Work with Me: Resolving Everyday Conflict in Your Organization

ASJAPress

New York Lincoln Shanghai

Work With Me!

Resolving Everyday Conflict in Your Organization Copyright © 2000, 2007 by Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

––––––––

ASJAPress

an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

––––––––

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

––––––––

iUniverse

2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

Lincoln, NE 68512 www.1umverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

––––––––

Originally published by Davies-Black Publishing

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

––––––––

ISBN: 978-0-595-45326-9

Printed in the United States of America

To the many company owners, managers, and employees who shared their everyday conflicts with me

CONTENTS

––––––––

xi

Charts

1

2

3

Figures

––––––––

Communication Breakdown

Underlying Meanings: Statements and Strategies When to Apply the Five Conflict Styles

––––––––

36

43

116

1  The ERI Model 9

2  Enhanced Schema of the ERI Model 11

3  Sample Organizational Chart for an Account Executive 72

4  Five Styles of Handling Conflict 99

Worksheets

1  Assessing the Barriers Presented by My Emotions 28

2  Assessing the Barriers Presented by Others' Emotions 30

3  Noticing Communication Problems at Work 34

4  Communication Audit 40

5  Underlying Meanings:

Real-Life Statements and Strategies 44

6  Analyzing Cultural and Political Factors 59

7  Analyzing Perceptions and Possibilities 60

8  Assessing Interests, Wants, and Needs 65

9  Assessing the Benefits of My Interests,

Wants, and Needs 66

10  Dealing with Difficult People in My Organization 93

11  Dealing with a Difficult Individual 94

12  Self-Assessment of Conflict Style 119

13  Brainstorming Ideas and Alternatives 140

14  Plan of Action for Resolving a Difficult Situation 144

xiii

Difficult situations, which include conflicts, come up naturally and inevitably in every workplace and organization. They happen because people have different interests, goals, and priorities, or because resources are limited, or because there are communication problems, power struggles, mistaken perceptions and assumptions, and personality clashes. They also happen because some people are sim­ ply difficult to work with.

v¼rk with Me! presents a new model for helping you solve prob­ lems and create a more satisfying work environment. Whatever your role at work-whether you are a company owner, a manager, a super­ visor, or another kind of employee—you can use the techniques in this book to deal with all kinds of conflict between individuals and within groups.

This powerful, comprehensive method and the three-step model behind it are unique in that first they show you how to deal with the emotional fallout of conflict, and then they help you assess the con­ tributing factors so that you can determine the best strategies for solution, by drawing on your faculties of reason and intuition. I call this approach the Emotion-Reason-Intuition, or ERI, model of resolv­ ing conflict, and I have been developing and refining it for more than a decade.

xv

XVI PREFACE

––––––––

Use of the ERi model begins with steps that are intended to calm the emotions in the situation-your own or those of anyone else involved. Then you use reason to assess, understand, and evaluate the situation and the personalities caught up in it. (For example, instead of assuming that the problem is solved after you have cooled down an interpersonal flare-up, you may need to make a change in the organization itself: Does the interpersonal conflict have an underly­ ing cause-perhaps a problem with the organization's structure, poli­ cies, or procedures?) Next, you use intuition to think of possible solu­ tions and alternatives. Finally, you turn again to reason, in order to evaluate the possibilities for solution, and to intuition, in order to choose your eventual response to the difficult situation. Along the way, you use specific techniques for dealing with particular types of difficulties.

It may seem as if the ERi model calls for linear application of separate processes, but in reality its elements constitute a seamless, integrated whole whose elements you can draw on as you would draw on a repertoire of skills, using what is needed in particular sit­ uations. If you want to use the ERi model to solve an assortment of current problems, you will need to decide which problems should be addressed first. If there are just one or two, you can tackle them right away. When there are more, however, you will have to set priorities because you cannot deal effectively with more than one or two situ­ ations at a time.

To help you address and resolve difficult situations in your work environment, this book's introductory chapter (Chapter 1) presents an overview of the ERi model. The two chapters that follow in Part 1 discuss emotional barriers (Chapter 2) and communication prob­ lems (Chapter 3).

The four chapters in Part 2 help you use your reason to assess dif­ ficult situations. Chapter 4 shows you how to perceive organizational and political factors that may be contributing to difficulties, as well as how to recognize individual interests, wants, and needs and take them into account as you work toward your goals. Chapter 5 is a primer of sorts for working with difficult people. Chapter 6 shows you how to assess your characteristic style of handling conflict and, as necessary, choose others that are appropriate to various situations. Chapter 7 teaches you skills for negotiating.

PREFACE XVll

––––––––

The two chapters in Part 3 focus on using intuition, alone and in combination with reason. Chapter 8 helps you brainstorm alterna­ tives for solving problems, and Chapter 9 shows you techniques for visualizing solutions.

Many experiences have contributed to the writing of this book. Chief among them has been my use of the Emotion-Reason­ Intuition model in my own consulting work. I have made the ERi model available to hundreds of people in their attempts to solve workplace problems, and I can tell you that the model gets results. This book shows you how you can apply it in resolving your own workplace conflicts, whatever your position or type of organization.

This book wouldn't have been possible without the input of the hundreds of people who shared their conflicts and how they worked on resolving them. Also, I gained insights from various programs I attended through many organizations that help in resolving conflicts, including Community Boards of San Francisco, the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution, the Northern California Coun­ cil for Conflict Mediation, the Bay Area Organizational Development Network, and the Support Center for Nonprofit Management.

In addition, my special thanks to Community Boards of San Francisco, where I first learned about conflict resolution in the late 1980s when I participated as a volunteer panelist dealing with neigh­ borhood disputes and went through a number of training programs to learn these skills.

xix

Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D., J.D., is a nationally known writer, organizational and business consultant, speaker, and seminar/work­

shop leader whose specialties include organizational behavior, conflict resolution, creativity, problem solving, decision making, criminal justice, and social trends. She is founder and director of Changemakers and Creative Communications & Research.

Scott has taught at several business colleges, including the American Institute of Business and San Francisco College of Man­ agement. Classes include organizational behavior, marketing, psycho­ logical profiling, privacy, and ethics. She is the author of over thirty books including Resolving Conflict with Others and Within Yourself, The Empowered Mind: How to Harness the Creative Force Within You, Mind Power: Picture Your "liVcty to Success in Business, Building a Winning Sales Team, and Effective Selling and Sales Management. In addition, she has developed a number of video scripts and training films in the areas of management and marketing and has written a dozen screenplays, drawing on her experience in criminal justice and legal issues.

She has also developed games and simulations that are used for training and development, and has had over two dozen games on the market with such major game companies as Hasbro Industries,

XXll  ABOUT  THE AUTHOR

––––––––

Pressman Toy, and Mag-Nif. She has published over three  dozen songs as a songwriter and has written several dozen children's books. Scott  received  her  Ph.D.  degree  in  sociology  from  the  Univer­ sity of California, Berkeley, in 1976, her J.D. degree from the University of San Francisco Law School in 1990, and a Certificate in the Administration of Justice at Merritt College in 1999, and she is currently enrolled in an anthropology program at Merritt College,

which she expects to lead to an M.A. degree.

She is active in a number of professional and business organiza­ tions, including the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, Bay Area Organizational Development Network, Bay Area Association for Psychological Type, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Authors Guild, and many others.

For more information, visit her web site at www.giniscott.com.

CHAPTER 1

Preparing to Work with Difficult Situations

Uing the Emotion-Reason-Intuition, or ERI, model is a goal­ oriented problem-solving process.At the very minimum, you can use

the ERI model to shape your own behavior—and the more power and influence you have, the more you can accomplish, from working out a resolution with another party to finding a solution that affects a work team or the organization as a whole. Even in a situation where you can't work out an acceptable resolution, the ERI model can help you decide that the best option is to walk away ay, by taking a leave of absence, or even by leaving the organization-if you don't have the power to bring about changes in the behavior of other people. In most cases, however, the ERI model will help you find effective and creative alternatives for solving problems.

Situations involving workplace conflict can become especially tense and difficult to handle because walking away is often not an option: the conflict occurs between people who have to interact in ongoing relationships. Confusion can build, hostility can escalate, and other negative emotions can intensify. Meanwhile, in the early stages, the parties involved may want to ignore the problem in the hope that

––––––––

1

it will go away. And it may-until, as often happens, the hidden ten­ sion explodes into something worse.

Even a simple incident, as when one employee feels slighted when a co-worker doesn't show much interest in her new outfit, can escalate unexpectedly—say, if the seemingly uninterested employee is angry that this show-off colleague doesn't do enough serious work and so doesn't deserve any extra recognition. When two people have to con­ tinue working together, this type of feeling is often left unexpressed and may even be repressed; its existence is only hinted at by an  unspo­ ken chilliness that exists between the two, as in the following case.

In a city prosecutor's office, an escalating conflict over radically different styles of work had brought Don and Julie, two assistant district attorneys, to the point of mutual hatred. Don was gener­ ally calm, laid back, and disorganized. His side of the office that he shared with Julie was piled high with  files-a  sign  of his casual approach. He would often meet a friend for a long lunch and then work frantically to catch up.Julie, by contrast, was rigid, highly disciplined, controlling, and aggressive. She liked every­ thing in its place, and so she kept her side of the office as neat as a pin and accomplished her work according to a weekly sched­ ule. For several months the unexpressed tension between them had been growing. Because they worked independently, how­ ever, they said little to each other and steamed in silence.

Their conflict rapidly came to a boil when Lois, a student intern, came to work for both of them, and they discovered that they had very different ideas about what she should do and when she should do it. This discovery came about after Don put Lois to work on several of his cases and then left for a two-week vaca­ tion.With Don gone,Julie pulled Lois offDon's cases and put her to work on her own. Several days later, Don phoned in for a progress report on the work he had ;:.ssigned to Lois. When she told him what Julie had done, he was furious.

Don returned from vacation, and Lois found herself caught in an acrimonious tug-of-war. Don and Julie took turns criticizing

each other to her.The two of them griped and sniped for the two months that remained of Lois's internship, and the work of all three suffered from the high level of stress and tension. Don, feeling helpless to do anything about solving the problem, even­ tually requested and got a transfer to another department.

Holding down feelings to keep the focus on work does often maintain calm in the workplace and give antagonisms time to fade. When minor problems start to escalate, however, it's important to address the source of the problem. It's necessary to intervene, helping the individuals  in  conflict  and the workplace  as a whole promote both personal satisfaction and productivity. And occasionally, as in the case of Don and Julie, it may be best if someone leaves or a more sys­ temic reorganization is done to eliminate  the problem  by  changing the work environment—say, by reassigning the antagonists to differ­ ent divisions, or at least to diffwerent work areas.

KNOWING WHEN TO USE THE ERi MODEL

The ERi model offers a clear lens through which to view difficult situations. Once you yourself have achieved the necessary calm detachment, you are more able to  detect and cool down the emotions of others, analyze the problem, and assess what to do-drawing, as necessary, on your intuition in your efforts to help. The  following three examples show managers and employees in various difficult sit­ uations to which the ERi model could be applied.

For Jim, supervisor of the sales division at a software design com­ pany, the conflict centered on a personality clash between two employees.They fought over job responsibilities, and