Coach Andrea

Coach Andrea’s Intro

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines conflict as the opposition of persons or forces that gives rise to the dramatic action in a drama or fiction.  I keyed in on the word drama.  Many times when my clients share their feelings about conflict, it’s from a negative standpoint and filled with drama.  This week’s Tip by Craig Runde and Tim Flanagan, provides ways to develop your competence in working with conflict.  Conflict doesn’t have to involve drama when engaged in constructively.

Quote of the Week

“I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the world.”

Ten Principles of Conflict Competence

By Craig E. Runde and Tim A. Flanagan

1. Conflict is inevitable and can lead to positive or negative results depending on how it is handled.
2. While people generally see conflict as negative and prefer to avoid it, better results can emerge from engaging it constructively.
3. In order to overcome reluctance to address conflict, people need to believe it is important to do so – thus recognizing the tremendous value of managing conflict effectively.
4. Individual conflict competence involves developing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral skills that enable one to cool down, slow down, and engage conflict constructively.
5. Cognitive skills include developing self-awareness about one’s current attitudes and responses to conflict and an understanding of conflict’s basic dynamics.
6. Emotional skills include understanding one’s emotional responses to conflict, regulating those responses to attain and maintain emotional balance, understanding and responding to the emotions of one’s conflict partners, and when necessary slowing down to allow extra time to cool down.
7. Behavioral skills include engaging constructively by understanding others’ perspectives, emotions, and needs; sharing one’s own thoughts, feelings, and interests; collaborating to develop creative solutions to issues; and reaching out to get communications restarted when they have stalled.
8. Engaging constructively also involves reducing or eliminating the use of destructive behaviors characterized by fight-or-flight responses to conflict.
9. In team settings, conflict competence includes creating the right climate to support the use of the “cool down, slow down, and engage constructively” model among teammates so they can have open and honest discussions of issues. Creating the right climate includes developing trust and safety, promoting collaboration, and enhancing team emotional intelligence.
10. In organizational contexts, conflict competence involves creating a culture that supports the “cool down, slow down, and engage constructively” model. This includes aligning mission, policies, training programs, performance standards, and reward structures to reinforce the conflict competence model. It also includes creating integrated conflict management systems to support those cultural changes (p. 3-6).

From: Runde, C.E. & Flanagan, T.A., (2010). Developing your conflict competence: a hands-on guide for leaders, managers, facilitators, and teams. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Reprinted with permission from the OSU Leadership Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, (614) 292-3114, http://leadershipcenter.osu.edu/

Coaching Call To Action

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being low, how would you rate your conflict competence?  What can you do this week to raise your competence?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Is there value in promoting conflict? Encouraging differing opinions, yes.  Conflict, no.  If you are noticing conflict is becoming more prevalent in your company, consider David Cottrell’s tips on how to minimize the potential conflagration of conflict.

Quote of the Week

“Conflict is going to happen whether you want it or not. People will be butt heads. Sometimes when you least expect it.”

~ Jimmy Bise Jr.

Ways to Prevent a Conflict from Escalating

By David Cottrell

1. Get all the facts and clearly identify the problem.
2. Encourage people to challenge the status quo often so that alternatives are continually being evaluated.
3. When others explain their intention and viewpoints, summarize and paraphrase to confirm understanding.
4. Look for common ground in any difficult situation.
5. When possible, resolve one issue at a time.
6. Deal with the molehills before they become mountains!
7. Only send and respond to e-mails that are informational in nature. If there is any hint of disagreement, meet in person or pick up the phone.
8. Watch and listen for inconsistencies between people’s words and their nonverbal behaviors and encourage them to voice their concerns (Cottrell, p. 80).

From:  Cottrell, D. (2009).  Monday morning motivation: five steps to energize your team, customers, and profits.  New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Reprinted with permission from the OSU Leadership Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, (614) 292-3114, http://leadershipcenter.osu.edu/

Coaching Call To Action

Are you a conflict inciter or smoother?  What is the value of your position to yourself and those around you?  What would add even more value?  Who in your company will you share your thoughts with this week?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Is someone at work pushing your buttons?  Does this lead you to frustration and anger?  This week’s Tip describes a simple process to follow that changes your reaction and the outcome.

Quote of the Week

“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes–ah, that is where the art resides!”

~ Arthur Schnabel

Business Coaching and the Power of the Pause

By Andrea Novakowski

Cara was a manager at a Providence, RI consulting firm who could always be counted on to get the job done. She had a hard-driving style that got results, and her boss recognized how valuable she was to the company. Then one day Cara walked in and discovered she had a new manager, one who didn’t appreciate her take-no-prisoners approach.

Suddenly, what was once applauded was now being penalized.

No matter where she turned, she found herself in continual conflict with her new boss. Every meeting ended in a heated discussion. Every day was an exercise in frustration. Cara called me to help her decide if it was time to leave the company.

We used the PaperRoom System to determine that Cara was getting more than 80 percent of her needs met at her current job. Obviously, quitting wasn’t the solution. She had to figure out a way to work with her new manager.

Communication with your boss can be a challenging thing, especially when your styles clash. Cara and I tackled the problem by using a simple diagram from the book 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done by business coach and consultant Peter Bregman.

According to Bregman, here’s how most conflict plays out:

Event => Reaction => Outcome

Someone says or does something that pushes your buttons (event). You respond with anger or frustration (reaction). This leads to an undesirable outcome. For Cara, it was wasted time and energy, not to mention the stress of arguing with her supervisor.
I showed Cara how to recognize this dynamic and change it to yield more productive results:

Event => Outcome => Reaction

First, Cara determined which part of her boss’s behavior triggered her negative reaction.  Next, she paused and envisioned the outcome she wanted: not a battle with her boss, but more appreciation for her contribution to the company and more responsibility. She saw her typical reaction wasn’t producing this result. So she changed her reaction.

As you might expect, that part can be tricky. How do you pause in the heat of the moment, rather than responding automatically to provocation? Cara determined three actions that worked for her:

• Calm down by counting to 10 in her head.
• Agree with what her manager is saying in the moment, then circle back for a more complete conversation when he is calmer.
• Observe how other people manage her boss when he gets worked up.

Over the next two months Cara practiced her new strategies. She became more aware of her manager’s behavior and trained herself to respond differently. She and her boss started having more productive meetings. In our last phone call, Cara was thrilled to report she’d been invited by her manager to work with him on a special project!

Do you have a manager, co-worker, or employee who rubs you the wrong way? If your conflict with this person doesn’t produce the outcome you want, it may be time to visualize the outcome you do want — and then change your reaction to make it happen.

Coaching Call To Action

This week plan for the potentially contentious interactions on your calendar. You know which ones I mean.  What is the outcome that you want?  What will you do differently to get that outcome?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Many of my clients have been reporting contentious conversation with coworkers and direct reports. Maybe it’s the heat of summer, although we’ve had beautiful weather this week here in MA. In the ’70s during the day! This week’s Tip from Angie and Courtney has you consider the other person’s perspective before jumping into defending your own position.

Great advice on how to keep your cool!

Quote of the Week

“The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.”

- Joseph Jouber

Seek Resolution, Not Revolution

By Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch

Take a moment today to think about an argument or heated discussion that you have had recently. It might have been a disagreement with a coworker, a fight with your spouse or a conflict with a friend. Whatever the case, think, not about the subject of the conversation, but about your underlying motivations.

How much of the conflict centered around your own ego? If you are really honest with yourself, as the conversation progressed, wasn’t the disagreement less about the topic at hand and more about your need to be right?

As a leader, you must work on your ability to take others’ views and opinions into account. If the topic involved was important enough to invest your energy in the argument, then what you really seek is resolution not revolution.

So, the next time you find yourself embroiled in an argument, stop and check your ego. Before you vigorously defend your own position, take a moment to consider the opposing perspective. After all, it’s not about being right, it’s about making progress!

This article was provided courtesy of Lead Star – a premiere leadership development firm. You can learn more about leadership by visiting their website at www.leadstar.us

Coaching Call To Action

This week expand your perspective by seeing situations through the other person’s eyes. What do you learn about them? Yourself?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

One of my roles as a coach is to help simplify business and life for my clients. While Boston is known as a center for learning and higher education, I find that bringing easy, straightforward tools to my engagements is most beneficial. In this week’s Tip, I share one of my coach’s tools, WIMI.

Quote of the Week

When you determined what you want, you have made the most important decision of your life. You have to know what you want in order to attain it.

~ Douglas Lurtan

WIMI – “What Is Most Important?”

By Natalie Manor

These four letters and what they represent can be life changing for you and those that you communicate with. The idea that we can communicate easily with anyone by finding out what is most important (WIMI) to them is dramatic for the following reasons. Rarely are you asked, nor do you ask anyone, what is most important to them. When asking WIMI, you can get to the core of any issue, project, meeting, or situation. By asking a person what is most important to them, you link directly into what they value. When you find out what someone values, you can develop a rapport that produces immediate results.

Natalie R. Manor, CEO is an author, business consultant, speaker and executive coach. Her company, Natalie Manor & Associates, is the ultimate resource for business leaders, executives, owners and managers who want to master their life and their business by Getting Clear, Getting Confident and Being Effective faster than ever before. You can register for her free bi-weekly articles at: http://www.nataliemanor.com/

Coaching Call To Action

Try this communication tool and let me know what your results are. I’m always interested in how you create your successes.

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Quote of the Week

“People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Coach Andrea’s Intro

I delivered a workshop on Managing Conflict this week in Toronto. (Great city, by the way — see Ideas and Information for more information about my trip.) One topic we discussed was the Amygdala Hijack which is when your emotions take over and you react vs. respond to a situation. Tony outlines 3 ways to manage yourself when your emotional reaction begins

Exercise Emotional Control

by Tony Alessandra

What causes an emotional overreaction? It’s generally prompted by the speaker himself or by something he or she says. For instance, going to an elegant party dressed like a bum might influence the hosts negatively. On the other hand, wearing a high-powered, Wall Street-like suit might put a rural businessperson on the defensive against a supposedly not-to-be-trusted city slicker.

Severe emotional overreaction can also be caused by loaded topics, such as ethnic, racial, religious, or political references. Differences in values, beliefs, attitudes, education, speed of delivery, image, and a host of other factors can cause a disruption in communication.

So, as listeners, we tend to tune out when we see or hear something we don’t like. As a result, we often miss the true substance of what’s being said.

When your emotional reaction begins, you’ll have an almost irresistible tendency to interrupt, to butt in, and to argue. You may feel your pulse speed up, your breathing become more rapid, or your face become flushed. You may lose your train of thought. Once you recognize this negative emotional reaction, you can redirect it with the following techniques:

First, pause to delay your response or reaction. It’s the tried-and-true approach of counting to ten, or taking in some long, deep breaths. These can really work to calm you down.

A second calming technique: Think about what you have in common with the speaker, rather than focusing on your differences. Maybe you don’t disagree with the person’s motivations — such as raising more money for the school. You just don’t agree with her solutions.

And third, imagine yourself calm and relaxed. Think of a time in your past when you were laid-back, on top of the world, and feeling incredibly great. Visualize that experience as vividly as you can. When you exercise emotional control, you’ll find that active listening is no longer a struggle.

Copyright (c) 1996-2010 Alessandra & Associates, Inc. Dr. Tony Alessandra can be reached at http://www.PlatinumRule.com or at 1-858-456-0028.

Coaching Call to Action

This week, when you find your blood pressure rising and you are moving to “reacting”, just breathe. That will short circuit your reaction and allow you to move into calming yourself so that you can truly hear what the other person is saying and then respond in a “leaderly” way.

Community Involvement

February 1, 2010
Accomplishing Goals that Truly Matter to NEW – Network of Enterprising Women

Andrea will provide her six-step program for identifying what’s important to you and creating and achieving goals that fit your priorities. Network of Enterprising Women is an organization of women business professionals from the Metrowest area of Massachusetts. NEW was formed to provide business support, education, networking, and marketing opportunities, and to help facilitate both personal and professional growth for its members. Members meet monthly. To learn more go to http://www.new-ma.com/.

Ideas and Information

Porter Airlines gets an A+ rating

When was the last time you were waiting for a flight and you had free beverages – coffee and tea (on china), juice, water and snacks – cookies, chips, nuts? And a flight where you were offered water, beverages, snacks 2 or 3 times by a very friendly person? All for a flight of less than 2 hours. Porter Airlines makes flying an enjoyable experience. I highly recommend you check them out – www.flyporter.com.

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