Conflict Makers

MBA.502 - Conflict makers: How to 

screw up team productivity. 

    

1.  Focus on your division’s tasks and needs only.

2.  Remember, yours is the key part of the organization!   

2.1. It’s a power play, and the superior position is yours.

3.  Stick with your solutions!

3.1. If you don’t, you’ll never get what you want.

3.2. Remember if you compromise, you lose.

4.  No mediator!

4.1. Unless they side with you, you're screwed. 

5.  Stand firm! 

5.1. Don’t admit you're wrong.  It’s a sign of weakness.

5.2. Don’t acknowledge any of their position.  Same reason.

6.  Keep your distance!

6.1. They're hose-heads; not worth talking to anyway.

Easy Alternative:

1.  Engage.

1.1. Talk it through graciously.

1.2. Define the business problem.  This is, after all, a business.

1.3. Find the conflicting priorities.

2.  Work out a deal.

2.1. Converge on goals.  Insist on a win-win way through. 

2.2. Identify, clarify, and commit.

2.3. Follow through with quick meetings as needed to keep it on track.

3.  If that didn't work, engage with an impartial mediator.

3.1. Do (1) & (2) again with a senior staffer to mediate.

3.1.1.  Sides might meet just with the mediator first.

3.1.2.  The mediator can perhaps whittle things down to the core issues from a business perspective.

3.2. The mediation's focus will be on workplace performance (appropriately), not about how sides ‘feel’ about each other (a shrink’s task for somebody else). See MBA.501

4.  Affirm and Commit.

4.1. Identify, clarify, and commit.

4.2. Follow-up to see that the resolution worked.

4.3. Meet again, and regularly if needed, to support the changes.

By the way, where do you think all these quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen?  Think again. They come about because deep inside ourselves we want our own way, and we fight for it. We want what we don't have and are willing to do harm to get it.  Truth.  Deal with it.