6. When conflict becomes intense and emotions strong, sometimes a break is helpful to allow emotions to cool
7. Define and agree on the problem
8. Keep focused on the most significant issues of the conflict
9. Focus on issues, not on people
10. Find those things you can agree on
Now, finally, let’s look at how you should behave and what sort of things should you focus on when you find yourself in a conflict situation.
The Four Golden Rules to follow during conflict situations at work
The golden rules to be used by you in conflict situations are:
1. Show recognition - use the person’s name throughout all dealings with them
2. Show understanding - paraphrase and summarise your understanding of what they are saying
3. Give respect - indicate respect by being attentive and polite during discussions with them
4. Make process suggestions - suggest processes in a helpful and business-like way.
Processes might be things like:
- Sitting down together for a quiet chat, maybe away from the workplace
- Having a ‘cooling off ’ period and then ‘getting together’ later
- Using an agenda - similar to the critical steps above
- Reviewing the Discipline Code together
- Setting small goals that result in early progress
- Getting opposing sides to recall when they have worked well in the past
So, my best wishes to you as you seek to resolve conflict situations in the workplace. You don’t have to be a great speaker to resolve conflict, but you may well have to be a good listener.
I am grateful to, amongst others, Richard Barker, Kerran Daly MG, Mika Nurminen and John Ross MG for their kind contributions to my research. In addition to their thoughts on the topic, my work provides me with regular opportunities to discuss conflict handling strategies with managers and staff in the turf care sector, both in the UK and abroad.
Frank Newberry has been helping people in the turfcare sector to get better results for over 20 years. His clients include BIGGA, the IOG and
Pitchcare.com. If you are facing a conflict situation, and if you think it might help to speak to someone, you can contact Frank by e-mail or by telephone via the contact tab of his personal website which is
www.franknewberry.com
Remembering when we had the ‘guts’ for the job?
Richard Murray, of Real World Training, says keep learning, keep training, keep gaining experience, and don’t think what you know today is all you need to know for tomorrow
A VERY belated Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you are all recovered and looking forward to a year of interest with renewed and positive expectations.
Whatever the politicians might say, or the general election might bring, it should be a big learning curve for us all - and didn’t we learn a lot about politicians in 2009!
Which brings me to this point, how much that controls what we do is in law, regulations or general guidelines laid down by bodies of people, for our best interest or the interest of relevant affected parties?
On top of all this, we then have monetary, labour and time constraints to contend with ... and, with the hassle we have had with the weather in recent months, there is an endless amount for us to contend with.
Also, we must not forget our need to survive, supporting our families to the best of our abilities with what seem to be limited personal resources, especially in the turfcare profession.
Profession is the right word to use for the dedicated professionals that work in our industry - yes you! You are all professional people at what you do, you understand what makes your area work to get the best results from what facilities you have to achieve your high standards of workmanship.
In the real world we don’t tend to compartmentalise what we practically do, as we know that the weather can, within a day, alter the best laid plans, that our budgets we thought we had get reassigned to other areas, and that staff we relied upon move on for various reasons.
In a number of cases a new manager or committee decides what we, as professionals, should do in our work, altered by professionals from other areas of work who only play the game.
What do we do with all these circumstances with their myriad restrictions? We actually learn to adapt our experiences, with the knowledge we have gained, to make the situation work to give the best results.
I am lucky to have worked in the turfcare industry for the last forty years and, for all of those years, learning from people,
courses or training material. One thing I have been able to learn is that, what we think we know today will certainly change in the short or long term.
To expand this point, look at chemical application. When I was an apprentice, I rolled nicotine coated shreds into golf ball size smoke bombs with my bare hands, then lit them in glasshouses to kill anything that moved, including you if you had to relight a ball that had gone out - still never smoked a cigarette! I wonder why?
I have applied powders to bowling greens, watered them in and then, the next day, shovelled up the worms that covered the green.
But, just to top both of those examples (hope your not eating), gone to the slaughterhouse and collected what had been removed from the cattles’ guts, hand shovelled it on to the back of a pickup and then sat in the back of the vehicle with this xxxx material before spreading it on the parks flower borders as organic fertiliser! Bring back the good old days? I don’t think so!
Years ago we started applying chemicals to seeds to kill off the bugs that eat the new growing plant. Recent research has shown that it might be this practice that gives us higher crop yields, but that it affects the immune system of bees, so they are now in decline. With this knowledge, do we change our practice or ignore it for the next generation to sort out?
Generally, I am glad to say that, in our industry, with our professional attitude, we learn, then do something about it in the right way, even if we have to go head to head with the politicians.
So, what will the future hold? That’s up to me, you or us, collectively, not someone else. We can be heard and change the information, regulations and rules, without being militant. BE PROFESSIONAL.
Keep learning, keep training, keep gaining experience, and don’t think what you know today is all you need to know for tomorrow.
Richard Murray RWT Real World Training Email:
richardm.realworldtraining@
tesco.net
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132