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Most Important Step To Resolve Conflict

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Do you have conflict at work? Do you wish people understood things more clearly, and more often from your point of view? Then here’s your most important first step.

The Conflict

At home it’s time to do a semi-major housecleaning. Every time Handsome Husband (HH)  and I clean house together I get a little agitated. I make a list of things for HH to do for us: clean the porch furniture, wash windows on the outside, clear up the garage, get the cobwebs, wash the doormats, etc. He does his list willingly and cheerfully, but I wish he’d do it more quickly. Doesn’t he know his list is a lot shorter and less complicated than my list? Can’t he tell I’d like him to go faster, then help me?

Resolving The Conflict – a Simple Example

He cheerfully does his list. I, not so cheerfully, do mine. I act agitated, full of conflict. Why is there conflict? Because I want him to finish his shorter list and help me; that is my objective for him. He has his own objective. He doesn’t know I have one for him.

Objectives We Do Not Share

A wise person once said, “Conflict arises when people are in pursuit of objectives they do not share.” Bingo! We are pursuing two different objectives. He doesn’t even know I have one for him.  No wonder I’m muttering.  I haven’t told him my objective for him let alone asked him to agree with it.  We are in pursuit of objectives we do not share.

“Share” Doesn’t Just Mean “Tell”

Please note, “share” in this axiom doesn’t mean “tell”, as in, “let me share this with you”.  In this axiom, “share” means to “hold the same opinion”, to “hold in common”.  HH and I were in pursuit of objectives we do not share, do not hold in common. Next time, I’ll have to own up to the fact that I have an objective for him (sometimes we hold these objectives subconsciously and have to force them out into the light).  I have to ask him to agree to my objective for him. He might not, so then we’ll use fact-finding, give-and-take, trade-offs, compromise, prioritization, scheduling, “ask, don’t tell” and other methods of coming to agreement.

Conflicts At Work

This is a simple example of different objectives remaining unspoken, unagreed-to.  But aren’t a lot of the conflicts at work just as simple? Conflicts caused by different objectives, remaining unspoken?

The objectives themselves may not be simple, getting agreement may not be simple, but it’s simple to see why you’re in conflict. You want two completely different things, but you haven’t discovered that yet.  The conflict is not personal, it’s not vindictive, the other person’s not stupid or hard-headed.  Rather, you are in pursuit of objectives you do not share.

You Can Resolve the Conflict

A friend of mine says “sometimes we’ll be the only ones in the room who know what’s going on”.  Do you see how that advice can work here?  Really look at the conflicts around you and you’ll see it’s the objectives that are in conflict, not the people.

Discover The Objectives

Have everyone in the conflict speak their objective, namely, their preferred outcome and preferred method.  Everyone will be surprised at how different the objectives are.  Everyone might also be surprised at how easily and well the objectives can be melded together and all satisfied once they’re spoken aloud.  It’s a particular pleasure when one objective influences another, makes it clearer, asks hard questions, or makes the other one easier to achieve.  It’s a pleasure to watch the two people in conflict have a lightbulb moment.

What If They Can’t Be Resolved?

Some objectives can’t be melded together or won’t be satisfied by the final agreement, but perhaps they can be deferred and satisfied later. Or pursued in parallel by another group. Or more fact-finding will show one’s unnecessary or redundant.  One thing is for sure:  the ways to satisfy the objectives can only be found when the objectives are spoken.

Please remember it’s often true that, when two people are in conflict, all it means is that they are in pursuit of objectives they do not share. Now I’m ready to get HH to agree to hurry his list and help me with mine.

I’ve seen this first and most important step to conflict resolution work very effectively at the office and at home.  Do you think it would work at your office?  Please click “comment” above and tell us how you would put it to use. 

What do you think will be the best way to make sure others speak their objectives out loud?

 

Why Won’t The Client Call Back?

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Has this happened to you?  You’re in the midst of an important project, and the client just refuses to call you back.  Provokes a lot of anxiety in you, doesn’t it?

In the midst of projects when clients seem to refuse to call back, I say to my teams and my coaching clients: “Don’t worry.  When you’re as good at this as you are, and work as hard as you do, it’s not going to turn out that you were the problem.”

It’s Not You

I mean it’s not going to turn out to be their fault that the client didn’t call back this week.  It’s going to turn out that the client’s time was preempted by a dozen other things, or the client was sick, or on vacation, or wasn’t able to call back for a hundred other reasons.

But Notice The Facts

Notice the facts here: “When you’re as good at this as you are, and work as hard as you do”.  When all that is true, it won’t turn out that you were the problem.

But…

But if you could be better at technical or managerial skills, or better at your people skills and client skills, if perhaps you haven’t been working that hard to keep this client satisfied, then maybe it IS you.  Maybe you ARE the reason they didn’t call back.

But…

But when you are skilled, you work smart, you work hard, you’ve been proactive, you’ve announced problems and work-around plans early on, and you keep answering questions and needs from the client’s point-of-view, you are not going to be the reason they didn’t call back.

I hope this helps your morale.  It’s certainly helped me and my teams.  Can you see yourself using this technique when the client won’t call back?  Please comment and join the discussion.

Do You Know This One Basic Goal Of A Leader?

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A leader’s most important goal and most important action, in my opinion, is to maximize her free time, her discretionary time.  That’s right.  To increase the time in her day that has no obligations on it, except what she puts there herself.

What Distinguishes Leaders

Maximizing her discretionary time and choosing what to put into that time – the actions, the thinking, the drilling down into causes and cures, the setting of strategies to effect cure – is what distinguishes a leader from everyone else.  It’s what can distinguish you from everyone else.

The Ability To Do The Hard Work

Here’s another way to express it:  what divides leaders from everyone else is what I call “doing the hard work”.  It’s thinking.  That’s right – thinking.  That’s the “hard work”.  Thinking about making advances and making change.  Thinking of, then writing down plans that are truly workable and implementable, whose results are easy to measure.  Plans that practically make the team get up and ask for a kick-off meeting so they can get to work.  That’s a leader.

Who Will Give You The Time?

No one.  No one’s going to give you the time to formulate plans like those.  You take the time, literally wrest it from the hands of those who want your time.  You carve it out, make more of it, maximize it.  The company and shareholders are paying you to make time to think.  That is what a leader does.

Do you wish your leaders would do more of that?  Do you look forward to doing it more and more as you become a stronger leader?  Please “comment” and share.

What Are The Two Things Everyone Wants?

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My coaching client said he had a hard question for me, “Which of these two important things should I do first? I just don’t know where to start.”

My coaching client is a creative, energetic, intelligent, hard-working self-starter and entrepreneur.  Like so many people, he has more directions to go and things to try than he has time for, so he called me in.

“Five Years” Is Too Long

We used to ask clients what they wanted to have accomplished five years from now.  Forget that – that’s way too long.  I asked him what he and his five employees are working hard on every day two years from now, and he started talking.  After a minute, his voice got faster, a little higher and louder, he leaned forward, and was smiling.  When he was done, he plopped back in the chair, smiling, and quiet.

We All Want The Same Two Things

I said, “All entrepreneurs and leaders want the same two things.  We want to know what comes first, and what comes second.  You’re lucky.  You already know what comes first; you just told me.  You can choose from among the rest what comes second, and delegate it to someone else, or forget about what comes second.  Just devote everything you’ve got to what comes first.”

Do you agree?  Is that a good method to choose your objective, maybe even your mission?  Please join the discussion.

Don’t Do This or You’ll Lose Out For Sure

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Is there something that has you distracted, preoccupied, or anxious at work?  Consider this technique to get around it.

Are you a Magnum, P.I. fan on Amazon?  Magnum was a pretty good private investigator and he knew how to pick locks.  Getting away from the bad guys often depended on Magnum being able to pick a lock at the end of a hallway with the bad guys bearing down on him.

Human Nature Will Get You In Trouble

It’s human nature to keep watching where the bad guys are coming from.  But what Magnum had to do was focus on the lock.  He had all the skill and tools to pick the lock and get through the door to safety.  All he had to do was work the lock.  His skills would get him through if he would focus on the lock.

Work The Lock

Magnum would mutter to himself, “Don’t watch the bad guys.  Work the lock.”

Just Like Us

Sometimes we see only the danger or feel only the fear.  Or worse, spend our time looking for it, watching for it, anticipating it…  When what we should do – all we have to do – is focus on the lock.

Don’t watch the bad guys.

Work the lock.

I have watched this technique work in intense situations.  Do you think it would work for you?  Please click “Comment” and join in.

 

How To Stick To A Plan for “For One Day Straight”

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Making and sticking to a new habit has to be one of the hardest things on earth, isn’t it?  I have something that just might help.

I enjoy the site and the app Don’t Break The Chain ; you track your performance on a new habit against your goal and the app keeps track for you, with reminders and encouragement along the way.  When I did miles on the treadmill for several days, the app said, “You’ve done the right thing for 4 days straight.”   I love that.

Then I Missed A Day

I missed a day, but went back to the treadmill the next day.  When I was done, the app said, “You have done the right thing for one day straight.”  I didn’t like that as much; I liked “4 days straight” better.

Still, the phrase “one day straight” made me smile.  You can see why this site works.

“For One Day Straight”

There is a lot to be said for performing better at your new habit “for one day straight”.  One whole day.  Straight.  Here’s to you and to me for doing the right thing “for one day straight.”  Let’s try for that again tomorrow.

I love this app.  How do you make and stick with better habits?

 

Is This Fear, or Is It Only Caution?

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Words and labels have power over us.  Everywhere we read about overcoming fear.  People take quizzes to see if it’s fear of failure or fear of success they suffer from.

What If It’s Not Fear At All?

What if it’s not fear?  What if you’re not anxious, not even nervous, about the big opportunity or the big sale?  What if you are merely cautious?

It’s OK to Have a Doubt

What if you simply have doubts?  Do we even remember – in these days of “fear of failure” – what it feels like to have an honest doubt?  A doubt that we could take time to examine.

What If…?

What if you simply doubt that you’re ready for the major presentation?  Doubt that you have the information you need to go ahead with the meeting?  Put like that, could it be that doubt is alerting you that you have more work to do?  Maybe your doubt is alerting you that you’re short of information and about to get caught with your pants down.

I Like Friends Who Alert Me To Danger

Doubt is a good thing.  By discovering more information and making better plans we “put our doubts to rest”.  That’s a good thing.  Examine your doubt and start to fill in what’s lacking.

Don’t Stay There Too Long

Don’t take forever getting the missing information and making a better plan.  Taking too long is going to kill your forward motion and drain the energy right out of you.  Take just long enough to “put your doubts to rest.”

Here’s The Plan

When you’re tempted to read another article about “fear of …”, spend the time instead examining whether you have doubts about the data, the objective, the plan, the people involved.  Pinpoint whether something is in doubt, and exactly what about it is in doubt.

You’re Not Afraid

Maybe your plan, not your ability, was in doubt.  It’s not your ability that’s in doubt, and you’re not afraid.  Your plan’s just weak.  How shall you make your plan stronger?

I hope this new idea gives you insight.  Please click “comment” and describe where you might use it to beat out the fears you thought you had.

 

 

 

The Easiest Way To Get To Know Your Client Better

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Do you know the surest way to get to know your client better?  It’s not as hard as it sounds.

Years ago, when I had just been promoted to Program Manager/Client Account Manager, I ran into Rick the Boss in the hall.  He said, “You’re in sales.  What are you doing in the office?”  He said his boss Bob had said the same to him years before.  (Rick, if you’re reading this, I know you don’t remember saying it.)

It Changed My Career

But Rick did say it, and it changed my career.  My new client was a Navy base, five hours away.  A 10-hour round-trip drive would stretch to a 13- or 14-hour day if I actually got a meeting with anyone, and I didn’t want to make the drive.  Not unless I could guarantee some sale or revenue out of it!   I had a few ideas for projects but not enough, so I didn’t think I was ready for meetings at the base.

Excuses, But No Sales

I had reasons and excuses but I also didn’t have any sales.  When Rick said, “What are you doing here?”, it shook me.  I didn’t want to lose his confidence or support.  Within the hour I’d made appointments for meetings and rented a car.  I drove to the base the next day, using the five-hour commute to get my thoughts together, assemble what I knew about the client, and assemble the questions I’d ask to get to know my clients and their needs.

I Sold A Project That Day

I practiced what I’d been taught:  I asked a question and shut up.  I sold a project that day, because I did make the drive, because I had good questions, and because I shut up.

How To Get To Know Your Client

Months later it dawned on me that making a sales call only requires spending time with your client, having good questions, and being interested in the answers.  Your questions are no good without their answers.

My sales career took off.  Thanks, Rick.  Thanks, Bob.

Who knew??  They did.  And now, so do you.

What do you think?  Does this way of looking at it, “be interested in the answers”, make your sales job easier?  Please click “Comment” and join in.

 

The Single Best Way to Discover Your Client’s Deepest Real Need

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Are you ready to make scary-big sales?  Would you like it to be easier to take scary-big risks?

To make scary-big sales, you have to discover – and prove you can solve – your client’s deepest real need.  To make the discovery, you have to be in fairly frequent, friendly communication with your client.  “Fairly frequent and friendly communication” tells us that relationship selling is a process that requires first that you grow a relationship.

There has to be intimacy

In my opinion, electronic communication alone won’t generate the kind of customer relationship and intimacy that makes the client want to trust you and tell you what he/she really needs this project or product to achieve.  You have to know the deeper need that is beyond the stated requirements in the RFP/RFQ/bid package.

The best way to start and maintain a client relationship that proves you are there to solve real needs:

Be there (physically).

Be sincerely interested.

Be absolutely credible.

Be prepared with two or three good honest questions.

Ask one question, then…

Be quiet.

Believe me.  This works.

Do you think this could work for you?  Are you willing to try?   Please click “Comment” and let me know.

 

 

 

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