Spring Clean Away Unresolved Conflict

Spring is about new beginnings. 

Just as people are anxious to plant gardens and flowers outside, they are also anxious to do some serious spring cleaning inside.  It’s time to open up the house, let in the fresh air and sweep out some of the junk we’ve accumulated over time.

We can take these fresh attitudes to the workplace too.

Now is the perfect time to consider fresh ideas you can apply to your assignments, projects, team and even your manager.  Taking time to identify what’s working for you and helping you succeed and choosing to build on it will help you sustain that success. 

Also important is taking note of what habits and behaviors may be holding you back or slowing you down and then letting them go and sweeping them out of “your house.” One of those things to sweep from your house is conflict. To be more specific, behaviors that create and perpetuate unresolved conflict.

Conflict left unresolved tends to worsen over time; draining energy and productivity as anger, hurt feelings, and resentments add up. Unresolved conflict can spill over into areas beyond the disputing employees, impacting teammates, and other colleagues.

The Resolving Disagreements report in imapMyTeam® can help you overcome the insurmountable. It first reveals why resolving a disagreement may be personally hard for you. That part explains the prime reasons you don’t get to the resolution. Part two of the report tells you how to work through the disagreement and how to get help

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Resolving workplace conflict is shown to correlate with reduced stress and anxiety, greater happiness and satisfaction, increased morale and productivity, a greater sense of mental well-being, improved work relationships and even better sleep.  Who wouldn’t want that?!

Choose to use the fresh start of spring to make a clean start with someone that you have been at odds with. Creative conflict is good, lingering conflict is not.  Let the cleaning of your relationships begin.

To be great, rethink your default behavior

Several years ago we worked with a division president who was fond of saying to his team “You need to be more comfortable being uncomfortable”.

I loved this phrase because it succinctly describes a very important reason why regular use of your imapMyTeam® application will help you be more successful

That is self-management leads to improved relationships with others; and that serves as a basis for you to be more productive in several ways

Our default behavior is defined by the location of our diamond symbol on the Team Player Grid. Also known as your strengths, it’s where we are most “comfortable” operating.  It is the auto-pilot or cruise control behavior in that if we are not paying attention to our behavior, this is what we are doing. If you don’t think so – ask one of your colleagues, they will validate that for you.

But we are not limited to that behavior. We can be self-aware and self-manage ourselves to behave differently depending upon the person or situation that we find ourselves in. When we push out from this familiar, “comfortable” behavior it feels ‘uncomfortable’ because it is not what we usually do.

It is like suddenly drinking tea instead of coffee; writing with your opposite hand, or picking up a French Horn when you’ve played string instruments most of your life. You know how to drink; but it is a different beverage. You know how to write; but you typically don’t use the other hand. You know how to play an instrument, but not that one.

Learning to “be more comfortable being uncomfortable” is something you can do. Maybe not so well at first, it will be awkward, slower and not feel as sure and steady as usual. But finally it happens- the more you do it the more comfortable it feels.

Never underestimate the significance of the uncomfortable action you are taking.  As uncomfortable as it may feel to you it probably is extremely comfortable to the person on the other side of the interaction– and it is exactly what they need to succeed in their project or situation.

Check out your ‘Team Player’ report in imapMyTeam®.  Make sure to not only look at the strength behaviors in the quadrant your diamond falls in, but the behaviors in the other quadrants as well.

Rethinking those default behaviors and acting on new ones will be a game changer for you because as uncomfortable as some of those behaviors might be- to be truly great- you need to be able to use the strengths we associate with all four quadrants of the Team Player Grid. 

Coaching Conversations: It’s the same for Olympians and You

Great coaches are always remembered and revered. 

For example, Gold Medal winning Olympians are generally quick to give credit to a special coach who was willing to take the time to work with them individually, encouraging them to become stronger, perform better and to reach their Gold Medal goals.

Does that same type of inspiration transfer into the business world? The answer is a resounding- Yes! Often you see interviews and articles where successful business people give a great deal of credit to someone who coached and inspired them during their careers.

Great coaches recognize that athletes are different and you cannot coach each one in exactly the same way. They may teach the same fundamentals to everyone on the team, but they know how to customize the delivery to reach each person. The same applies to a manager in business- each employee is different than his or her co-workers. What motivates or drives one is not necessarily the same for another. Managers must understand their team members and the more accurately they do, the more effective their coaching will be. imapMyTeam® unlocks that depth of understanding.

There is a new report in imapMyTeam® titled Coaching Conversations. 

This report outlines areas where an employee may develop a critical performance blind spot. Unidentified and unchecked, these could sidetrack performance. This quick point of reference will help the manager identify and understand the less than productive behaviors or activities observed in the employee. The Coaching Conversations report is a great starting point and helps the manager frame the issue so they can have productive conversations that not only get performance back on track, but support the personal success of the individual.  

This new report is available only to managers who have direct reports in their imapMyTeam application. Simply click the ‘view information’ link next to your direct report’s name on the imapMyTeam main page and select the report.

  

We encourage all managers to take a quick look at this new report and proactively share them with your direct reports. You never know when an important insight will be just what’s needed to inspire ‘Gold Medal’ results.