Developing People

Conflict can be Constructive!

Will you weather the storm or sail on calm seas? Conflict in the workplace is inevitable and can involve complex and difficult emotions. Its management is one of the biggest challenges in today's business world and is vital to success. By giving your staff the skills to recognise its early indicators and resolve conflict before deep feeling and resentment develop you will improve their performance and job satisfaction.

Lingering tensions can prevent employees from working effectively together and can be detrimental to morale and business results. Our Managing Conflict course will develop the skills of delegates to effectively manage conflict allowing strategies to be developed to minimize, avoid or resolve it. In this way conflict can be constructive and result in clarification of important problems and issues; increased authentic communication and understanding and team work and the release of emotion, anxiety and stress.

Ignoring the need for conflict management skills in the workplace can be a costly decision – conflict won’t just disappear if you ignore it, it needs to be managed. Find out more about our Conflict Management in house course -
http://www.developingpeople.co.uk/what-we-do/training-courses/conflict-management

We have added Emotional Intelligence to our course offering and here is our latest Insight:
"IQ is just the tip of the Iceberg - Emotional Intelligence - The Key to Success"

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) rose to prominence with Daniel Goleman's 1995 Book called 'Emotional Intelligence' however it is still a relatively recent behavioural model but nonetheless an extremely important one. Which is one of the reasons why we have added Emotional Intelligence to our portfolio of 1 day in house courses. We have all met academically brilliant people who are inept when it comes to social and interpersonal skills.

Our strap line is 'Developing People to Drive Performance' so developing Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is a must.

The chief components of emotional intelligence—self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill—can sound unbusinesslike, but Goleman, co-chair of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organisations, based at Rutgers University, found direct ties between emotional intelligence and measurable business results.

IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is the intelligence we see above the surface, but it is just the tip of the intelligence iceberg. Emotional Intelligence is increasingly relevant to both people and organisational development. The EQ principles provide a new way to understand as well as assess a person’s potential, management style, interpersonal skills etc. Research points to EQ as a critical factor in determining a person’s success and what separates the outstanding performers from those that are merely adequate. Even though EQ lies beneath the surface it is by far the most significant determinant of leadership success.

Many of us lack a full understanding of our emotions, let alone those of others! It is difficult to harness the power of EQ. We are emotional beings and our first reaction to anything will be emotional, but it is our feelings following our initial response that we need to learn to control.
Aristotle wrote, "Anyone can get angry - that's easy. But to get angry in the right way, for the right reason, at the right time, and with the right person -that's not so easy."

Feelings fundamentally influence our everyday lives and careers so if you would like to improve your own EQ then consider our Emotional Intelligence Course.

Just about to add Emotional Intelligence to the 1 day in house courses we offer and delighted that we have 2 very experienced consultants whose expertise in this field bring the course to life. Watch this space because we will be promoting this course soon by adding it to our offers page.

Following on from last week's theme of Appraisals here is one of our Insights which you might be interested to read?

Why Do Appraisals Fill You With Fear?

There are lots of reasons why many people avoid, fear, delay and worry about appraisals but one of the main reasons is that it is the one and only time of the year that the boss and their team member meet for a frank and open discussion about performance, career aims, progress, development and lots more!
Remove the fear and worry about appraisals by making them much easier and more relaxed, which they will be, if the boss meets their team members individually, on a regular basis throughout the year for one-to-one discussions.

By meeting regularly and addressing performance, career aspirations, development and training needs etc. regularly, you can take the stress out of appraisals. Appraisals are more likely to be completed on time and bosses are less likely to procrastinate, or regard appraisals as a chore, or just another job, if they have regular and meaningful discussions with their team members throughout the year . In this way trust is built between people, they get to know each other and the uncertainty is removed from appraisals so there is nothing to fear.

After all, none of us want to be afraid.

Want to read the full insight? Visit our Developing People Insights page http://www.developingpeople.co.uk/blog-category/developing-people-insights where you will find this and lots more Developing People Insights.

Great Performance Appraisals are vitally important to any organisation, so we are offering a 20% discount for any In House Great Performance Appraisals Course for up to 10 delegates which is delivered in 2015. Visit 'Our Offers' Page to find out more or contact us and we will be happy to help.

With Performance Appraisals looming for many people and filling some with fear (but that's for another day) you might like to read the following Management Tip:

Make Receiving Feedback Less Stressful

It is important to recognise that receiving feedback is an inherently stressful experience. While logically and professionally we know that feedback is essential to our development it can still activate an emotional response because we might still feel misjudged, ill-used or threatened by it.

Over millions of years humans have developed a “threat response,” a collection of physiological, emotional, and cognitive events that occur when we perceive a conflict. We typically refer to this set of reactions as a fight, flight, or freeze response. This response is usually associated with literal threat to our physical well-being but can also be caused by social threats too.

Feedback can trigger a social threat in every one of us. For example, if the person giving the feedback is of higher status than us, or if we experience uncertainty b when we feel less autonomy or freedom of choice, when we feel less connected to those around us, and when we believe that something is unfair.

One of life’s great challenges is successfully regulating our emotions so how can we achieve this when receiving feedback? A number of psychologists such as James J. Gross, from Stanford University in California, have shed light on how best to achieve this using the process of ‘reappraisal’, which is sometimes referred to as ‘re-framing’. Essentially the technique is about changing the way a situation is construed so as to decrease its emotional impact.

For example, when receiving feedback it is helpful to remind yourself of the following:
•Your perception that the feedback is threatening is a natural human response. However, the feeling of being threatened doesn’t automatically imply that you are facing a literal threat.
•The person providing you with feedback isn’t necessarily assuming a position of higher status or reinforcing their status over you. In most cases their intentions are simply to help you improve, even if they are not doing very well.
•If you feel the feedback is too general or not correct, ask the giver questions to help you understand the feedback more clearly. For example in response to ‘your presentation wasn’t very convincing’, ask questions such as:•What was it I did that gave you the impression that I wasn’t convincing?
•What should I have done differently?

Getting specific factual insights will help you to understand what you need to change and reduce the feeling of social threat.
•If you feel the feedback is unfair, keep in mind that you may have misunderstood the feedback giver’s motives. Again ask the feedback giver questions about what they see the purpose of the feedback is and in what way they see it helping you to improve.
•Someone who is good at giving feedback should always ask you first if you wish to receive it. However, even if this doesn’t happen and you feel obligated to participate in the conversation, remember you are making the choice to respond to that pressure, and you have an option to receive the feedback at another more convenient time.

Feedback is vital if we are to push ourselves outside our comfort zones, to learn, develop and improve our performance. However, to truly gain the most from any feedback it is important to go into these conversations with a clear understanding of how we respond to stress, a plan for managing our stress levels, and an awareness of when we become too stressed to absorb feedback and learn from it.

It is inevitable that at some point at work we will receive some poorly delivered feedback that renders a challenging experience even more stressful. To deal with these situations effectively it is best to fully learn and practice the technique of reappraisal or re-framing to change the way you think about the feedback so as to decrease its emotional impact.

If you want to learn more and improve these skills consider our 1 day In House Giving and Receiving Feedback Course for up to 10 delegates

Our Latest Management Tip of the Week

Encourage the Right Team Behaviours to Boost Performance

Individual performance is the focus of the majority of management systems and as important as this is, it is critical to recognize and reward your team as a whole. It is the collective efforts and behaviours of your team that will boost its performance. As a team manager, you can support the right behaviours and boost your team’s performance by:

• Evaluating team performance. It is important to periodically assess and analyse your team’s collective performance by taking a close look at the progress of the team. The focus of this appraisal needs to be the team and individual performance need not be mentioned – it’s about what the team has achieved - and can achieve – together.

• Encouraging collaboration. Start by praising the common behaviours that contribute to the team’s overall success instead of talking about how individuals have contributed. Address your people as a team not as a group of individuals.

• Using rewards. Where possible recognise your team’s hard work publically – send a departmental email – display their picture in a public place or in a company publication – give them exposure to senior staff.

Here is this weeks insight from Developing People

http://www.developingpeople.co.uk/who-we-are/developing-people-insights/new-manager-be-prepared-take-hands-style

http://www.developingpeople.co.uk/who-we-are/developing-people-insights/do-you-find-your-qa-sessions-fall-flat

Do you find that your Q&A sessions fall flat? | Developing People When you ask people ‘Does anyone have any questions?’ everyone looks at each other and no one says anything, and it feel like a tumbleweed moment. This is a common problem- a lot of Q&A’s fall flat. Firstly not all speakers are good at handling questions, not everyone participates, and not all ques…