Posts Tagged ‘conflict’

AVOID CONFLICT AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

(An excerpt from my book The Little Black Book of Leadership.  What?  Your team has not read the book?  Choose to maximize your performance – read the book!)

Why should you care about engaging the difficult process of conflict management? Quite simply, you must manage it, otherwise it will manage you.

An inability to effectively deal with conflict can derail your career.

In terms of dealing with conflict, there are generally three types of people.

The passives (70% of people). They habitually avoid conflict. Negative conflict that is avoided almost always resurfaces later – and it usually grows. When you avoid conflict, you tell others about your will and character. When positive conflict is avoided, improvement potential is lost – possibly forever.

The potentials (20% of people). They understand the potential of positive conflict. However, they fail to adequately check the emotions and they do not possess strong conflict-management skills. Best of intentions aside, they make things worse.

The professionals (10% of people). They understand the potential of positive conflict and they have at least decent emotional intelligence and strong conflict management skills. This is the small group of people whom you should aspire to join.

CHALLENGE:

Successful leadership teams are 10/20/70, not 70/20/10. What is your team?

Your career success depends on your joining the “professionals” group. Leaders are hired and promoted based on their ability to successfully engage in various types of growth through creativity and innovation. Inevitably, this involves dealing effectively with conflict.

If you believe in the 80/20 rule and the power of positive conflict, you have to consider the possibility of sometimes dealing with people whom you would rather avoid. If you cannot view the following in a positive light, you will not enjoy leadership roles:

You will always work with people whom you do not like. Unless you work in complete solitude, this is a simple fact of life. How you view it is up to you.

They know and do things you need. Not only do you not like them, but they have skills you need in order to be successful. Thus, your career growth requires them.

You must find a way to productively co-exist. In fact, you must move past mere tolerance towards genuine appreciation. How you feel about a professional colleague cannot be “all or nothing.”

Happy leading!

A BRUTALLY HONEST TAKE ON DIVERSITY

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

(Yet another excerpt from the forthcoming book The Little Black Book of Leadership)

The common mantra is diversity = good.  However, that is not terribly accurate or useful.  The truth is diversity always hurts before it helps.

Diversity has the potential to broaden perspectives and enhance our creative decision making capacity.  However, that potential is not realized as often as should be the case.

The workforce is increasingly diverse in terms of race, gender, age, and socioeconomic background.  There are many bases of diversity.  However, in the end, these categories of differences are not useful.

What is useful is how they contribute

to a diversity of thought.

To harness the power of diversity, understand that:

  • Diversity makes people uncomfortable.  A huge self-protective left over tendency from the cave days is to react less than positively to those who look, think, and act differently than we do.  It was useful then, not so useful now.
  • Diversity can help if leaders model the way.  When leaders move past the rhetoric and thoughtfully act in a manner supportive of diversity, others begin to follow suit.
  • Diversity can help if the team has decent conflict management skills.  When you follow the rules and guidelines noted above, diversity moves past a focus on differences and towards being a catalyst for improved performance.
  • No amount of diversity training trumps thoughtful conversations within a group.  Training might build sensitivity, though it is often hurts as much as it helps.  Real change related to embracing diversity begins with words and actions within the group on the job.

To be clear, diversity is an amazing asset and an increasingly unavoidable reality.  Build up your appreciation and tolerance and conflict management skills and soon enough you will see how diversity can enrich your team.

HOW TO PICK A GOOD FIGHT AT WORK

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

I think we can all agree there is too much negative conflict at work.  Petty bickering about unimportant issues, silly spats due to personality differences, etc.  The best professionals learn how to squash negative conflict and facilitate positive conflict:  positive, candor-filled conversations about important issues capable of moving the group forward.

If you take aim at an issue you feel could be a great source of positive conflict, think through these steps to increase your odds of success:

1. Do you really want to do this? Choose your battles wisely.  Like it or not, you cannot aggressively pursue every little issue you wish to address.

2. Do you have a snowball’s chance in hell? Think about the leaders above you in the organization.  Based on what you know about them, their experience, their loyalties, and their recent decisions – would you expect them to support your position?

3. Stick to the facts. Don’t lead with emotion, opinions, innuendo, half-truths, unproven bold assertions or your “perspective” on the matter.  You start with and faithfully stick to the facts.

4. Bring your friends. You want a decent grip on your odds.  Do the leg work and find out where everyone stands.  The more friends you have (those who share you view on the issue), the better your odds.

5. Turn lemons into lemonade. Be able to articulate how your position actually helps the opposition.  It is difficult for them to disagree with you when your solution in some way helps them.

6. Make it a no-brainer for the leadership team. If you were given the green light today from your boss, how would you sell this idea to the senior leaders?  Can you articulate in a few short and ultra coherent bullets how your position supports the company’s higher level goals and objectives?

7. Admit your culpability! Do not blame others.  Fess up to your role in the status quo instead.  When you admit your role in the calamity, the opposition is more likely to be positively engaged in the discussion.

8. Validate points with which you agree. Try to find some part of the opposition’s position with which you can agree.  Your goal is to build some honest mutual respect that will help them want to listen to your position.

9. Offer solutions, not problems. If you are going to raise difficult issues, you need good ideas.  Have something articulate to say about how we might change the status quo on this issue or seriously consider biting your tongue.

10. Finally, get ready to volunteer! If you are going to be silly enough to ask a bunch of people to expend their finite time and energy on some change effort, you had better be the first one standing in line ready to donate your precious time for the cause.

These are not magical solutions, hey – even positive conflict can be tough!  However, if you’ll be sure to think carefully through these you will give yourself a fighting chance.

FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE CUBE

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Conflict. We love to avoid it. We love avoiding conflict almost more than creating successes. In fact we often reduce the odds of success because of our addiction to avoiding fear. It’s embarrassing.

Here is a common example: leaders choose to spend time and money on training, 360 evaluations, or other T&D-related vehicles for “problem” employees. It goes like this. Some employee is good, maybe even great, at their job, but they are interpersonally problematic. They are insensitive, if not rude – to everyone! Solution? Send them to training. Let’s stop for a second and analyze this. You have a person with a personality issue. Personality is fixed in adolescence and basically does not change. You avoid more seriously “owning” the problem by speaking to and/or coaching the person directly. You send them to training. Nice job smart guy.

Every budget allocation decision has an opportunity cost. In this case it is the cost of not spending that time and money on a high potential employee. With T&D dollars, the choice is often made to fix a perceived defect as opposed to enhancing a perceived strength. While I’ve heard great arguments for both, my professional opinion is that we err far too often on fixing perceived deficits. Further, we’re not actually fixing them! You spot the irritating but otherwise skilled employee and instead of engaging the person to attempt to change the behavior in question – you sign them up for a 360 feedback plan! Weeks later when the process is complete and the irritating idiot receives all of the data, he blow it off and continues being irritating. How many hours and dollars were spent just so that the boss could avoid a conflict here?

In five minutes instead of five weeks you could: sit the person down, note the value you do see the person adding at work, explain calmly your very specific observations, suggest how you feel the situation must change, offer honest ways you will help them make the needed changes, and clearly identify the consequences of no change in behavior. Then go find a high potential person who won’t waste your training dollars and sign them up for the 360 program!

Happy leading – I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving :)