Managing people in a collaborative, open, transparent yet accountable way
A common question in ‘Difficult Conversations for Managers’ workshops is what to do when it feels like you are in one of those fruitless dialogues, repeating the same thing without achieving anything. The other person isn’t listening or taking on board what you need them to hear or understand. A recent example was where a…
Frustrated trying to deal with difficult behaviour? Imagine you had a magic weather wand. A simple wave and you would have glorious sunshine, a gentle breeze with a cloudless blue sky above. With your magic wand you would lighten people’s moods, you’d lift people’s energy and motivation. In one swoosh, you could banish the grey…
Does the thought of difficult conversations make your stomach churn? Here’s the most important ingredient to make it work. In a recent holiday in Italy I went on a ‘Try a Dive’ lesson. The dive centre was at a sandy beach next to a clear blue lagoon. The water looked so inviting and delicious. But…
“But what if you needed to give her a telling off…” This was the comment of a participant in a recent ‘Difficult Conversations’ training session with a group of managers. The discussion was around the room layout and whether the manager should sit behind a desk or not, when giving negative feedback to an employee.…
All Conflict Leads Us Back To Ourselves. Many years ago I worked quite closely with another colleague. Overall, we had a pretty good working relationship, but some disagreements also as to how things should be done and what the best course of action was to take. I remember clearly at times finding those disagreements quite difficult:…
In a research experiment in 2001, two groups of people completed a paper maze that featured a mouse in the middle trying to reach a picture on the outside. One group had a picture of cheese on the outside, the other a predator – an owl. After completing the maze both groups were given creativity…
Effective Accountability Conversations. Brian was hired 6 months ago as a new Manager of a small team of 7 staff in a branch of a country-wide service organisation. He’s committed and enthusiastic and has big plans to improve service delivery and productivity. Alice has worked there for 15 years and Brian is finding her less…
‘Feedback’ is one of the top three issues that can cause conflict or sour working relationships. The reasons for this are many. In some cases, the feedback ‘giver’ may be abrupt, overly negative or passive-aggressive (“yes, you did an ok job with that” through gritted teeth). But the receiver of feedback also plays a role…
‘All those ideas around conflict resolution are really great Mary, but what about ‘difficult behaviour’ – someone who just won’t sit down and talk things through in a reasonable way…how are you supposed to deal with them?’ This was the comment of a client in a recent team conflict case. She described herself as constantly…
A question I am frequently asked in training people in mediation and conflict resolution skills is the challenge as a third party mediator/facilitator to remain neutral and impartial. This tends to get challenged on two fronts. There is neutrality to the parties and the issues they bring – not getting drawn into viewing one side…
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MII Accredited: 6-Day Programme
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Sept/Oct 2018
