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.

Communication Killers

MBA.501 - Communication Killers: How to 
screw up  progress in the workplace.

1.  Listen just long enough to form a counter-strategy; then:      

2.  Invalidate! 

2.1. Challenge each premise as it emerges. 

2.2. Don’t wait to hear it all.  “Now, be reasonable …”

3.  Attack! 

3.1. Criticize!  “You always…,” is a good approach.

3.2. Attack their motives and accuracy.

4.  Defend! 

4.1. Adjust what you hear to fit your position. 

4.2. Deny their perspective. “No, you don't understand...”

5.  Escalate! 

5.1. Restate the offeror’s content in exaggerated and extreme form.

5.2. Then insert reasons why ‘it’ is impossible.  “The contract doesn't allow…”

6.  Withdraw! 

6.1. They're the problem, not you; make a strategic exit.

6.2. “I'll get somebody else to handle it,” is a great play.

7.  Play the ‘!#@*% you’ card!   Always a good cut-off. 

Easy Alternative:

1.  Give ‘understanding’ a try.

1.1. Listen to the subject matter and offered rationale.

1.2. Evaluate the non-verbal (the other 85%) content.

2.  Make sure you get it. 

2.1. Ask for insight. Why? What? How?

2.2. Feed it back for clarity. "If I understand, then ...."

3.  Keep it easy. 

3.1. Dial down each escalation.

3.2. Acknowledge each criticism according to its relevance and accuracy. 

4.  Brainstorm together.  Not why we can’t but how we can succeed.

5.  Affirm and Commit. 

5.1. Affirm the validity.  “Yes, you're right on that point.”

5.2. Affirm the value.  “Thanks.  I needed to know that.”

5.3. Affirm the individual.  “Keep it up.  I need your perspective.”

5.4. Commit.  “I understand and I’ll back you up on that.”

6.  Rinse; repeat. 

The principles illustrated here are applicable to pretty much any relationship whether it's between coworkers, friends, or marriage partners.  Or between parents and children, for that matter; especially teens.  :)  

The two authors of this particular short list spent 35 years in research, development, and screwing up.  Thanks and a hat tip to Russ whom I've known since the 70's and for whom I've worked since the early 90's.  Hard to believe he didn't fire me when I told him to. 

Letter to Peter Collinson

The entire letter from  Benjamin Franklin is rich and enlightening, but this excerpt says more worth laughing about than a weekend of comedy shows.

May 09, 1753

"...  The little value Indians set on what we prize so highly under the name of learning appears from a pleasant passage that happened some years since at a treaty between one of our colonies and the Six Nations; when every thing had been settled to the satisfaction of both sides, and nothing remained but a mutual exchange of civilities, the English commissioners told the Indians, they had in their country a college for the instruction of youth who were there taught various languages, arts, and sciences; that there was a particular foundation in favour of the Indians to defray the expense of the education of any of their sons who should desire to take the benefit of it.   And now if the Indians would accept of the offer, the English would take half a dozen of their brightest lads and bring them up in the best manner.  

The Indians after consulting on the proposal replied that it was remembered some of their youths had formerly been educated in that college, but it had been observed that for a long time after they returned to their friends, they were absolutely good for nothing being neither acquainted with the true methods of killing deer, catching beaver or surprising an enemy. The proposition however, they looked on as a mark of the kindness and good will of the English to the Indian Nations which merited a grateful return; and therefore if the English gentlemen would send a dozen or two of their children to Onondago the great Council would take care of their education, bring them up in really what was the best manner and make men of them.  ...."

America in a Box

Beauty in art, beauty in culture; one is wide open and free, the other is perhaps bounded by fairly rigid rules.

America's norms, created by tradition, formalized by law and policy, America is the land of the carefully constrained.  Citizens are expected to color inside the lines.  True?  Ask the occupiers how the police treated them.

... a game in a box.
A short list of places to stand.
Those are the rules.

Change 'in favor of all' is often resisted by power players in favor of their own interests.

Today's America  seems constrained by monied interests purchasing government backing and by government playing along with such special interests.  Our financial industry now touches virtually everyone in the the world, and as yet does so without  accountability.  The six billion or so who bear the burden of being so manhandled didn't give their permission, but Wall Street now controls the world price of corn, the staple for many of them, along with most other commodities.  Monsanto dictates their crops.  The U.S. Congress backs it all.

Here at home, debate is limited to the confines of left or right.  Nothing outside the box.  The public forum tolerates the narrow debate of liberal and conservative issues, but the resulting polarization cripples our progress.  Pro-life folks find themselves faced with a candidate who thinks the poor are lazy welfare-ites.  Pro-choice folks have to vote for a big-government/big-debt fellow.  Voting for the more 'Christian' candidates in Congress means backing big business, especially Wall Street, to the detriment of the nations poor and the developing world.  The media play along.  We're boxed, and without a venue for a real public forum.

Americans and the world are scrambling for an exit strategy.  'Occupy' has dozens of focal points and now spans the developed world.  'Green' is tackling resource issues.  'Revival' is in the wings in a brand new form.  'Globalization' is rewriting policy, trade, and finance. Worldwide protest in 436 cities targets Monsanto and GMOs (just 17 hours ago), and Ag-Gag is tackling farm animal abuse.  ....

The next decades will be a blast.  Only figuratively, we hope.

You've noticed.  Picked a path yet for your part in it all?

The Ninety and Nine

This poem from 1931 shows a bit of the history of the issue in America.  Now with globalization, the question remains but on a much larger scale.  Rich and poor, white collar and blue collar, haves and have nots ...

by
Rose Elizabeth Smith

There are ninety and nine that work and die,
In hunger and want and cold,
That one may revel in luxury,
And be lapped in the silken fold;
And ninety and nine in the hovels bare,
And one in a palace of riches rare.
From the sweat of their brow the desert blooms
And the forest before them falls;
Their labor has builded humble homes,
And the cities with lofty halls;
And the one owns the cities and houses and lands,
And the ninety and nine have empty hands.
But the night so dreary and dark and long
At last shall the morning bring;
And over the land the victor’s song
Of the ninety and nine shall ring,
And echo afar, from zone to zone:
“Rejoice, for labor shall have its own.”

From the
Machinist Monthly Journal
November 1931

In the developing world, it's common for folks to work harder, longer, and with less reward than we do. It's common to launch several 'small business' efforts in a year, hoping for something that works. Urban unemployment above 50% is typical as is rural unemployment around 80%. The common lament isn't "I'm poor," it's "I have no voice, I can't change anything, I can't even help my own children."

The rich in the developing world have everything they need, of course.

If all the world were like us ... would that solve the problem? What are the pieces that matter?

The Emperor's Toilet

Wealth that could be used for the benefit of many is spent gilding the emperor's toilet.  Why is that? 

Interestingly, Western nations see themselves as bastions of justice, of progress, of equality, liberty and brotherhood.  They believe themselves to be noble and above the injustice of discrimination against a lineage or class or race.

Recent years, however, have unveiled governments whose policies are purchased by the rich and whose initiatives are chosen for political advantage rather than the good of the citizens.

Today's government in action bears little resemblance to the original.  Folks are distrustful, and the nation's international reputation has declined sharply in the last twenty-five years.  There are reasonable alternatives, are there not?

Soweto children's Gospel Choir

And how about the church; is the church infected by our bent culture?  Is there a gracious path outward for a genuine Christian heart?  Yes, and yes.

The exodus is already underway, you've probably noticed.  The next generation is neither willing nor able to be 'building and meeting' conformists.  We perhaps would be well advised to listen to the emerging youth who've legitimately encountered God.  They're what's in the queue for the church and perhaps for Godly purpose as well.

Nigerian youth in worship

From a culture that generates a widening gap between the rich and poor, from a worldview that seeks profit rather than good, from a culture whose claim to noble purpose is in their history and not their actions, the exodus is begun.  How might we be part of the change and not be left behind among the rubble?