In my recent blog article, A Solution for Managing Unintentional Conflict in Operations, I described how a client company resolved the “unintentional conflict” created by their contract processing operation. They resolved it by creating a “shared operational space” where work was accomplished with much greater harmony and efficiency. Their results were stunning – a near 300% improvement in contract cycle time. In this article I provide some “how-to’s” for you to align your business operations to manage conflict, and talk a little more about the importance of creating shared space in business operations to prevent conflict in the first place.
Greg Baker, on June 30, 2012
In my recent Advance Update article, Managing Unintentional Conflict in Business, I introduced a phenomenon at work in our businesses today that I have labeled “Unintentional Conflict.” I described how unintentional conflict shows up at the individual, operational, and organizational levels, and is quite prevalent in our business enterprises. In this blog I will focus on managing unintentional conflict in operations by resolving my example of unintentional conflict to create what we call operational “shared space”.
Greg Baker, on June 14, 2012
While the genesis of unintentional conflict is often obscured, the costly disruption and dysfunction that result from it are usually quite visible. Such was the case with our story about Jane and her client Sandy in our last Advance Update, Managing Unintentional Conflict in Business. Let’s revisit the story and then discuss how to resolve the issue, or in this case avoid it by acquiring the skills to manage unintentional conflict.
Jane is meeting with her new client, Sandy, to make some recommendations for how to address some pressing problems on their project. Jane loves to engage in small talk and storytelling with people, including clients, to build relationships. (more…)
Greg Baker, on June 1, 2012
This article and its related blog series is about managing unintentional conflict in business, and the dramatic benefits of doing so. But why unintentional conflict? It turns out that most conflict in business is unintentional. Yes, there are those who intentionally pick fights, damage the reputations of others, stir up controversy, and otherwise operate in a self-serving manner at the expense of others. However, in our businesses, if you take away all of that intentional conflict you are still left with a majority of the conflict.
How can that be? Most folks in business seem like decent people. If you get rid of the “bad eggs” how could there still be that much conflict? The truth is that most businesses and those of us in them create unintentional conflict – some more than others. A certain amount of this is inevitable. After all, we are not perfect. However, as I will discuss in this article, there is much that can be done to see and avoid creating unintentional conflict.
Greg Baker, on March 28, 2012
We continue our series of articles about client and stakeholder interviewing to inform and build alignment around important projects and initiatives. In our Advance Update, Conducting Stakeholder Interviews: Creating a Shared Space, we introduced the concept of shared space as it relates to conducting interviews. In this article we review that concept and discuss how it relates to the five most important actions for conducting stakeholder interviews.