In parts one and two I described the power of “showing up” and “honoring your heart.”  Now we turn our attention to speaking your truth without blame or judgment.  It seems like it should be easy, but it can be a little more difficult than it may appear!

Step one is acknowledging deep within you, really and truly, that “your truth” is not “THE truth.”  No kidding!  It’s amazing how many of us lose sight of that simple idea in the heat of the moment.  Your truth is important (remember–”honor your heart”!), but it is very different from “The Truth.”  [Sidebar tip: A ground rule I often suggest to client teams is "Offer your observations as your perception rather than fact."  That single ground rule can be powerful for improving team communications. ]

Once you’ve taken responsibility for your own perceptions, step two is sorting out how to present your truth without also placing blame and judgment on the others involved.  For example: “Rich, when you raise your voice in meetings like you did today, I feel really tentative about offering my opinions” is very different and much easier for Rich to hear and respond constructively to than “I hate it when you yell!  Leaders aren’t supposed to yell–can’t you get it through your head that everyone shuts down when you do that?  You’re ruining the team!”  In the first example, the person has spoken his own personal truth about the impact of the yelling, owned his reaction as his rather than generalizing to a group, and has done so without blaming or judging Rich, the yeller.  The latter example just pours gasoline on the fire. Sure, perhaps Rich can hear the passion and distress in the speaker and step back from that to listen, but it takes a big person to unhook from that kind of blame coming at him.

Another example: “Bill, the last three weekly reports you’ve given me have had errors in them.  I use your reports to build the reports I give to our boss.  When you give me inaccurate information, it spreads upwards leading to poorly informed business decisions and makes us both look bad to our boss.  It may even have implications for how we are treated during the budgeting process.  I am not willing to let this continue.  What is going on here from your lens?”  There are no accusations of carelessness or stupidity, no histrionics or drama. Simple facts, personal reactions and perceptions of the implications form “your truth.”  An invitation for the other person to share his view of the situation opens up the space nicely for significant progress to be made.

These techniques work in a dynamic way–once Rich and Bill have heard the feedback, they are likely to offer a reaction, calm or otherwise, which is when Showing Up and Honoring Your Heart come back into play again.

When we are acting as coach, peer, friend, spouse, partner, or parent, these tools encourage and allow you to listen more clearly to what is happening for the other person and to speak your piece as well, all in service to problem-solving and relationship-building.  From that place of broader understanding, without blame or judgment, solutions are much easier to identify.

Give it a try and write me back here to share your stories!

Let me first share a baseline assumption born of life experience-though we use the term daily, true “conflict resolution” is a rare commodity.  What most of us are experiencing at work and at home on a daily basis is conflict management. And I further submit to you that this is a good thing.  Why?  Because inherent in conflict is contrasting information, and wherever there is contrasting information, there is potential for learning and a broadened perspective.

As leaders, how do we get ourselves to an appreciation, a trust in the abundant possibilities of a good juicy conflict?  It’s fairly easy to recognize and steer clear of the extremes of conflict management-rote agreement by a group at all costs we have come to call “the Abilene Paradox” from Jerry Harvey’s 1988 work by that title.  And unrelenting, unwavering contentious and disparaging disagreement by all parties on all things we’ve come to call … 2009 New York State politics I suppose!  It’s the middle ground where, as leaders, as parents, as community members, we can get bogged down.

I read a quote this morning from a daily meditation service, Abraham-Hicks, that, along with other events, sparked this writing.  The quote is this: “Even in your rightness about a subject, when you try to push your rightness toward another who disagrees, no matter how right you are, it causes more pushing against. In other words, it isn’t until you stop pushing that any real allowing of what you want can take place.”  Put another way, the biblical message recently popularized by Stephen Covey gets at the same idea-”Seek first to understand, and only then seek to be understood.”

My abundance lens would suggest one more adjustment on that advice-seek first to give thanks for the conflict, for the opportunity to broaden your perspective, for the chance to learn more about yourself (i.e. “why does this bother me and doesn’t seem to bother others?  What is it in my experience that is so reactive to this situation?”) and gain greater clarity on a particular issue.  Seek to embrace it.  In Patrick Lencioni’s marvelously common sense book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team he makes a compelling case for the healthy use of conflict as a foundational element of high performing teams.  Why?  Because when a team (or family) can get a variety of views out in the open and all members feel as if their experience and views and opinions have been given due consideration, the odds of selecting a best course of action and gaining team commitment to it improve exponentially.  When participants withhold their opinions, they often also withhold their commitment to team decisions.

Appreciating conflict and seeking to learn from it does NOT mean that you necessarily give in to the other, or even that you will always come to agree.  Creating a place of respect and appreciation for the other person and their point of view, however, sets up conditions far more conducive to accomplishing a greater outcome.  There are certainly times when clear decisions must be made that can, in the moment, be difficult for some participants to support.  That’s life-that’s why we call it conflict management, not resolution.  The key question is not simply “Do we all agree?” or even “Can we all support this?” but rather a longer view question of “Have we reached this decision in a way that (a) gave all players a voice, (b) considered all reasonable options, (c) allowed all to hear and understand the nuances, feelings, and perceived implications of the different points of view and (d) leaves the team relationships in a place that we can have future debates and healthy conflicts openly and without ‘baggage’?”

There are large opportunities in productive conflict management.  Starting from a place of appreciation rather than resistance unlocks that treasure chest.

Twenty-three curious “Leadership Learners” from around the United States and the UK gathered together in Greensboro, NC at the offices of Discovery Learning, Inc. last week (May 26-29, 2009) for four days of high impact learning and networking. A lot of work by a number of people went into these four days. Our special thanks go to Chris Musselwhite, Mike Warrick, and Donna Kelly at Discovery Learning Inc. (DLI) for their active support, cooperation and participation in the planning and execution of the experience, and to all the nice folks at DLI who were so welcoming and tolerant while the group of us essentially moved in and took over their training space and lobby for four full days!  They were all wonderful hosts and hostesses, and the week would not have been nearly as successful without that wonderful space in which to hold it.

We had trainers extraordinaire – I’m so proud of the fact that of the six instruments that were presented and discussed during the week, five were presented by their authors, and the sixth was presented by a “first generation” expert who learned from the author. That’s a rare opportunity. There is something uniquely engaging and satisfying in learning about a tool  – how to use it, when to use it, what it will do, what it won’t do, etc. -  from the person who actually conceived of and built it.

It was an honor to experience:

• …Chris Musselwhite’s knowledge and insights on his Change Style Indicator and Paper Planes Inc. Simulation and to hear his experiences with teams from around the world who have found power in his ideas and exercises;
• …Mary Lippitt’s deep experience and understanding that went into her Execution Priorities Index and the Leadership Spectrum Profile. Hearing her discuss the best applications of each of her results-oriented tools and experiencing her intellectual generosity of spirit was a special treat;
• …Rob Kaiser’s powerful historical perspective on the evolution of leadership assessment tools and the potent gap that he and Bob Kaplan sought successfully to fill with the Leadership Versatility Index (LVI). It is clear why the LVI is growing rapidly in popularity around the world;
• …Stephanie Callison’s expert knowledge and experience of the Hogan Leadership Forecast Reports, which she’s been working with for over 10 years both as a practitioner and trainer. She managed to convey two days worth of complex material in a single day and keep everyone active and having fun!
• …Mike Rosenthal, who has been working with Chris and Discovery Learning for many, many years. We all learned from his breadth of experience and expert facilitation of the simulation;
• …Darren Overfield’s practical tips and hands-on coaching tools for using the Leadership Versatility Index with clients in the most productive way possible. His work is making our lives easier!

An added bonus at the very end of the week was hearing Rob Kaiser and Stephanie Callison present a case and share their experiences and insights on using the Hogan Assessments together with the Leadership Versatility Index (LVI) to gain unique insights into coaching clients. Each a powerful tool in its own right, together the Hogan and LVI make a dynamic contribution to understanding where the powerful client interventions may lie. Many, many thanks and professional kudos go out to all of our presenters. Standing up to lead a room full of professional trainers is daunting to say the least, and all of them rose to the challenge and exceeded expectations. We’d also like to thank Alan Buck, a highly talented videographer completing his course work at UNC-G, for capturing so much of the experience on film for us. Be on the lookout for video clips at the websites of Discovery Learning, Enterprise Management, and of course AvoLead!

In summary, it was a rich week of intellectual rigor, personal insight and sharing, professional networking, with a good dose of fun thrown in as well.  Obviously the best trainers in the world can’t do their thing without active participants – thank you to all who ventured out, took a chance, and attended the training. I saw some old friendships rekindled and strengthened and many new relationships forged. Best wishes to all – I have a strong suspicion that in future years, many will look back and say “that week in Greensboro in May 2009  is where this all began.”

Here’s a toast to you all and to the bright future we have begun.

Now let’s hear from you about what your key learnings were – and moving forward, I want to hear how you’re using the tools. I’m particularly eager to see how the Leadership Spectrum Profile meshes with the Hogan and LVI in my team interventions. Stay tuned for future blog postings!

Anyone interested in future training experiences like Take Five, please send us an email. We’re starting a mailing list now for the next event.

Most of us agree that Pay for Performance is a good thing – at least those of us who consider ourselves high performers. We like the idea that if we perform, we reap the rewards. We want to know that the employee who shops online during work hours and delivers mediocre results does not receive the same monetary rewards as those of us who regularly exceed expectations.

However, in our current down economy, many employers are holding off delivering bonuses and incentives to all employees, including high performers. In fact, if they are giving any monetary incentive at all, they are taking the “peanut butter” approach of offering the same incentive across the board. Even with salary cuts, many organizations are cutting equally across the organization. None of these approaches engage and motivate the high performers – the ones who are capable of navigating your business through these tough economic times to come out successful on the other side.

To this end, I heard a rather novel idea the other day I want to pass along for your reaction. Why not take the same organizational approach to salary reductions and performance incentives in good times and apply them in a down economy? In other words, if an organization is cutting salaries, low performers take more of a hit than high performers. This would send a powerful message throughout organizations – one the high performers would appreciate and which would still preserve an element of incentive for their effort. Your thoughts?

Many organizations in today’s economy are reducing their workforce and freezing hiring and/or salaries while pushing everyone to “do more with less.” While perhaps necessary, these actions can negatively impact employee morale and productivity over time. However, with companies in the news like AIG, who took heat for lavish trip rewards and bonuses on the heels of receiving federal bail out money, many organizations may be reluctant to spend on employee morale and engagement. I want to hear about best practices from YOU. What is your organization doing to keep people motivated and engaged in today’s workplace?