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and are doing one or more of the following: muttering under their breath or pursing their lips; being physically withdrawn or controlled; turning away or otherwise deflecting contact; remaining silent or speaking in a tone that is passively aggressive; appearing shut down or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