When I’m blogging, I’m working. When I’m recording a podcast interview, I’m working. When I’m in a pitch meeting with a potential client, I’m working. When I’m facilitating a training, I’m working. When I’m designing a training for a client until 1am in the morning, I’m working. When I’m surfing Read more…
“We have nothing to fear but, fear itself.” “I have a dream.” “We do these things because they are hard.” One of the more terrible losses in our contemporary age is the loss of soaring rhetoric, with allusions to classical Western literature (e.g. Shakespeare, Greek and Roman texts, the Bible, Read more…
…sometimes, it’s not about the money, or the prestige, or the status, or any of the external, ego-driven reasons that people give when asked “Why did you get into that fight?” Sometimes, it’s about sending a message to all the other parties involved (and standing on the sidelines) in a Read more…
In the workplace, employees, managers, and supervisor all say they desire more collaboration overall, but in particular when conflicts arise. The desire for greater collaboration is often conflated with more teamwork, or strong team bonding, or building better teams at work, but collaboration is not any of these things. And, Read more…
The entire history of humanity shows that responding to a complex conflict environment with the competition/controlling mode generates outsized rewards, and little downside, to the individuals who choose it as a mode of addressing conflict. Wars, battles, fights, riots, pogroms, demonstrations, marches—all are forms, shades, and methods of competing with Read more…
[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Three, Episode #1 – Travis Maus and Ryan Berkeley, Entrepreneurs, Cutting Edge Financial Planners, Trailblazers for Your Money [powerpress] People often remark that money makes people act funny. And not in the “haha,” Heath Ledger Joker way either. We talked about charging people for art last season in Read more…
I was watching a documentary about boxing last night. Boxing is based on four major assumptions that have stood it in good stead as a popular sport in America—until its relatively recent dethroning by MMA. The first assumption is that all good boxers come from backgrounds of poverty, violence and crime, Read more…
When there is a confrontation at work, the competency type we most envision others being in (and ourselves) is that of the assertive type. People who demonstrate assertiveness advocate for what they want, look out for other people on the team, and are aware, but are not bound by, the Read more…
Avoidance is the “mother’s milk” of conflict competency. In the American workplace culture, avoidance is viewed as both a nicety for “just going along to get along” but it is also viewed as a weak response to conflict situations. Many times though, avoiding conflict situation is appropriate when: You have Read more…
A predominance of passive-aggressive responses to organizational conflicts indicates that people inside an organization are competent at depression, apathy, excuse making, (otherwise known as playing the “blame game”) and navigating the gossip/rumor mill. Passive-aggressiveness as a mode of addressing conflict “fits” into a competency model, because the people engaged in Read more…