TBL 3: Managing stress and conflict, and developing negotiating skills Flashcards
What is the effect of stress in the workplace?
- Reduces productivity
- Increases management pressures
- Makes people ill in
many ways - Serious risk
of litigation for all employers and organisations - Significant liabilities for damages
- Bad publicity and loss of reputation
- Dealing with stress-related claims also consumes vast
amounts of management time
List the key findings of the ‘Quality of Working Life’ report
- Anger and mood: 43% admitted to feeling or becoming angry with others too easily
and one third (31%) confessed to a loss of humour creating workplace pressures. - Muscle tension and headaches: More than half of those questioned (55%)
complained of muscular tension or physical aches and pains. 44% said they
experienced frequent headaches. - Tiredness and insomnia: Asked about psychological symptoms, 55% experienced
feelings of constant tiredness at work. 57% complained of insomnia.
List causes of stress
- Bullying or harassment, by anyone, not necessarily a person’s manager
- Feeling powerless and uninvolved in determining one’s own responsibilities
- Continuous unreasonable performance demands
- Lack of effective communication and conflict resolution
- Lack of job security
- Long working hours
- Excessive time away from home and family
- Office politics and conflict among staff
- A feeling that one’s reward is not commensurate with one’s responsibility
- Working hours, responsibilities and pressures disrupting life-balance (diet, exercise,
sleep and rest, play, family-time, etc.)
List stress indicators
A key indicator is different behaviour from that usually seen.
- sleep difficulties
- loss of appetite
- poor concentration or poor memory retention
- performance dip
- uncharacteristic errors or missed deadlines
- anger or tantrums
- violent or anti-social behaviour
- emotional outbursts
- alcohol or drug abuse
- nervous habits
What are the three different ways that people respond to stress?
Resistance: you fight the cause of stress and respond defensively
Avoidance: you ignore the cause of stress and hope that it will somehow disappear
Confrontation or adaptation: you work to identify the cause of stress and eliminate
it. If you cannot eliminate it, you work to find a solution to adapt the new situation
and reduce the stress.
Give examples of stress management techniques
ACT - don’t REACT
- Identify the underlying cause of the problem
- Speak to someone who can help you analyse the situation and identify issues and suggest solutions
TAKE CONTROL
- Do something
- Help define and reinforce your course of action
COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY
- Always organise your thoughts logically and carefully
- Write things down
- Don’t send written communication in haste - draft them and review them before sending them out
REMIND YOURSELF OF WHAT IS IMPORTANT
- Remind yourself why you chose to do this job
BE SURE THAT YOU KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE ABOUT YOUR ROLE
- Involve yourself in the aspects of your role that you enjoy
- May require additional training, delegation or moving roles
Give examples of the main causes of conflict
- Success
- Objectives and beliefs
- Territory
- Irrational hostility
- Personal style
Describe Territory in respect to conflict
Territory includes:
- Personal space (office, a chair, or a parking space)
- Time
- Resources (budget allocations, equipment, staffing)
- Pay (salary, overtime, bonus, commission)
- Job related “perks” such as an expense account, car, quality of accommodation and
travel
- Responsibilities
- Preferred status relationships with important clients or senior management within
the company
Describe Irrational hostility in respect to conflict
Arise
out of our perceptions of other people and they colour our feelings towards them.
No real logic or sensible foundation
E.g. if a colleague reminds you of someone from your earlier life with whom you didn’t
have a good relationship, the resemblance may make you feel wary of your colleague,
without knowing why.
Describe Personality Style in respect to conflict
Personal style is an amalgamation of attitudes, perceptions, style of communication,
personality, habits and ways of doing things
There are different types:
- Traditionalists
- Analysts
- Competitors
- Performers
Describe the Traditionalist personality style
- Prefer familiar, safe situations
- Creatures of habit
- Like to have routines and
established systems and
procedures - Like to form close, often social,
relationships with other team
members - Generally predictable, patient
and loyal
Describe the Analysts personality style
- Slow at decision-making because they need to analyse, think things through and explore all the options - High standards, both for themselves and the other team members - Generally thoughtful, precise, systematic and highly critical
Describe the Competitors personality style
- Easily bored by routine
- Motivated by the possibility of
success - Because they thrive on change,
are keen to experiment and find
new ways of doing things - Make decisions quickly and easily,
and enjoy risk-taking and the
“thrill of the chase” - Generally confident, impatient, ambitious people who like to get
the job done and move onto the
next challenge
Describe the Performers personality style
- Extremely sociable and good with people, they love to charm, persuade and convince - Prefer people to systems or ideas - Can be impulsive and often take a slapdash “it’ll be alright on the night “approach - Generally optimistic, easy-going, enthusiastic and fun
Describe the difference between symptoms of conflict and tactics
The main
symptoms of conflict and the tactics people tend to use in an attempt to “win”
E.g.
Symptoms: arguments, tense atmosphere, missed targets, low morale etc.
Tactics: Distorting the facts, tying people in knots with red tape so that it
becomes extremely difficult for them to do
their job, manipulating people
Describe Principled Negotiation
It suggests that you look for mutual gains wherever possible,
and that where your interests conflict, you should insist that the result be based on some fair
standards independent of the will of either side
Principled negotiation is hard
on the merits, soft on the people
It enables
you to be fair while protecting you against those who would take advantage of your fairness.
Explain the four steps to principled negotiation
- Separate the people from the problem: you are dealing with human beings
- Focus on interests, not positions: look at what underlies the problem and what
people really mean rather than just what they say - Invent options for mutual gain: visualise what there is to gain for all parties as a pie,
and instead of debating about how the pie gets carved up, try and make the overall
size of the pie bigger for everyone - Insist on using objective criteria: it is easier to reach an agreement when using
objective standards to solve a problem, rather than the conflicting will power of
each participant.
What steps can be employed to make a challenging relationship work?
Listen actively: show the other person you understand that they feel strongly, what they
feel strongly about and why they feel strongly. Pause and then:
Win yourself a hearing: explain your own feelings, backed by facts (pause again),
paraphrase and refer back to their points. Make your points firmly, but stay friendly
Work to a joint solution: seek their ideas, build on their ideas, offer your ideas and
construct the solution from everyone’s needs.
Methods of resolving conflict
you find yourself in a conflict situation, take some time alone to mark out four positions
on a piece of paper. Each position represents a particular perspective on the issue that faces
you in the relationship. Imagine yourself in each of the positions in turn as you consider the
different perspectives, and at the end of the exercise, return to first position, where you can consider all the information you have gathered from the other positions, and what you have
learned about how to influence the challenging relationship that faces you.
What is position 1 of resolving conflict?
This is the “I” position - how does
this affect me?
Your own natural perspective, where you are fully aware of what you
think and feel regardless of those around you.
You are fully conscious of your own
beliefs and values and of what you want to achieve.
What is position 2 of resolving conflict?
This is the “You” position- how
would this appear to the other person?
The other person’s position.
Imagine what it is like for them – what
their thoughts and feelings would be in a given situation.
What is position 3 of resolving conflict?
This is the “Outside/Other” position - how would this look to someone who is
not involved?
Independent position where you act as a detached
observer noticing what is happening in the relationship between you and another
person.
What is position 4 of resolving conflict?
The “We/Us” Position - what are the effects of
this/what does this mean for my team/my department?
This is the whole system perspective.
In this position you are combining
the thoughts and feelings of the other three positions.
Effective leaders are able to
identify with the whole system they are influencing. This is often thought of as an
understanding of the “bigger picture”
Checklist for conflict management
The keys to success are communication, assertiveness
and patience.
- Listen carefully
- Ask questions and keep on asking until you understand
- Use open body language
- State your opinions, say what you would like to see happening
- Give everyone else the chance to have their say
- Move one step at a time towards agreement
- Search for a win/win outcome where everyone feels they have achieved something
that is of benefit to them - Keep calm and don’t lose your temper
- Think before you speak
- Be consistent, fair and even handed towards everyone
- Don’t give in to bullying tactics
- Remember your rights
- Remember everyone else has rights
- Keep a record of any conflict so you can refer to it if necessary (always keep your
record confidential)
