|
LET’S GO!
On a warm, sunny morning, you drive to work, listening to your favorite music and thinking about the day ahead. Feeling
focused and positive, you arrive at your desk and settle in, sipping your coffee and planning the morning.
Then the phone rings, or you read your email, or someone stops by, and suddenly things take a radical turn. Someone emailed your boss (instead of you) to say he doesn’t like the layout you already approved for the company’s home page. Or an angry customer has gone all the way to your District Manager to say you were rude to her. Maybe a sale you were sure was a slam dunk stalled overnight. A joke you told was taken out of context and an important colleague isn’t amused.
It’s only 9:30, but your day, a moment ago wide open and full of possibilities, has narrowed to a pinpoint: damage control. Depending on your personality, you may have immediate emotional and physical reactions: nervousness, muscle tightness, rapid heart rate, sweaty hands. For the moment at least, conflict has sapped your strength and pickpocketed your peace.
Does this have to be just a typical work day? Can you control the number of conflicts you have to face? The way you react to them? No. Yes. And definitely.
TIME TO CHOOSE
We use dramatic words to describe conflict, phrases like “boiling over,” “flipping out,” and “exploding.” Clients have called the conflicts they face “monsters” and “lions.” “Which side are you on?” demands the beast, grabbing them by the shoulders and shaking hard. “For or against?”
“Whose story do you believe?”
“Who are your real friends?”
“Shouldn’t you be watching your back?”
“Don’t you owe Bill a favor?”
From minor misunderstandings to major blowups, conflicts spread quickly and sweep wide, pulling in everyone in their path and making it impossible to think about anything else.
And relationships? Forget them. Regardless of how great they once were or one day might have become, conflicts can sound the death knell. Forty-seven percent of the 460 people who responded to a 2008 Breakthrough Buzz survey said they sometimes, always, or often find it difficult to work with someone again after a disagreement.
Yet the question isn’t whether you’ll face conflicts at work, but when. Any time you’re working with people who are different from you, people who have diverse backgrounds and experiences and hopes and self interests and ways of communicating (that would be every day), there will be clashes.
There’s no doubt in our minds that of all the people skills in the Breakthrough Skills portfolio, Conflict Management may be the toughest to master. Denial doesn’t work. Nor does running away or pretending a conflict isn’t serious when it is. A habit of losing your cool will take you off the A-list faster than just about anything else. Maybe this is why 54 percent of the people who responded to that same Breakthrough Buzz survey said they sometimes, always, or often look back at how they handled a conflict with regret.
We also personally know plenty of people who feel they’ve been the brunt of workplace conflict in the past. Their attitude: “That’s never going to happen to me again!” If you share this attitude, you’ve come to the right book. You shouldn’t tolerate outright abuse, ever. Subject closed. But that chip on your shoulder is no featherweight, we promise. Having been in meetings with people who seem to put on their bring-it-on attitude every morning before they put on their shoes, we can tell you about the tension and negative energy that leave the room when they do. There’s a collective sigh of relief and an unspoken, “Okay, now maybe we can get some real work done.”
Whether you’ve been knocked down by conflict in the past or you’re looking for solutions to the hot situations you’re facing today, you don’t need to run from conflict, ignore it, or beat it back with a stick. You’ve got better choices, and you’re about to find out what they are.
HOT SITUATIONS, COOL HEADS
Welcome to Hot Situations, Cool Heads. By the time you turn the last page of this important book, you’ll have the tools you need to change how you see conflict, head it off before it has a chance to start, and handle hot situations in ways that save your sanity, build your reputation, and strengthen (yes,strengthen) your relationships. You’ll go to work relaxed and confident that you can handle any conflict the day decides to lob at you.
WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS EXCERPT OF HOT SITUATIONS, COOL HEADS. PLEASE DON’T LET THIS BE THE END! BE SURE TO GET YOUR COPY OF THIS POWERFUL RESOURCE FOR BUILDING YOUR NEXT CAREER OR BUSINESS BREAKTHROUGH!
|
