Transcript Customer Service the Lodi School District Way

Creative Strategies for
Conflict Resolution
Melissa Fry MSW
Paul Gasser MS/LMFT
Workshop Objectives
Participants in this series will learn how to:
• Identify how most people respond in stressful
situations or conflicts. Identify examples how
most people react to stressful situations, or
conflicts and reflect on how they themselves cope.
• Recognize how to improve communication and
your relationships with co-workers. Identify
what behaviors are necessary for genuine
communication to occur with others.
Workshop Objectives
Participants in this series will learn how to:
• Identify how most people respond in stressful
situations or conflicts. Identify examples how
most people react to stressful situations, or
conflicts and reflect on how they themselves cope.
• Recognize the signs and symptoms of a hostile
work environment. Identify the behaviors that
are common when a staff is lacking necessary
social skill for genuine communication to occur.
Workshop Objectives
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Learn methods for resolving conflicts
with co-workers. Implement methods for
effectively resolving conflicts with others.
Learn ways to invest less time and
energy in conflict and create more
productive relationships with others at
work.
Critical Conversations.
•
These are about important issues, but
often difficult to talk about. This is
discussion between two or more people
where (1) the stakes are high, (2) opinions
vary, and (3) emotions run strong. They
are about important issues, but often
difficult to talk about.
Examples:
• Confronting another coworker
• Addressing a coworker whose behavior is
inappropriate
• Giving your supervisor negative feedback
• Critiquing a colleague’s work
• Confronting an individual who has been
hostile and bullying others
Why it is important to master
critical conversations:
Master your critical conversations and conflict
and you’ll strengthen the relationships
around you, improve your health and
quality of life. As you and others master
high-stakes communications, you’ll also
improve the quality of your organization.
When these types of conflicts are not
being successfully resolved:
Organizations will demonstrate some the
following dysfunctional behaviors:
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Bickering
Hyper-critical
Backstabbing of each
Intimidation
Refusing to help or support another co-worker
Isolation of another person
Signs of a hostile work environment
can be:
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Verbal: snide remarks, sharing sensitive information
about another person, name-calling, withholding
information about a student, conversations are not
“safe” to have for fear of a negative reaction,
attributing all that goes wrong to one person,
contentious discussions in non-private places
Non-verbal actions: rolling of one’s eyes, hand jesters,
threatening actions, lack of openness to another
person, undermining activities, not being available
Signs of a hostile work environment
can be:
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Psychological: excluding someone, spreading rumors,
gossiping, berating someone (e.g. their thoughts and
efforts), deliberately setting up another person for
failure, intimidation as a result of your own anger
Physical: hitting, pushing, taking one’s possessions,
damaging one’s property
Physical Signs of Staff Working
in a Hostile Environment
Emotional:
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Crying/sad
Withdrawn
Angry
Negative
Social:
• Talk about work issues out in public
• Substance abuse
• Disengage from loved one’s
Physical Signs of Staff Working
in a Hostile Environment
Psychological:
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Low self-worth
Depression
Anxiety
Difficulty making decisions and forgetful
Physical:
• Weight gain
• Fatigue
• Appearance (Unders and Overs)
Physical Signs of Staff Working
in a Hostile Environment
Others:
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Interactions with children
Job performance
Job satisfaction
Participation in extra activities
Services Principles
Care for the Organization
Services
Principles
Care for Each Other
Care for the Students
The Law of Critical Conversations
and Conflicts:
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Lots of us are our own worst enemy because of
how we typically handle critical conversations
and conflict.
Anytime you find yourself stuck, there are
critical conversations keeping you stuck there.
Identify the critical conversation you’re holding
or not hold well, figure out where you’re going
wrong, and get better at everything.
How Do We Typically Handle
Conflict:
We can do one of three things:
• We can avoid them and become silent. (e.g.
“No Talk Rule”)
• We can face them and handle them poorly.
(e.g. Become too emotional, or say the
wrong things.)
• We can face them and handle them well.
• The way you treat
one another either
helps you come to a
healthy resolution
or keeps you stuck
doing the same old
things and getting
the same old
results.
Common process problems people
make:
• Don’t spot the conversation that is keeping
them stuck, so they fail to hold them.
• Don’t stay focused on what they really want
– moving from sharing ideas to trying to
win and proving they are right and the other
person is wrong.
• Fail to notice that safety is at risk and
people are either attacking or withdrawing.
Common process problems people
make:
• Don’t know how to make it safe to talk about
touchy or controversial topics – they either avoid
them or respond too emotionally.
• Become angry, scared, or hurt and demonstrate
their poorest rather than their best behavior.
• Care a great deal about a topic or point but use
“combat listening” and debate tactics – missing
content and using language which makes the
situation worse.
Common process problems people
make:
• Unsure of what to say or do when others
either blow up, or become silent.
• Fail to turn critical conversations into
resolution; they don’t clarify what’s going
to happen next, how to do it, and who is
going to do it.
Suggestion!
• In the short run, just recognizing that your
critical conversation isn’t going well can
help you see that you need to stop and get
back to your best behavior. In the long run,
you need to improve the skills that take you
from silence and violence and get back to a
healthy communication.
Skill #1
Principle
- Start with Heart
Skill
- Focus on what you
really want.
Critical question
- What am I acting like?
- What do I really want?
For me?
For others?
For the relationship?
How would I behave if
I really did want this?
- What do I not want?
Skill #2
Principle
Learn to Look
Skill
- Look for when the
conversation becomes
critical.
Critical question
- Am I going to silence
or violence?
- Are others?
– Am I missing important
“signals?”
- Do you continue to fall
back into
- Look for safety problems. “old habits” that are
making your efforts to
communicate ineffective?
- Look for your own Style
Under Stress
Anatomy of Understanding
Response Guidelines:
– Genuine communication requires that individual’s
seek to understand and to be understood.
A. People who seek to understand each other will value
what it takes for genuine communication to occur.
This often requires that we:
1. Timing and Place: (e.g. Is this correct time to talk?)
“There is an appointed time for everything. A time
to be silent, and a time to speak.”
2. Trust for each other: Your actions and remarks that
you make during interactions will either drive you
apart, or pull you together.
Anatomy of Understanding
3. Listening to understand.
- People feel respected to the degree that they feel
listened to.
•
When problems or conflicts arise, it is necessary
to understand how most people will react:
a. Silence (e.g. withdraw, isolate)
b. Violence (e.g. anger, aggression, hostility)
Anatomy of Understanding
Things to check:
1. Check your motivation (e.g. What do I hope to
accomplish?)
2. Check your attitude (e.g. Is my heart in the right
place?).
3. Check the circumstances: (e.g. timing setting,
other pressures).
4. Check to see if you’re willing to accept
confrontation as well as give it.
Anatomy of Understanding
Keys to remember:
1. Approach confrontation with care:
A poor listener will manifest habits that stifle
communication and stir misunderstanding:
• Pseudo-listening fake interest
• Combat listening tunes in only for points of
interest
• Tone of voice
• Protective listening doesn’t hear any
threatening messages.
Anatomy of Understanding
Focus on:
Rather than:
One issue
The problem
Specifics
Observation of facts
Mutual understanding
(make sure that you
have created a winwin solution)
Many issues
The person
Generalizations
Judgment of motive
Who’s winning or losing
Anatomy of Understanding
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Determine WHAT you want to say
Determine HOW you want to say it
Determine WHEN you want to say it
Determine WHERE is a good place to say it
Tolerance
Appreciate Differences
Follow The Golden Rule
“Treat others as you
want to be treated”