August 2007 - Managing Conflict Resolution in the office

August 2007 - Conflict Resolution

Managing Conflict in the Office; Our Three Brains; Our Choices; Management Tips; Resources (links, books, articles, the lighter side)
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Managing Conflict Resolution in the Office

By Val Gee

All conflict comes from people taking things personally. This happens when they operate from the animal brain. The only way to stop conflict is for one or both people to switch to their human brain and look at the situation objectively.

Our Three Brains

To understand how to do this, we first have to look at our three brains.

The oldest is the reptilian brain situated at the base of the skill. It operates automatically and without thought to keep the heart, lungs and organs working at their optimal level.

Above that is the animal brain or limbic system, which operates from survival and fear. Think of an animal — it doesn’t do much except eat, sleep and reproduce. If it feels threatened, it triggers the flight or fight syndrome, which is fine for an animal living in a forest or out on the veldt — not so good for the human animal working with other people in an office.

Surrounding the animal brain is the human brain or cerebral cortex. We are the only ones with it and it operates from love, peace and harmony. The human brain wants to fulfill a purpose in life whether that be inventing a new product, creating a new process, setting goals, managing people or any of the hundreds of different types of jobs and careers available to us.

The human brain is in charge of discipline and of doing all the things that make people feel good about themselves — like being on time, completing things, doing a good job, volunteering, showing compassion, listening and understanding.

In-between the brains is something scientists call the Reticular Activating System (RAS). It is the key to ‘turning on your brain" and is connected at its base to the spinal cord. It runs up to the mid brain and is a very complex collection of neurons, which serve as a point of convergence where signals from the external world meet with the internal world.

In other words, it is the part of the brain where the world outside meets the inside world of thoughts and feelings. It is the point at which either the animal or human brain is triggered.

Our Choices

If conflict triggers the animal brain, fight or flight will ensue.
If conflict triggers the human brain, resolution begins.

The way to trigger the RAS and switch on the human brain is through awareness and realizations, "Oh wow — I just got angry again — that was my animal brain. I’m going to switch to my human brain and take a conscious breath and switch to my human brain to get a fresh perspective."

The evolving human being does not expect to operate all the time from the human brain — it does expect however, to operate more and more from that place and to have some discipline and control over the RAS and ultimately the animal brain.

As a manager, you have a team of people who are operating from the animal and human brain. You already know the 10-20% of employees who operate mostly from their animal brains because you recognize the traits: they come in late, always have an excuse, under-perform and get angry or defensive when confronted.

The other 70-80% of your team operates mostly from their human brain and only switches to their animal brain when some kind of conflict arises. Your job as a manager is to switch to your human brain and deal with the situation as fast as possible. And since you are dealing with mostly animal brains (in a conflict situation), it is helpful to use animal training tactics, which are all about reinforcing and strengthening certain behaviors.

The easiest and most effective tactic for a manager to use is positive reinforcement. This means starting or adding something good that the person likes or enjoys — something that will cause them to repeat the certain behavior that made it happen in the first place.

On a basic level, the dolphin gets a fish for doing a trick. The worker gets a paycheck for working.

Conversely, our society also uses forms of punishment as a consequence for wrong behavior. For example, a speeding driver gets a fine and a ticket. Sometimes a manager will find it necessary to stop certain behavior by using punishment tactics. However, for a happy environment and a positive attitude, rewards may be the best way to go.

Management Tips

Here are the tactics:

1. Reinforce certain behavior with rewards:

Give something good - or -
Take something bad away.

2. Stop certain behavior with punishment:

Give something bad - or -
Take something good away.

Examples of how the reward and punishment tactics apply in the office:

1.    Reinforce behavior by giving something good as a reward: Bill comes to you with a grievance and wants coaching to find a solution. You reinforce his behavior by giving recognition. "Bill, the fact that you want to be coached to find a solution displays excellent conflict resolution skills."

2.    Reinforce behavior by taking something bad away as a reward: Mary is a hard worker — and has been coaching Jim, the new person. She hates it and her work is suffering as a result. "Mary, thank you for coaching Jim, I’m going to let Bob take over now."

3.    Stopping certain behavior by giving something bad as a punishment: Jack is chronically late to meetings, which affect the team. "Jack I want you to complete a time log each day until you start getting to meetings on time."

4.    Stopping certain behavior by taking something good away as a punishment: Kathy, asked you to coach her on work issues. However she is telling you all her personal problems. "Kathy, I want you to focus on work. I’m stopping the coaching until you’ve completed all your current projects and get back on track."

Whatever technique you use to resolve conflict, be sure to operate from your human brain, because when all is said and done, people learn most by example … yours!

About the author: Val Gee has published four books with McGraw-Hill, The Winner’s Attitude, Super Service, The Customer Service Toolkit and her latest, OPEN Question Selling (March 2007). Before co-founding McNeil & Johnson with her husband, Val worked as a sales rep for Pitney Bowes and gained top sales award in her first year. She began her writing career as a consultant and instructional designer developing and producing hundreds of employee training programs for companies such as Motorola, Hyatt Hotels, Siemens, Baxter Pharmaceutical and many more. Over the past ten years, Val has been facilitating seminars based on her books to companies such as: Computer Associates, MB Financial Bank, St Anthony’s Hospital, Motorola.

Val Gee
McNeil & Johnson Learning Company
24089 N Forest Drive
Lake Zurich, Il 60047
Phone: (847) 438 9366
www.mjlearning.com
Listen to our radio show Friday mornings 10:00 am CT go to www.winnersattitude.com for the link

Internet Resources

Manage Conflict and Workplace Violence (lots of article links) http://management.about.com/od/conflictres/Manage_Conflict_and_Workplace_Violence.htm
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Avoidance and Controversy Management (lots of article links)
Relationships: Conflict Resolution Articles http://www.innerbonding.com/index.lasso?did=content&content.subcategory=41
Ten Web Sites for Exploring Conflict Resolution in the Classroom http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr170.shtml
Mediate.com (lots of resources and articles) http://www.mediate.com
Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado (lots of resources) http://conflict.colorado.edu/
The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution is intended as a resource for students, teachers and practitioners in fields relating to the reduction and elimination of destructive conflict. It desires to be a free, yet valuable, source of information to aid anyone trying to work toward a less violent and more cooperative world. http://www.trinstitute.org/ojpcr/
Association for Conflict Resolution http://www.acrnet.org/
Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict http://www.beyondintractability.org
Lots of conflict resolution articles http://hodu.com/BC-Menu5.shtml
National Institute for Advanced Conflict Resolution (lots of articles) http://www.niacr.org/pages/articles.htm
Problem-solving Skill http://sfhelp.org/02/prblmslv.htm
Conflict Resolution Tools and Tips for Students http://www.campus-adr.org/Student_Center/tips_student.html
Jump start genuine dialog (Lots of articles) http://lenski.com/archives

Books - Disclosure: We get a small commission for purchases made via links to Amazon.

The Winner's Attitude: Using the "Switch" Method to Change How You Deal with Difficult People and Get the Best Out of Any Situation at Work, Jeff and Val Gee. McGraw-Hill, 2006. ISBN-10: 0071467645 ISBN-13: 978-0071467643
Super Service: Seven Keys to Delivering Great Customer Service...Even When You Don't Feel Like It!...Even When They Don't Deserve It! Jeff and Val Gee. McGraw-Hill, 1999. ISBN-10: 0070248176 ISBN-13: 978-0070248175
The Customer Service Training Tool Kit : 60 Training Activities for Customer Service Trainers, Jeff and Val Gee. McGraw-Hill, 2000. ISBN-10: 0079137733 ISBN-13: 978-0079137739
OPEN-Question Selling: Unlock Your Customer's Needs to Close the Sale... by Knowing What to Ask and When to Ask It. Jeff and Val Gee. McGraw-Hill, 2007. ISBN-10: 0071484728 ISBN-13: 978-0071484725

Articles

Conflict Lessons From the Sandbox: Please Use Your Words! http://hodu.com/sandbox.shtml
Six Steps for Resolving Conflicts http://www.learningpeace.com/pages/LP_04.htm
How to Fight Fair So That Everyone Wins http://www.upenn.edu/fsap/conflict.htm
Conflict Resolution for Boomers and Media Culture http://ezinearticles.com/?Conflict-Resolution-for-Boomers-and-Media-Culture&id=536875
Conflict http://www.teambuildinginc.com/article_conflict.htm
Conflict Resolution: Resolving conflict rationally and effectively http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_81.htm
Let's legislate consensus-building http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0210/p09s02-coop.html
Conflict Resolution http://www.co-operation.org/pages/conflict.html
Aikido and Conflict Resolution http://www.bodymindandmodem.com/Daily/conflict.html
Butting Heads: Conflict Resolution for Postdocs, Part I
Students stepping in to mediate conflict resolution http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=129118&ran=92906
Ethical Conflict Resolution / Anger Management Tips http://www.leadersinstitute.com/teambuilding/articles/conflictresolution.html
Endosymbiosis: Lessons in Conflict Resolution http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0020068

The Lighter Side

Computer Commands You Wish You Really Had http://lenski.com/computer-commands/
If at all Possible, Involve a Cow http://www.campus-adr.org/CMHER/ReportResources/Edition1_1/Reviews1_1.html#Involve-a-Cow
Power of Humor http://www.hanania.com/power.htm
Rapid Transition from Reptilian Brain to Neo-Cortex or Mediation - Laughter is the Best Medicine http://www.mediate.com/articles/bozarthC1.cfm

About our resource links: We do not endorse or agree with all the beliefs in these links. We do keep an open mind about different viewpoints and respect the ability of our readers to decide for themselves what is useful.

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