Managing Conflict and Difficult Conversations
‘Managing Conflict and Difficult Conversations’ Transcript
00:00:06:23 One of the biggest issues I see when working on improvement programmes
00:00:10:17 is people’s inability to gain consensus and move forward with the improvement.
00:00:16:02 Conflict is one of the biggest barriers to landing an improvement in an
00:00:20:13 organisation whether it’s your idea being in conflict with compliance or IT or even
00:00:27:17 within your own team, it’s a conflict that grinds the pace of improvement to a halt
00:00:33:01 and the issue is that we’re not that we’re not great at having difficult
00:00:37:06 conversations. I don’t think we were ever good at it and nowadays we’re even worse.
00:00:42:05 With all the different ways of communicating these days with via email
00:00:48:06 or text message or social media and Facebook. All sorts of ways we can
00:00:53:10 communicate we got even worse at managing conflict. And all those different
00:01:00:13 channels of communication they rarely resolve conflict. They just either avoid it
00:01:05:10 or in many cases compound it. I’ve watched teams argue back and forth about
00:01:10:20 the best solution to a problem and see nothing happens for two and three and
00:01:14:16 six months and it’s not just limited to Improvement projects. These days people
00:01:21:20 will break up over text, they’ll resign or give critical feedback over email.
00:01:28:03 People even get fired through Facebook. We’re terrible at having difficult
00:01:35:16. conversations and managing conflict. We’re moving offices in a couple
00:01:41:14 of months and we currently service offices and we’re moving into our own offices
00:01:45:21 which is totally the right call for our business but it means I have to go and tell
00:01:50:04 our current Office Manager that we won’t be renewing our lease and that we will be
00:01:55:17 leaving and she’s great and I felt really bad about having to have this conversation.
00:02:00:24 But I could have easily done it via email but I thought it was an opportunity to go
00:02:07:13 and have a difficult conversation and practice that skill. I’ve also had to give
00:02:13:07 difficult feedback to clients in the past and every time that that has happened our
00:02:18:13 relationship has gotten better because of it and the programme of workers delivered
00:02:22:10. more as well. I’ve seen experts on LinkedIn talk about the importance of giving
00:02:28:01 feedback and managing conflict but when they’re faced with those very same
00:02:32:10 situations, you know, they run a mile a just do it via email. So, the next time
00:02:38:04. that you have to have a difficult conversation with someone or give some feedback,
00:02:42:08 or manage some conflict, try to do it face to face. It’s not going to be easy, but if you
00:02:50:17 can’t do it face to face, then pick up the phone. Use that experience to learn about
00:02:56:11. how you could have approached it differently What went well? Or didn’t go well?
00:03:00:10. How they’ve approached it? And what you could have done differently to get a
00:03:04:24 different outcome. Practice is the absolute best way to develop this skill.
Recent Comments