How to Resolve Leadership Conflict With Solution Focus [Yes! And. Blog #169]

 How might you resolve interpersonal tension between leaders?  “Conflict can and should be handled constructively; when it is, relationships benefit.” In,  “Who’s Pulling Your Strings?” by Harriet B. Braiker Recently, a company asked me to run a workshop for them. During a fact-finding call to establish the client’s situation and required meeting outcomes, I learned that two senior people involved in the workshop were not working well together. People had noticed tension between them in other meetings. As the client’s outcome for the pending meeting was to build an effective working relationship between three teams, it was vital that the two leaders work effectively together during the meeting. I suggested that I hold a pre meeting with the two leaders and the client arranged this. The following is an outline of the intervention that you can follow. Intervention Outline To establish a relationship with them, and to save time during the pre-meeting, I telephoned each leader to establish their view of the situation in terms of what they wanted. I asked them three questions: Imagine the pre-meeting works really well, what would your outcomes be? What would you like to be different about the situation? What would you and others notice is better if the situation improves? You can adapt these, but note that I did not ask, “What are the issues?” or “Why is there conflict?” These would focus them on the problem and achieve little. Before the meeting I wrote notes of their individual responses, and asked them to verify their own answers. I also wrote each answer on Post – it Notes (use a different colour...

168 Nine Lessons for Trainers and Facilitators

YES! AND… Collaborate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla #168  What lessons did you learn in the last 12 months to help you in future?  “Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.” Leonardo Da Vinci Out walking recently, I thought back over the last twelve months and concluded it had been really enjoyable and interesting business year for me, with three projects that stood out.  As I walked, I considered new lessons I had learned or old lessons reinforced from those projects. Here they are; I trust they might provoke some thoughts for fellow Gorillas. Revenue and bid course I co – designed and facilitated a three – day course for sales and marketing people on revenue awareness and responding to tenders. I ran this for a client in several Asian countries, sometimes with multi-cultural groups, sometimes single culture groups. Lesson 1 – Building the right climate works for all cultures If you encourage people to collaborate quickly, you help to avoid cultural issues. Whatever course or workshop I facilitate, I use a similar process to that you can find in Creative Gorilla 164. While this article focuses on building an innovation climate, you can use the method to build a micro culture in any meeting or course. As my experience in many countries and now Asia proves to me, it works in single and multi-cultural groups anywhere. Lesson 2 – Accelerated learning works globally Accelerated Learning (AL) actively involves the whole person, using physical activity, creativity, music, images, colour, and other methods designed to have people become involved more deeply in their own learning....

SOL2013 Part 2

SOL2013 Picture show June 9 Part 2 Here are my memories of the event. I had to upload in two parts because of file size. Hope you enjoy the memories.

129 Elicit Issues Safely …

Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 129 Need to make a demotivated team more positive…? “I rant, therefore I am.”  Dennis Miller, Comedian Do you need to elicit issues safely? When you hold a meeting it can be important to let people discuss their work problems and frustrations. However, if a lot of people state their concerns to the whole group it can consume time and create a negative mood in the meeting. How can you effectively let people vent their frustrations and create a positive mood in the meeting, quickly? Here is a technique I have adapted from one called “Moan, Moan, Moan”. I call it the “Constructive Rant. “ I use it a great deal when I facilitate because it is enjoyable for participants and it works.  Typically, I use it at the start of a meeting to create a “platform”, a starting point from which the group can move on. I have used it with group sizes from 5 to 90 and results have ranged from good to excellent. Without tempting fate, there is no down side that I have found, unless it rains. Instructions (This example is based on a team building session) 1. Pair people up (If you have an odd three people left over, it is still possible for them to do Constructive Rant, but you will need to allow extra time) and brief them as follows [I recommend you write a summary of this on a flipchart to make it easier to follow]: You are going to go for a walk Whilst you are walking, one of you will speak for three minutes...