organization_matters

Articles on Organization Matters:

The Bad Apple At Work May Be Your Best Apple

It is often said that one bad apple can spoil the barrel of apples. The same can be said of employee morale at the work. One employee with a poor attitude can ruin your whole carefully plan campaign of motivation and productivity at the jobsite.

Dealing with difficult employees is perhaps the hardest part of running any operation. In the end after all your careful choices and planning, hiring and training it all comes down to the employees on the job. Everything in life is communication and interaction with others. In the same manner learning how to deal with difficult employees should command extra emphasis and effort in your human resources efforts.

Consider the following. It is ironic that often the most difficult employees are often the most productive. Put it another way – perhaps that employee who is draining morale is doing such as he is a lone wolf with high expectations of others. It is often said that everything is team work – rah, rah. However it can also be said that suicide bombing is a collaborative team effort and that suicide bombers are good team players. However this is not a result or kind of team that you want in your organization.

It is often noted that in any planned effort that 85 % of the results come from 15 % of the efforts. For example in real estate sales usually 85 % of the sales come from 15 % of the sales employee agents. Said another way 85 % of the other sales employees are just dead weight.

In the same manner this employee who can be singled out as “the troublemaker” and diminishing productivity and motivation at the workplace may be the one keeping your business in the black.

Perhaps this employee is dissatisfied with the work and efforts of the other workers. Perhaps he or she is fed up with the slackers on the job and tells them so. Or just maybe this person is a “lone wolf” who prefers to work alone and is the most productive when put in this type of workplace setting.

In the end what can you. You have several options. First identify and measure the productivity of the specific employee. Are they a major production or profit center? Are they perhaps lowering moral because they are insisting on high performance of others and antagonizing the other working personnel?

If so is there a way to make these efforts more productive and less negative. While it is unlikely that promoting this person to a level of management or supervisor may make sense as it may antagonize the situation further perhaps other avenues can be entertained. Perhaps all this person needs is recognition of their good efforts and attempts to elicit a discussion on the merits of their efforts and a slight redirection for better purpose. Perhaps specific training can be of help. For example a communications improvement program such as toastmasters or a Dale Carnegie course.

If the above turns out to be of little use and are indeed hopeless perhaps it is best to recognize the “lone wolf” tendencies and inherent productivity or this valued employee. Not all people like to be “team players”. Perhaps they should be left alone to prosper you on the job. Perhaps they can be promoted or moved to a job where they are unsupervised and work alone – to the better avail of the organization.

In the end it may well be said that one bad apple may spoil the barrel. However that apple may be your best apple.

Shaun Stevens
19 May 2007

Shaun Stevens Ace Employment Services http://www.ace-training.net http://www.winnipegjobshark.com http://www.aceemploymentservices.net

Castaway And Conflict - Dealing With Disagreement Flexibly

I was watching the new series of the reality TV show ‘Castaway’ on BBC1 last night and was intrigued by the behaviour of the participants.

The format of the show is that a group of volunteers are ‘stranded’ on an island and have to deal with the pressures of living in that environment. On the first day, seven people swam ashore, bonded and began to establish a group dynamic. Two days later, they were surprised as a second wave of ‘castaways’ arrived.

Needless to say, this knocked the previous social order on its head. What intrigued me was the way in which the first group responded to the new situation. Group integration and an ability to resolve conflicts are popularly held to be valuable leadership skills and one might expect leadership to emerge clearly in such a situation.

So how did the first group of castaways react to the new situation?

As one would expect, the surprise appearance of these new arrivals was an uncomfortable adjustment. Resources, tasks and status had already been allocated – and it was clear that these balances would all change.

It’s not surprising that the first band of castaways tried to hold on to their status as an established group. The natural consequence of that is to see the new arrivals as a totally separate group.

It seems interesting to me that the two most vocal and politically aware people were in constant conflict until the new castaways arrived. Then they calmed down and developed a common cause, seeing the newcomers as competition - a win/lose scenario.

Competitiveness seems to be at the heart of the democratic model. The consequence of looking at the world this way is that triumph must go hand-in-hand with failure. For every winner there must be a loser – a classic conflict scenario involving the constant rebalancing of power.

But is that the only way to look at conflict? Why can’t we all just get along? And is conflict a bad thing?

The Dynamics of Conflict
Theorist Ken Thomas produced a model of conflict based on two vital balancing factors: assertiveness and cooperativeness. The interaction of these two aspects results in five distinct conflict styles: Competition, collaboration, compromise, avoidance and accommodation.

Each style is appropriate for a different kind of situation, though we may use some of them more than others.

For example, competition can encourage innovation, engages both positive motivation sources and often results in projects being completed earlier than expected.

Accommodation can be a great strategy in the short term, where one person is prepared to give the other what they want with little regard for personal concerns. This is part of the structure of reciprocity – the exchange of favours – and the long term benefits are evident.

The first group of castaways fell back on the strategy of competition as a way of dealing with the arrival of the newcomers. Potentially, they could have also:

avoided the newcomers
put their concerns aside to make the new castaways comfortable
met the new arrivals halfway in their needs
found common cause quite readily

Examining those options, it’s apparent that finding common cause (collaboration) may be the most productive strategy in that situation. So why did many of them automatically react in a competitive way?

We each use a number of different strategies for dealing with each other and with the world. Many of those strategies were learned from our parents and peers or through trial and error. Our life experience will determine which of the five conflict styles we are familiar with and which have led to the best outcomes, so it’s natural that preferences would evolve.

Exercise: Finding your own preferences
Let’s have a good look at that proposition, as I don’t just want you to take my word for it. Ask yourself:
Do you use each style? If so, when do you use each one? What is your predominant way of dealing with conflict?

Take your time to go through those questions and answer them honestly and I guarantee you’ll learn a lot about yourself. Bear in mind that this isn’t necessarily just about conflict. You could consider these as ways of achieving integration and gaining solutions instead.

Established Habits
Steven Covey lists “win/win” thinking as one of the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, but is that always so? Is the strategy of collaboration always the best model for interaction?

Not necessarily. It’s a lousy way to play a football game for starters. Competitiveness is an inbuilt part of our society and with good reason. The goal of ‘being the best’ implies competition and the consequences of failure can also act as a powerful motivator. Competition inspires peak performance, the pushing of the boundaries of possibility and the quest for excellence.

Also, what if there is little common ground between the conflicting parties? That’s possible in cases where resources are limited. For example, if there are two people with kidney failure and only one kidney is available, the win/win scenario is unachievable in the short term.

The strategies of: competition (who needs/deserves it more?) accommodation (self-sacrifice)

both qualify as choices in this case. Bear in mind that there’s nothing wrong with the win/win or even the win/lose scenario. It’s just a matter of being aware of the choices and making the best one.

Given the presence of extra choice within this scheme, Ken Thomas suggests that good leaders do not necessarily specialise in resolving conflict, but can use it as a positive force by managing conflict correctly. Given the strengths brought out through each style, it’s easy to see how one might build this model into a flexible system for management.

Summary
When people meet, they must establish some boundaries in order to interact meaningfully. Integration/conflict resolution models can be great ways of exploring unconsidered options and discovering one’s own blind spots. Use the 5 conflict styles to have better options than you had learned before and you’ll become more resourceful as an individual and as a leader.

Philip Callaghan
21 May 2007

Philip Callaghan is an NLP Trainer and Coach who has been working full time with private clients for several years. He is a Licensed Master Practitioner and Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and a member of the International Association of Coaches. Visit Phil's website http://www.resourcefulchange.co.uk/ for further articles. Learn NLP with Phil at http://www.bronze-dragon.com/index.shtml