conflict Strategies

The art of managing disagreement is driven by the ability to have the parties actively engaged with the facilitator and with each other around finding a mutually agreeable solution to the problem. 

They must trust the facilitator and the process.  It is important to keep differences constructive and to work for collaborative discovery of solutions based on commitment, trust and cooperation. 

When parties are engaged disagreement opens the door to consideration of options that can result in integrated decision making and optimal outcomes.
 
  Conflict management is more than just problem solving.  Ideally it also addresses the relationships and feelings of those involved in a dispute. 

Effective conflict management incorporates both a concrete solution and a sense of emotional resolve.

  Engagement is a way to integrate thinking and feeling – head and heart – and can play a important role in constructively resolving differences.

Read the entire article here.

Technorati Tags: Business Conflict, Conflict in Workplace, conflict solutions ohio, Conflict Strategies, emotions in conflict

Bonuses are a fact of business life. Last year the Guardian newspaper calculated that the cash rewards paid to London’s financial chiefs comfortably outstripped the UK’s entire transport budget.

With such large sums at stake, envy is bound to raise its ugly head, never a good thing for company morale. So how should you decide who gets how much? Steven J. Brams suggests a method that’s not only fair, but also encourages honesty.

What’s a fair share?

One of the most difficult problems managers face is how to allocate bonuses to members of a team when there is scant information on the contribution of each member to the team’s success.

It shows how an algorithm can be used to determine how bonuses (if they still exist!) can be allocated to employees, which a mediator could apply in the workplace.

Take a look at this most interesting and useful tool for measuring – how much you or they are worth.

Technorati Tags: Business Conflict, Conflict in Workplace, Conflict Strategies, Steven J Brams

Read the who story …

http://mediationworksblog.com/index.php/2009/03/16/how-to-handle-backstabbers-at-work-five-keys-to-manage-their-bad-behavior/

And be sure to log on and leave your comments – your own experiences having the knife stuck in by those you thought you could trust at work.

Technorati Tags: back stabbing, backstabbing at work, Business Conflict, Conflict in Workplace

If you remember the often quoted phrase from Lewis Carroll in his treatise on real life, Alice in Wonderland, “I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” then you know what it’s like when something you said gets taken out of context and reinterpreted – creating conflict where none was intended.

How many times have you had a thought or a feeling, based on a comment received – which you naturally screened through your own automatic filter “what did he mean by that”, in an attempt to sort what was said from what you think was meant?

It seems that every inbound communication is subject to interpretation beyond the actual words used based on your history with the person involved, your mood, their attitude, and your perception of what you think they believe is it for them.

This instantaneous decoding formula, applied to every communication uniquely, creates a filter on the fly that allows you to respond in the way you feel will be most accurate under the circumstances.

Whether or not you actually interpreted what they said and what they meant – remember the old expression “garbage in garbage out” – determines whether you actually understand how you should respond to them.

When I have a thought or a feeling and attempt to communicate it with someone else I use the words I think, based on my automatic screening process, accurately communicate what I want them to hear.

Naturally the interference that results – between  what I think my words mean, their screening process decoding their interpretation of the words based on how I have used them before and what they typically mean, and what each of us are expecting it all to mean – really makes me wonder how we are ever able to actually carry on a meaningful conversation.

Since 99.99% of our communications are meaningless the effects of this multidimensional instantaneous two way screen, encode, transmit, receive, decode, screen, understand process – does not matter a lot.

If we are talking about last night’s ball game or next week’s party – we will take the time to sort out our communications until we are all clear about what’s being said.

Unfortunately our workplace communications have the additional baggage associated with our past relationships of cooperation, competition, and our natural desire to get over on the other person. The resulting miscommunications lead to conflict which leads to a reduction in our individual, team, and organizational effectiveness.
             
Is there a simple way to defuse the resulting conflicts in workplace? Is it necessary that every miscommunication related conflict be dealt with on purpose in a formal way? Or do we need an informal “workplace conflict resolution” process? On the other hand do we need any kind of conflict resolution process at all? As always, it depends.

Ideally we would respond diplomatically and tactfully where we feel a simple explanation of what we are trying to communicate seems to be making the other person uncomfortable. Asking them to repeat back to you what they heard to make sure they are actually hearing what you meant is a simple and yet very effective diffuser of future conflict.

Do they even care about what you’re saying? And how can you deal with the person without further igniting an already volatile situation? Your own answers to these questions will tell you whether a next step beyond more clearly defined discussion points are likely to be required.

For some of us it is more difficult than others to respond diplomatically, tactfully and respectfully when there seems to be a misunderstanding brewing – we expect them to try harder to understand what we’re getting at.

If handled correctly a simple willingness to open up and at least share responsibility for being better understood may be the most dynamic and powerful tool you can use when communicating with a coworker. Typically, individuals are more likely to respond to a respectful approach better than any other.

It is well documented that when each party to a communication really wants to clearly understand what the other person means by the words they are using – where these two people share goodwill toward one another, an environment can be quickly created and easily maintained that fosters cooperation in all things.

Like anything that is planted in fertile soil, tended to, nourished, and fed regularly – shared goals for the future will over take and eventually crowd out all miscommunications, misunderstandings, and the resulting conflict in workplace.

Technorati Tags: Business Conflict, Conflict in Workplace, Conflict Strategies, Workplace Conflict Resolution

It’s double secret because everyone goes around smiling at each other, even actually liking one another, playing on the softball team together – while at the same time they’re just waiting for the right moment to submarine your plans, and sabotage your strategies.

I have found it to be true, I bet you have too, that no matter what I say and no matter how I say I feel about a coworker, supervisor, or boss – it’s what I end up doing that proves what I actually believe.

We think we can tell from someone’s non-verbal communications when they are conflicted, upset, etc.

We might sense it in their posture of aggression, their hostile gestures, their unwillingness to make eye contact, or maybe the silent treatment when we’re around.

We think we’re pretty good at figuring out who’s on the team and who is ready to drop the big one. Too bad, another myth busted.

The really difficult people are those that smile and say how are you – then slip the knife in when you’re not looking.

For instance one of your coworkers says that they want to be cooperative, they want to share in the information gathering, they want to be part of the team willingly pitching in to help in the accumulation of information around which important plans for the businesses future are being made.

But in reality they withhold critical information until you come begging for it, they incorporate the famous “if they don’t ask, I won’t tell” policy. Until, that is, they can demonstrate their superiority by questioning the final decision in light of what they know nobody else knows.

It doesn’t matter to them that the organization has wasted time, energy, and money coming to an erroneous conclusion because of the missing information.

Or they can smile and go along with the planning process, never telling anyone this key information. The decisions are flawed and the organization loses money as a result.

Decisions made without all relevant input can be devastatingly costly. In addition the cost of decisions not made or directions not taken can never be accurately calculated.

We pay dearly when members of our teams put their desire for power, their interest in getting over on the company or the boss ahead of doing what’s right.

When the boss thinks they have a saboteur in their midst, they often try to appease them rather than fire them, discipline them, or even have a constructive conflict resolution intended discussion with them.

Our organizations are full of people we can not fire , and almost no one has a preemptive workplace conflict resolution strategy designed to seek out conflicts when they are still blips just barely visible on the screen.

The manipulators among us will try to get the boss to take their side in the matter. Or maybe they will report their findings to their supervisor in a way to suggest that only they were capable of ferreting out this information and bring it to them.

Unfortunately the boss, who always sees through the ploy, will go along with it just to keep things moving forward.

Every organization is made up of steps, the “critical path” – where something must be done by someone else in order for you to do your job and you must do your job in order for the next person to do theirs.

Manipulators understand this all too well – so they work their game on their fellow employees, knowing that their power is in the ability to blockade the process. Their coworkers, again always knowing what’s happening – will go along so the process can move along.

How much time do you think is consumed needlessly with these maneuvers? How much money, actual dollars off the bottom line and out the door is this “double secret” conflict costing your organization?

Is there anything you can do about it?

The answer, it depends. It depends on whether or not the person is sacred (can not be dealt with in any productive way) because of their position in the business or the family. If this is true your choices are limited to those with the power in the organization are willing to exert. Often the business collapse because of situations like this.

On the other hand if they are, as is usually the case, good people who want to do better – but have behavioral issues or other issues that conspire to put them in the role of problem instigator, there is hope.

And that hope comes from the organization’s leaders willingness to put in place a conflict prevention strategy around the principle that we are all different and that the key to our long term success is our willingness to work hard at managing those differences whenever they exist .

Technorati Tags: Business Conflict, Conflict in Workplace, Conflict Strategies, cost of conflict workplace conflict resolution

Here we are in the 21st. Century, a supposedly enlightened race who accept one another’s differences and uniqueness – biological, temperamental, ethnic, etc. with open arms.

And yet we see that around the world these very differences – those things about each of us that create such a richness and that should unite us into a more complete whole – are still being transformed into conflict and confrontation.

Rather than addressing the need for global conflict resolution – we are all aware of that if we have a television or read anything about what’s going on in every corner of the world, I suggest we start closer to home.

Workplace conflict resolution can be a do it yourself process whose effects are often felt far beyond the workplace.

Think about the results of a process dedicated to managing the differences between the people in your organization. Those whose behavior and attitude is changed will carry their new mindset forward into their homes, places of worship, and their communities at large.

Leaders outside your organization they come in contact with will see the obvious benefits of having more productive relationships through cooperation and they will take this “new” idea to an even wider, and wider, and wider universe of people.

So how can you transform your environment? Before any change can take place we must first recognize that there is a reason, an atmosphere, a problem worth spending the time doing something about. Just because something does not appear to be broken doesn’t mean it is operating ay 100%.

Every workplace that is made up of more than one person has employees with different personality styles, differing self-interests, and a set of priorities that are not the same as their colleagues or you. It is also likely that there are those with values different from you, whose cultural norms are not like yours and whose gender is different.

Over time this rich mix of people establishes, in the minds of everyone – the corporate culture, one that identifies who you are as an organization. In many competitive industries customers, when asked why they chose one vendor over another, said it was because they felt comfortable doing business with them. In other words they resonated with who your organization is – the person it looks like in the eyes of that customer.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that since the corporate culture was created by the passing of time and the coalescing of personalities and other characteristics, all by osmosis – there is no manual, no control panel where you can flip a switch to correct communications problems that may derail the company’s progress.

As new people join the organization they bring their own persona to be added to the mix. Often miscommunications and  misunderstandings result simply because they don’t yet understand the culture. Stereotyping of these new hires, based on prejudices and experiences of your existing employees may be the result. Or as the new hires attempt to ‘fit in” they may make comments which, like those made by the veteran employees – result in some level of conflict.

Not conflict in a guns blazing scorched earth sense – rather a creeping, discomforting, costly fog that will seep into every pore in the corporate culture unless stopped.

The types of conflict I refer to are tension that makes cooperation difficult, distrust resulting in the instant internal dialogue “what did she mean by that” rather than taking the communication at face value. Naturally resentment and even anger are part of the conflict equation. And there are many other emotions playing their parts in the workplace conflict melodrama.

What we all need, it seems to me, is an implant in the space between our ears and our mouth. The implant would have multiple functions. First it would keep our mouth shut when we hear something we would normally respond to in a negative unproductive way. The benefits of keeping a much larger percentage of our thoughts to ourselves can not be over stated.

The implant would the re-route the input to where we keep what little common sense we have. This is the first step in understanding more clearly what someone meant by what they said and possibly even why they said it. When you keep your mouth shut and give people the benefit of the doubt, you can stop 75% of the misunderstandings created by these comments from becoming a problem or conflict.

The next 24% can be handled between the two of you – clearing the air in a productive way so you both understand the point of view of the other. This is a simple to implement process that really doesn’t require any special knowledge or insight. Mostly it requires the desire of both people to work together more effectively.

What about the missing 1%? That’s what HR is for.

By Wayne D. Messick, Editor in Chief www.iBizResources.com Contact information: www.iBizResources.com/about.html

Technorati Tags: Business Conflict, Conflict in Workplace, Conflict Strategies, Workplace Conflict Resolution