Conflict Management Business Application

Exercise 1 – Unresolved Work Conflict.

Describe a recent interpersonal conflict situation.
Think about someone who you worked with. Write down a couple of notes: Who/Where/When/What is Issue?

Exercise 2 – Unproductive Outcomes.

Write down some unproductive outcomes/results for you and the other as a result of not managing the conflict
correctly.

Exercise 3
– Barriers to Solving Conflict.
Think about and make a note about some of the barriers you experienced or overcame.

Exercise 4
–

Understand Your Situation.

Reflect back on the situation. Think about the : Issue, Stakes & Relationship

Issue Stakes Relationship

What was the real Issue? What were the stakes How important is/was
(losses/gains) from avowing relationship?
conflict?

High or Low Losses?

High or Low Importance?
Exercise 5 – Selecting Best Option for Your Situation.
Thinking back to the situation, circle what would have been best option to manage this conflict.

Exercise 6 – Managing the Emotions

Identifying Emotions - Think about your & their emotions during the conflict.
o How were you feeling?
o How were they were feeling? What comments did they make?

Your Emotions Their Comments & Emotions

Managing Difficult People – What tips could have helped better manage the other person?
 Exercise 7 – Clarify Interests & Position
Reflect back on the situation & think about their Interest and Position.
o Position - What did they want?
o Interest – Why do you think they

Position – What they wanted Interest – Why did they want this?

Effective Communication
Action planner: Plan for a discussion with a leader, peer or client using the communication planner below. After
the discussion, use the questions on Outcome and learning below to reflect on how it went.

STEP 1: Identify the communication style (Note: Use your Effective Communication Book to identify the communication style of the person you
will be communicating with. Are they Detail, Direct, Creative or Connecting?

STEP 2: Plan your approach. Consider the following: do you need to plan a presentation, an outline, a report, or a video? How long will the discussion
take? Where will it take place?

STEP 3: Prepare questions. Prepare a list of open-ended questions you can ask in order to have an effective discussion.
Outcome and learning:

Submit the above discussion plan along with the answers to the following questions:

1. Describe the outcome of the communication.

2. How did flexing your communication style help you get what you needed to move forward?

3. How well do you feel you understood the person?

4. How well do you think they understood you?

5. What did you do to ensure understanding?

Critical Thinking
To help you create an even more supportive environment, read the Harvard Manage Mentor discussion “Practice
Divergent Thinking” below:
Practicing Divergent Thinking
DANA QUERCIOLI: What we're going to talk about now is how to catch and spread curiosity, and to foster
creative connections. That is easy to do, if you do it conversationally.
Every sentence you guys have in this next conversation will begin with the phrase, "what you just said is
important to me because." And let's see where that takes us, OK?
PAUL MELENDY: OK.
DANA: All right. Do you feel comfortable starting?
ALEXANDRIA KING: Absolutely.
DANA: Take it away.
ALEXANDRIA: My goodness, Paul. That was a really frustrating meeting. It seems like we were in there for
an hour, and we didn't get any new ideas from our time.
PAUL: What you just said is important to me, because I feel like the newest ideas I have come to me out of the
blue, like when I'm driving, or in the shower.
ALEXANDRIA: Absolutely. What you just said is important to me, because I've been thinking for some time—
perhaps it might be important to get our team outside of the office.
PAUL: What you just said is important to me. Maybe we should do some team building—group team building,
outside the walls of this building.
ALEXANDRIA: What you just said is important to me, because I think that that would help with the
disconnect, and maybe team building might get us more in rhythm with each other.
DANA: Speaking of being back in rhythm with each other, you guys did a wonderful job of communicating so
effectively. And when you responded, it showed that you were curious about what your partner was saying,
which also helps us generate new ideas.
You made your partner's words matter to you, and you made them feel like they were being listened to, right?
So what a better way to get to connect with your team, to get to encourage your partners, than to do this.
You don't have to necessarily start every sentence with, "what you just said is important to me, because," but
how wonderful would it be if you implied it every time you spoke to someone, right?
PAUL: Right.
ALEXANDRIA: Absolutely.
DANA: Great job!
PAUL: Thanks.
ALEXANDRIA: Thank you.

Answer the following questions.

1. What was the Impact of the “but”?

2. What was the Impact of the “and”?

3. As you apply this learning, how do you see this impacting the dynamics of the Critical Thinking Process?
Emotional Intelligence
STEP 1: Discuss the results from your Self-Assessment above. How well did you take the Feedback? What were the biggest
challenges you faced receiving Feedback? What points will you focus on going forward?

Select one of the following:

 Self-awareness
 Self-Management
 Social Awareness
 Relationship Management

What are your takeaways from this exercise? How are the 2 assessments different?

STEP 2: Decide on an area of improvement, i.e. self-awareness, self-management, social awareness or relationship
management.
 STEP 3: Reflect: Use tips and keys to emotional intelligence from your book to practice for two weeks. How well did the
strategies work for you?

STEP 4: Continuous development. What action will you take to continue to improve your EI?

Leading & Managing Teams

Part 1:

Read the Harvard Manage Mentor (HMM) below:

How to Build Trust on Your Virtual Teams

We all know that teams can’t function when coworkers don’t trust one another. And establishing trust in a
traditional physical working environment is difficult enough, but it’s even tougher in a virtual environment,
when you have to work with people you’ve never met in person.

My company has dug into the research and worked directly with dozens of large companies on how to build and
maintain trust with employees on virtual teams. Here’s what we’ve learned.

First, make the most of swift trust. When groups first form, the prevailing feeling is that, “Hey, we’re all in this
boat together. Success will reflect well on everyone. Failure’s going to hurt all of us.” In this atmosphere of
swift trust, people have little choice but to trust each other. One great way to take advantage of this swift trust—
tout the competence of all the team members and ensure that you’ve set very clear goals that everyone
understands from the very beginning in that early important stage.

Over time, swift trust will definitely decay. But it can help hold the team together until another type of bond
develops. So what is that other bond? Interpersonal trust. This is something you have to proactively build. Don’t
take it for granted. Don’t assume that peoples’ work product will be enough to create that kind of interpersonal
trust that really respects and cares. You need people to make those personal connections in order to go the extra
mile for each other.

Next, communicate with predictability. Research has found that the globally distributed teams that lack trust
tend to have unpredictable communication patterns, often with just one or two people accounting for the lion’s
share of the communications. But in high-trust teams, communications were regular and predictable. The team
members contributed more equally and were conscientious about letting everyone know when they were
actually going to be unavailable. So no one was left wondering why somebody hadn’t responded to a message.

Fourth, share and rotate power. I know this sounds odd. In a traditional workplace, teams are usually led by one
person. But in a virtual environment, a centralized power structure is actually less effective. A study of virtual
teams in a Fortune 500 IT company found that on high-trust teams, power actually shifted among the members
depending on the stage of the project.

Teams can’t function without trust. And, of course, we know that trust can be challenging to build without face-
to-face interactions. But if you’re managing a virtual team, don’t just hope for the best. Make sure that you’re
proactive. Use the right practices and ensure that trust grows within that virtual team.

Discuss two things from the above that you would be able to implement into your work environment.

1.

2.

Part 2:

Read the Harvard Business Review article – A Guide to Managing your (Newly) Remote Workers (Click here).

Discuss two things contained in the article that will help you to lead and manage in the virtual team environment?

1.

2.

Part 3:

Take part in one virtual team session (if you are not the leader, then think about how the leader managed the session).

Write two things in each of the sections below that you think were either done well, or could have been done better:

 What was done to develop trust?

1.

2.
  Did the session have a specific time, rhythm, agenda, ground rules? How did this fit in with other weekly
meetings and priorities?

1.

2.

 What was done to encourage collaboration?

1.

2.