Is the conflict you need to resolve hot or cold?

Mark Gerzon drew on 20 years of experience of conflict management in his article in Harvard Business Review back in June 2014, in which he explored the concept that before you can start to resolve a conflict you need to first establish whether to conflict is Hot or Cold.

Mark defines "Hot" as "when one or more parties are highly emotional and doing one or more of the following: speaking loudly or shouting; being physically aggressive, wild or threatening; using language that is incendiary; appearing out of control and potentially explosive."

"Cold" he defines as "when one or more parties seem to be suppressing emotions, or actually appear “unemotional,” and are doing one or more of the following: muttering under their breath or pursing their lips; being physically withdrawn or controlled; turning away or otherwise deflecting contact; remaining silent or speaking in a tone that is passively aggressive; appearing shut down or somehow frozen."

He goes on to explore specific strategies for dealing effectively with each possibility. To read the full article visit:

https://hbr.org/2014/06/to-resolve-a-conflict-first-decide-is-it-hot-or-cold&cm_sp=Article-_-Links-_-Top%20of%20Page%20Recirculation

Stop! You're doing it all wrong!

In the second of his articles playwright, theatre producer and corporate coach, Ken Cameron describes the process of "Forum Theatre" that we utilize on the workshop "Managing the Unmanageable", a revolutionary approach to skills development.

"You wouldn’t think that a style of theatre developed by a Brazilian political activist would turn out to be a useful tool for business leaders around the world. But it is.

Managers who know that they are facing a difficult conversation with a challenging or unmanageable team member, have learned the value of role-playing. But Forum Theatre allows you to take role-playing to an extra level.

In Forum Theatre a scenario – in this case a difficult workplace conversation – is shown twice. During the replay, any member of the workshop is allowed to shout 'Stop!', step forward and take the place of the participant who is struggling. They then have to show how they would change the situation to enable a different outcome.

In our workshop we go one further, and use professional actors to make the role-play as close to the real situation as possible without having the real people in the room with you.

The strategy is the closest you can get to having the real conversation." 

Bluegem Learning will be partnering with Ken Cameron from Corporate CultureSHIFT in hosting "Managing the Unmanageable" - an introduction to the art of having difficult workplace conversations, on February 26, 2015 at the Kahanoff Centre in Downtown Calgary. 

This will be a highly interactive experience for managers & supervisors using Forum Theatre as an experience to build capability and confidence. For further details checkout 

www.managingtheunmanageable.ca

Does Your Team (Metaphorically) Run Away When You Start Speaking?

Stop Letting Fear & Discomfort Prevent You From Having Those "Difficult Conversations" at Work.

I'm delighted to announce that Bluegem Learning will be partnering with Ken Cameron from Corporate CultureSHIFT in hosting "Managing the Unmanageable" - an introduction to the art of having difficult workplace conversations, on February 26, 2015 at the Kahanoff Centre in Downtown Calgary. 

This will be a highly interactive experience for managers & supervisors using Forum Theatre as an experience to build capability and confidence. For further details checkout www.managingtheunmanageable.ca

Ken is a highly talented and successful playwright and theatre director, who uses his twenty years of creative and corporate experience to coach business leaders on how to access their creativity and increase their profitability.

In the first of a series of articles relating to this workshop Ken talks about having "The Conversation".

"People naturally fear change.

And as mammals whose brains were forged on the savanna in the company of large speedy predators, we are programmed to run away from what we fear.

The way the brain works is worth acknowledging when its time to have “That Conversation” with your Team.

There are many things we are programmed to fear.  We fear things that threaten our existing status. We fear ideas that demands new skills which leaves us feeling uncertain. Change might imply a new corporate structure, which has an impact our ability to make autonomous decisions. It may mean that new employees arrive while familiar faces depart, affecting our relatedness. And change is almost always perceived as being unfair to some and privileging others.

You can see that with so many triggers so close at hand, it’s easy to elicit a flight response and cause your employee to shut down just s your trying to being “That Conversation” about their performance.

Wouldn’t it be better to assuage those triggers: and make them work for you?

I’m pleased to be participating in a workshop with Russell Stratton of Bluegem Learning called “Managing the Unmanagebale” that gives leaders the tools to have “That Conversation” properly."

Hitting Home – can workplace culture lead to violence towards women?

Being a sponsor for todays “Breakfast with the Guys” event in Calgary, organized by the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters (ACWS), acted as a timely reminder, the need for all of us to get involved in challenging abusive behaviours, whether this be at home, our community or the workplace. As a Champion of Great Leadership at Bluegem Learning and a father of two daughters, I see the need for leaders at all levels in organizations and the wider community to play their part in ending violence towards women.

As the majority of my work is spent with leaders in organization I am interested to learn if there is a correlation between the culture in the workplace and violence towards women.

A 2012 survey in Alberta found that 1 in 10 men said that it was acceptable for a man to hit a woman if she did something that makes him angry. And this startling statistic isn’t in isolation, on a wider scale across Canada Statistics Canada have previously revealed that:

 Half of all Canadian women have experienced physical or sexual violence, 

More than 3,000 women stay in shelters on a given night to escape abuse, 

Women are 11 times more likely to be victims of sexual offences,

Young women between the ages of 15-24 are particularly vulnerable to violent crime with the reported crime rate double that of women aged between 35- 44.

I found these statistics shocking, all the more so because they effect real people and are not simply statistics. So returning to my earlier question - can workplace culture lead to violence towards women?

Recent research in British Columbia has indicated that the culture of work camps, isolation, self medication through alcohol and/or drugs, can lead to a pressure cooker that can become destructive when that man returns home to his family. Is this isolated to work camps or is this pattern more wide spread across the workplace? Is it centred on professions with all male only teams and high levels of stress? The recent high profile cases involving Ray Rice and Jian Gomeshi indicate a more widespread problem, where unacceptable behaviour is at best ignored and at worst encouraged.

I don’t have the answers to these questions and as importantly what do we do about it. I’d be interested to learn others thoughts on this, from your experience is there a correlation between the culture in the workplace and violence towards women. Please feel free to leave me your comments.

ACWS rightly point out that men still hold the majority of leadership roles in organizations and can be powerful mentors to other men, boys and girls. It is time that these leaders stood up to the issue of violence towards women, it’s not enough to say nothing or do nothing in the hope that others will, as leaders we have an opportunity to speak out and should do so.

The Bluegem Approach to Leadership Development

Russell Stratton, Champion of Great Leadership at Bluegem Learning, has made it his mission to develop great Leaders in the organizations he works with. 

Bluegem is the only Calgary based Leadership Development consultancy that offers innovative, experiential programs that combine training, ongoing coaching and hands on, on the job support, at pricing that makes sense on your budget. All backed by our 60 day 100% money back guarantee.

Using Bluegem's ACE² systematic leadership development approach we can custom build a solution that guarantees results for your specific requirements.