Supervisory Development: Managing Conflict Webinar

Key Takeaways

good afternoon everyone this is Amanda Wolford a consultant from leadership and talent development in the office of human resources and just so you know it's intentional that we do not have webcams today I'd like to welcome you to today's session of managing conflict which is kicking off the newest module in the supervisory development course I'll be co-presenting with brandon sullivan the senior director of leadership and talent development thanks everyone who is listening today we are so happy to see that supervisory development has a strong interest out in the community we have just about 300 people joining us today please also note that this webinar is being recorded so you will receive a separate email with a link to the recording as well as a link to evaluate this webinar by the end of the week if you have any questions during the webinar please add them to the Q&A section of the screen now through the remainder of the presentation your questions will be monitored and we'll answer what we can at the end of the webinar and as time permits we also want you to have time to explore the new course module which will be launched at the conclusion of our time today if you have any technical difficulties please chat or send a question privately to Olga the host or Christina McGuire one of our panelists based on feedback that we've received over the past few months we want to remind you that this webinar is only part of the big picture of the supervisory development course so if you're looking for a richer experience please review the online course at supervising um led you there you can be able to spend more time with the material or you can find just some time resources the course is self-paced and available 24/7 you can access it whenever it works for you I also want to remind you how we develop the material that's in the course so everything that you find in the course is based on what research and leading practices say about what works in managing conflict and I'm certain you have seen trainings or resources on conflict many times before so this information should be familiar however it's what you do with it and the impact it makes that matters and keep mind that conflict is a fluid and dynamic process and every situation is different so next we're going to walk through a conflict example so you can see how conflict manageable old on Amanda you have an earlier version of the slides we decided yesterday to start by busting some common myths about conflict remember that oh I didn't know you changed that up I thought we've decided to start with an example of conflict I'm sorry I mean I just think there's so many myths about conflict we should start there I'm the senior director after all so let's do it this way okay I guess you're the boss but you're being kind of a jerk about it you know I'm getting really sick of your bad attitude maybe if you'd paid more attention when we did the dry run yesterday this wouldn't have happened maybe if you'd paid any attention to any of my ideas we would be screwing up this webinar in front of 300 people Amanda remind me again which one of us has a PhD and that matters why it's just a minor we're still alive pulsar oh sorry okay everyone just calm down a time just to be clear that was not a real argument we were demonstrating how easy it is for a simple disagreement about work to spill over in the personal conflict and turn into disrespectful behavior we're going to spend the rest of our time today looking at sources of conflict how to unpack it and ultimately seek solutions all in a productive way so thanks to those of you who are chatting haha we appreciate that and we actually play that up a little bit for dramatic effect but that's certainly not a good way to approach conflict what Brandon did there was offered a zero-sum approach I'm the senior director so we're going to do it my way so let's face it conflict can be uncomfortable at times it might make you feel anxious like you fail there can't solve a problem and you might want to avoid the conflict all together but generally that does not help the situation Brandon and I are going to spend the rest of this time with you not arguing but giving you tips on conflict sources and skills to tackle them so instead of blaming and undermining and all the ugly things that come along with conflict there's definitely a better way to manage it when Brandon could have done is better manage his emotion and communicated with me ahead of time and then had my agreement before we went live and I didn't have to take the bait per se and reacts like I did and call him a jerk so if you were branded supervisor what would your role be in this conflict what would you do to address the conflict you likely need to give him feedback and coaching on the situation and set the performance expectation that he'd be more respectful to the members of the team and keep in mind that toxic behavior that is tolerated in the workplace unfortunately sets the tone for the culture and that can really backfire conflict is actually very healthy and normal in the workplace and I did say it was healthy and normal but when it becomes personal and emotional that's not healthy when manage effectively conflict can actually benefit us by opening our eyes to new ideas and building more effective teams by fostering trust improving relationships and renewing confidence in a team's ability to work together self-awareness also in the fact that conflict forces us to examine our own goals and expectations more closely which helps us see the things that are most important not only to ourselves but to other people as well and speaking of self-awareness it's the first step in the ready-set-go framework of managing conflict the rest of this webinar will focus on this framework and up first is getting ready or looking inward and assessing how we view conflict which defines how we handle the conflict so the practice of an example we'll share are designed to be useful across many types of works as you learn the material presented today think about the people you supervise and consider the nature of the work they do along with their individual needs as mentioned before a lot of this information may not be new but it's how you apply it and the impact it will have and most importantly apply your judgment about what will work for the people you supervise this is a critical ingredient for effective conflict management also with conflict most people fall into the category of either being a conflict avoider or a conflict seeker so think about your tendencies when it comes to conflict are you an avoider or a seeker or both conflict seeker is generally value directness and honesty / harmony and relationships and avoiders value the opposite they want the harmony if you're answered both that's very natural to sometimes seek and sometimes void you might be more of a seeker with those closest to you like family your spouse etc or more of an avoid or in other situation neither approach is better or worse but it's important to know your tendency and go from there after all it's about having the self awareness of yourself and the others involved and being aware of how you work with others to achieve results is just as important as achieving the results so what are your strengths and development needs when it comes to conflict do you listen to understand another person or do you wait for your turn to make a point there's an interactive self-assessment available in the get ready section of the managing conflict module that will help you evaluate your behaviors and development needs the assessment scores will help you increase your self-awareness and focus on the areas that you want to improve as it relates to conflict management and so once you know how you come across in which conflict skills you need to work on it's important to take a closer look at the conflict situation itself and this is the get set piece of the framework so before continuing let's take a moment for our first poll so the poll question is we want to know what the most recent conflict you've experienced or witnessed at work and you can only select one so your choices are differing ideas about what work will be done differing ideas about how to get the work done differing ideas about who is in charge or deserves credit or interpersonal conflict involving anger and hurt feelings so once you make your selection please remember to click Submit at the bottom of the poll feature so the poll is now closed and so it looks like a lot of you are saying different ideas about how to get the work done and then a close second would be interpersonal conflict so those are pretty common in the workplace so conflict at work can stem from one or more of these sources and so it's important to understand the root cause of a conflict it'll help you figure out how to manage it more effectively which may lead to solutions that resolve the conflict so with a task conflict that's different ideas about what work will be done so plans ideas projects our goal and with process so a lot of you said that recently you witnessed a conflict around process differing ideas about how to get the work done so that includes methods for making decisions and the steps and people getting involved and getting things done and with status it's different ideas about who is in charge or deserves credit for the work and then with relationship that's interpersonal conflict and so generally that's what we see on the surface is the relationship conflict but when you start to dig deeper you can actually figure out that it might be about task or process so I'm not going to spend time going through each one of these because we actually want to spend the rest of the webinar teaching you some of the skills that will help you manage these sources of conflict we do actually have a lot of quick guides on these four sources that you can download from the managing conflict module after this webinar so back to the argument or quote that Brandon and I had a beginning of this webinar it probably came across as relationship conflict because in that moment that's what it was brandon was undermining me and he was throwing his weight around you could also say it was a Status conflict who was the director and has a PhD and who doesn't but getting to the root cause of him wanting to talk about conflict myths before we talked about conflict sources would signify a process conflict or how the work was to get done in the decision-making around it so oftentimes conflict needs to be unpacked as it can be a very dynamic and fluid process there are certain skills you can enhance to help you through it and Brandon will talk about those skills in just a moment but before he does that you'll want to keep in mind that most conflicts don't fit nicely into just one type there's often layers so that's an iceberg image if you were wondering an example of a layer would be a task conflict that is worsened over time and now includes relationship conflict conflict may be uncomfortable but it can be productive and it is a part of life the key to understanding the root cause of the conflict and having a plan to manage it effectively finally as a supervisor many of the conflicts that you have to deal with involve members of your team or department it may not directly involve you so in those cases instead of applying the skill to yourself your job may be to provide feedback and coaching to others so that they can learn and apply these skills so to introduce the section on conflict skills we're going to take another poll so go ahead and place your answer on the right side of your screen and the question is what is the most challenging part in managing conflict for you is it knowing when to get involved as a supervisor is it managing emotion is it building trust or seeking solutions so the most challenging part go ahead and select one and then make sure that you click Submit at the bottom of the poll ok the results are in and it's not surprising that a lot of you chose managing emotions because we're all human and we have emotions and so that's definitely something that can bubble to the top and needs to be addressed first and then you can dig deeper into the other skills so the majority of you said be managing emotions and then the second top answer was knowing when to get involved that's a really great question too so we're going to talk about that and I'm actually going to turn it over to Brandon who is going to tell you about the skills alright thanks Amanda so let's talk about knowing when to get involved as a supervisor so as a supervisor when you're aware of a conflict that involves members your team or Department you may need to get involved even if that conflict doesn't directly involve you at least at the beginning so it's critical to get involved when the conflict makes it hard for you or others in your department to do their work so you might consider does the conflict affect performance and productivity if you know that it is or you think it might then it's really important for you to get involved is the conflict disruptive does someone feel disrespected is the conflict causing someone who is performing well to consider finding another job to get away from it if the answer to any of these questions is yes or you're worried that it's yes then it's definitely your role to get involved the other thing is does someone be someone's behavior failed to meet expectations for how they are to get the work done if so then you'll need to address this behavior as a supervisor so your role in combating conflict involves providing clear expectations for how people on your team work with others you also need to address behavior that fails to meet these expectations and you can do this as part of ongoing check-ins for example if two people in your department are being disrespectful to each other and calling each other names then you would reiterate the expectation that they show respect for each other at all times while at work then as you have ongoing check-ins to discuss performance and development you would talk about how they are doing and address any instances where they are being disrespectful in a case like this you would use skills related to managing performance and we covered managing performance skills in the managing and evaluating performance module of this course that launched in April and you can access all of that on the supervising umn CDU website in addition to setting expectations and addressing performance issues your role also involves providing feedback to help the people reporting to you to be aware of any problematic behavior and the impact it has on others and coach them on how to approach a conflict situation productively an example of two people on your team being disrespectful to each other you would provide feedback on specific instances of disrespectful behavior focusing on what the situation was the specific behavior that you saw and the impact that behavior had on others on the team then you would coach them on to do differently in the future and we covered feedback and coaching skills in module 1 of this course which launched in February so you can see all the tools and resources for that on the supervising dot um NZD you website before we dive into the rest of the skills just a quick note you'll be using these skills yourself and as a supervisor you'll also be coaching others to use these skills and keep in mind that helping others to improve their conflict management skills is a really good way to ensure that members of your team or department can work out many of their disagreements without even needing you to get involved the next step in managing conflict is to manage emotions which is really about staying calm and helping others keep their anger and frustration in check when you're dealing with conflict it's not uncommon to feel angry anxious or frustrated for example you may be trying hard to listen to another person and let them know that you value your relationship with them yet they continue to blame you make accusations or maybe even call you names in this case even the most even-keeled person is going to feel frustrated the problem is an anger and frustration make it very difficult to focus on a problem in a productive way when we react out of anger we're likely to say and do things that make the conflict worse and make it more likely the others involved will also react out of anger emotions are contagious especially those of a supervisor if you act angry or frustrated the people on your team are going to get angry and frustrated too so as a supervisor when you are able to stay calm and rational the people on your team will also be better able to stay calm and rational a simple but powerful technique to keep anger and frustration in check is to pause and take a timeout before responding to something that has provoked you take a deep breath or to go for a walk spend a few minutes venting to someone you trust who can help you calm down or sleep on it and respond a day or two later this technique can be especially helpful when a conflict catches you by surprise for example if you are presenting your ideas at a meeting and someone surprises you with a bunch of criticism and challenging questions you might be tempted to respond with anger instead of blurting out whatever pops into your mind which is likely to be filled with negative emotion this would be a good time to pause take a deep breath and consider how to respond or if you can bring yourself to do it maybe even thank the person for their thoughts and say that it will get back to them later with your response remember when Amanda and I got into an argument at the beginning of the webinar neither one of us paused or took a deep breath before responding had one of us done this maybe I wouldn't have made a snarky comment about her bad attitude and maybe Amanda wouldn't have called me a jerk in front of a few hundred people in fact even if this had been real I could have avoided the whole conflict I think something like sorry for changing things up at the last minute here why don't you use my copy of the slides we're on slide six it might have been a bit embarrassing for us to say this in front of a live audience but we could have quickly moved past the conflict emotions can escalate fast and pausing before speaking can save you a lot of grief an additional conflict when you need to pause and take a deep breath follow a three-step process to focus your mind and give yourself time to calm down so you can respond productively first be aware of yourself and consider what are you thinking what are you feeling what is your body posture notice if your heart is pounding in that moment try to consciously reduce your energy level take a deep breath notice if your muscles are tense and try to relax them second be aware of what is around you notice what is in the room what sounds do you hear who are the people around you and then third look at the person in front of you what is their facial expression their tone of voice what is their body posture these three steps help you focus on yourself your surrounding and the other people in the room this may only take a couple of seconds but you will find that you have calmed down enough to respond more productively to do this it's also important to know that people differ and how quickly they get angry how intense these feelings are and how long these feelings last if you are someone whose emotions are quick to appear and can they can be pretty strong then this technique will be especially helpful and if you're coaching someone like this helping them to manage their emotions is an important step a note about email it's often tempting to vent frustration through email there's usually no harm in nearly writing such an email but sending it is often a mistake it makes the conflict worse and fails to resolve anything if you're tempted to write an email leave it in your drafts mailbox for a day or two then come back to it and reread it or have a colleague provide feedback consider very carefully how the recipient is likely to respond you might think about if you were to receive the email you just wrote how would you respond to it if it seems unlikely to be helpful then find another way to share your views if you find yourself on the receiving end of a hostile or angry email and you need to respond to it it's important to be assertive but not aggressive or passive you can do this by keeping your email brief focusing on just the facts and information you want to share keeping it professional and friendly or at least neutral and be firm and confident in your position on an issue avoid personal attacks or criticism sarcasm threats or making it sound like you were open to discussing or considering something when in fact you aren't and when focusing on the facts that means sharing the information you want to share not pointing out all of the inaccurate or wrong information the other person may have share that can be tempting but it will just keep the conflict escalating a red flag that the email you were about to send might escalate the conflict is that you have written more than one or two short paragraphs in general when dealing with conflict the longer the email the more likely it is to escalate things rather than calm them down another technique is to use assertive nonreactive statements this means being clear about your point of view as well as your feelings and expectations well not reacting emotionally or saying something that might provoke the other person taking this approach will calm things down and make it easier to have a rational conversation one way to do this is to talk about what you see what you feel what you hope or what you expect for example you might say next time I hope you can step back and think about how you will respond to your colleagues before you send a long angry email or I expect the two of you to be respectful and listen to each other another effective method is to use the format when you I feel because for example when you change your mind about a decision and don't let me know right away I feel frustrated because I can't do my job effectively in the roleplay at the beginning of the webinar Amanda might have approached me afterward and said when you talk about how you have a PhD and I don't I feel hurt and angry because it seems like you don't value what I have to say this technique is a good way to let the other person know how you are feeling and why you are feeling that way without triggering defensiveness or blaming the other person for your feeling it can also be effective to use the format I noticed that and I assume that is that true for example in our roleplay afterward I might have said to Amanda I noticed that you didn't have the most recent version of the slides and I assume that is because you forgot to take your email this morning is that right this is a good way to check out your assumptions incorrect assumptions are often cause of conflict in this case maybe Amanda did check her email but I accidentally sent the previous versions of the slides instead of being angry with her I need to focus on being more organized but I wouldn't know that if I didn't check out my assumptions keep in mind that people differ and how confident they are in their assumptions if you're someone who usually thinks you're right you may be unintentionally causing or escalating conflict because you're asked acting from false assumptions the key is to check out your assumptions for those of you who might be in research roles you can think of them like hypothesis collect some data by asking questions to test whether your hypothesis is true and just like in research the data usually tell a slightly different stories and what we were expecting our assumptions about why someone is doing something are often wrong another important tip is asking what versus why questions asking what focuses the discussion on behaviors and impact which is more productive asking why often feels like an accusation and puts people on the defensive for example if after two of your employees have an argument you ask why did you do that it is likely to sound blaming and accusatory if instead you ask what happened back there between the two of you this is more likely to lead to a productive conversation if you want to get better at this skill pay attention over the next week and notice when you ask another person why they did something try turning these into what questions and you'll find that you get more information and a better understanding of what actually happened and why finally one other technique for nonreactive statements is to use the word and instead of but for example if you say I know you want to start on this new project but we need to get our current one done first it sounds like you disagree with the person's desire to start on the new project however if you say I know you want to start on this new project and we need to get our current project done first it sounds like you support the person's desire to get started substituting and for but is a simple technique that can have a significant impact on how the other person responds to you sometimes other people are good at knowing what to say to provoke you this is called pushing or buttons or taking the bait you know this is happening when you find yourself one to respond aggressively or you just want to give up and avoid the issue altogether for example and our role play at the beginning one of my hot buttons is when I think I look disorganized in front of other people when Amanda didn't have the final version of the slides this immediately made me feel embarrassed and angry she wasn't doing it intentionally but then I responded by telling her what to do because I'm the senior director while being told what to do was one of Amanda's hot buttons something's quickly escalated into name-calling had we each been more mindful of our hot buttons we might have been able to recognize that we were pushing each other's buttons and making things worse it can be helpful to anticipate the specific situations people or topics that can quickly trigger anger or frustration your hot buttons we all have them think about how you might respond in a calm and rational way it helps to actually rehearse the words you would say for example say you know that in a meeting later today Matt a supervisor from another unit is going to bring up an issue from ten years ago as he always does and that you're going to get really angry as you always do rehearse what you might say when that bring this up brings this up maybe also rehearse taking a deep breath before you were as a supervisor you can help others become more aware of their hot buttons and strategize ways of responding more productively role playing can feel silly but role playing difficult situations with someone you trust is a very good way of building more effective self control skills as a supervisor role playing combined with feedback and coaching is a great way to help others get better at managing conflict one way to avoid triggering other people's hot buttons is to avoid presenting information or decisions as a crisis that need to be resolved immediately give the person time to process the information and time to consider any decisions in other words give them time to manage their own emotions okay another important step in managing conflict is to build trust even if you are starting a little trust or even some hostility it is important to build whatever trust you can with the others involved this may not be easy especially when you are dealing with difficult behavior from another person but even a little trust can go a long way and you won't likely succeed succeed without it one of the most important skills that build trust is what is called reflective listening this involves two steps first focus on hearing what the other person is saying in order to understand what they are thinking and how they are feeling this means giving our full attention to the other person and not what you want to say in response the second step in reflective listening is to say back to the other person what you hear them saying in your own words if they don't agree that you've gotten it right and ask them to help you get it right the goal is for the other person to agree that you understand what they are trying to communicate so let's talk about how you do this first it is important to use open-ended questions rather than closed questions closed questions are answered with just a word or two and don't give the other person the chance to explain their thoughts so for example did you send an email to her about the decision you made is a closed question it is answered yes or no sure the person could say more but by asking a closed question you've communicated intentionally or not that you aren't interested in hearing more in contrast open-ended questions the person a chance to share more information and explanation for example if you ask what did you say in the email you sent to her about the decision this communicates that you are interested in hearing the full story and understanding their point of view so here's a simple exercise you can do to get better at this over the next week notice when you ask closed questions practice turning them into open-ended questions if you do this you'll find that you have much more helpful and informative conversations you might even resolve a conflict or two before they become big issues another important part a reflective listening is to ask questions and make statements that encourage the person to clarify what they are thinking and how they're feeling for example it sounds like you're not sure why you disagreed with you in the meeting is that right or could you give me an example of that these are clarifying questions the goal is to give the person a chance to clarify their perspective it also helps to let them know you are trying to understand them for example it must be really frustrating when she says one thing to you in the meeting and then does something completely different or I imagine you're feeling stuck because you have to work with him on this project but he isn't getting his part done on time demonstrating empathy doesn't mean that you agree with the other person's perspective but it means you understand it and this is important in building trust once you believe you understand what the other person is thinking and feeling a powerful techniques is to summarize and paraphrase what you've heard for example so you want his input into the design of your project but you find his sarcastic comments aggravating am i right about that or it sounds like the expectations for how the two of you are to work together are unclear how can i clarify this for you if the other person disagrees with what you've said listen carefully to what they say and try again until they agree you've got it right remember they are the expert in what they are trying to say a common trap is to get hung up on trying to pick apart or analyze their words you'll know you're doing this when you find yourself trying to tell them what they are saying - listen effectively be sure not to interrupt the other person or start sharing your own views until you have shown that you understand what the saying it's also important to avoid giving advice changing the subject we're judging what the other person is saying for example it won't be helpful to say you should just tell him that you won't put up with this anymore you're being a pushover I'm only trying to help saying something like this guarantees the other person will not feel heard and understood and it certainly won't feel like they're trying to help the key to reflective listening is to focus entirely on trying to understand the other person's point of view if you are someone who likes to give advice hold this in check or it will sabotage your listening skills and make it harder to build trust reflective listening provides you with an accurate understanding of what someone is thinking and how they are feeling making it easier for you to reduce interpersonal conflict and address the underlying problem or source of the conflict it also helps the other person build more self-awareness and possibly gain a new perspective as well as feel heard another important part of building trust is letting the others know that the relationships are priority to you and that you respect and value the people involved this is called rapport building and it will make more make others more likely to be willing to work with you to resolve a conflict there are three ways you can do this the first is to talk about the importance of trust fairness and the other person's cooperativeness for example you might say I appreciate your willingness to sit down and talk about this difficult issue or you might say I know we disagree about this decision and I really want to figure out how we can restore trust between us when you tell the other person that you want to build trust that you value fairness and that you see how they are trying to be cooperative even if only a little bit the other person is likely to reciprocate and see you is genuinely wanting to work things out the second technique is to talk about the greater good such as we share the same goal of fixing this problem or we both want our department to be successful statements about shared goals can help the other person see how cooperating with you in resolving the conflict can help you both this sets the stage for finding common ground and coming to an agreement that benefits everyone the third technique is to talk about building the relationship saying things such as I want to help you figure this out or I want you to be successful emphasizing that you want to have a supportive cooperative relationship helps the other person trust you and see you as someone who can help rather than as an adversary or a competitor these simple techniques create more cooperativeness in other people and can pave the way for finding common ground one of the reasons many disagreements can feel so difficult is that they often feel like a competition like someone will win and someone will lose your gain is my loss you can tell us when someone sees disagreement as a competition they won't want to share information with you they won't try to understand what you need or what you want it will make a big deal a lot of differences in your goals and interests rather than talking about what you have in common and they will try to get what they want at your expense for most of us this is actually how we experience a lot of disagreement in conflict the trouble is this is often wrong usually there are solutions to a conflict that do not require one side to win and the other to lose instead solutions usually exist that allow everyone to get something they need there are a set of specific skills that will help you identify win-win solutions before looking for solutions you need to define the problem in a way that is mutually acceptable ask questions and share information about how each person sees the problem the goals and obstacles to reaching the goals for example you might say what do you see as the real issue here or what do you think is getting in the way of solving this problem once you agree on the problem discuss each person's interests needs and priorities for example it sounds like timing is a big issue for you what would you like the timing to be or cost is a very important issue for me I need to be sure there's not an increase over last year the goal is to create a mutual understanding of what each person needs as you unpack the conflict it is incredibly helpful to restate and summarize what each side is saying until you all agree that you have accurately described each side's priorities this is a very important and very powerful technique in fact the single most helpful skill in this entire webinar would probably be restating and summarizing what each side is saying until you all agree that you have accurately described each size priorities once you know the interests needs and priorities of everyone involved you have what you need to start looking for an agreement that works for everyone there are a number of techniques that will help you find that agreement first it always helps to talk about common goals and interests what does everyone agree on already for example we all want to figure out how to come up with the money and staffing to get this project done or we are all interested in solving this problem once and for all right away rule out any options that participants agree are unworkable a common mistake is to keep trying to convince the other person of something they see as off the table and simply not an option the other person will respond by defending their positions even more strongly a big part of getting an agreement is finding trade-offs that benefit everyone in some way what do you each have that the other wants what do you both have that you can trade what are you comfortable giving away to do this you'll need more than one issue so if you find yourself in a conflict over a single issue for which you and the other person have opposite preferences it can be helpful to find additional issues to include this creates the possibility for trade-offs for example you might offer to give the other person what they want on one issue if they give you what you want on another issue say another supervisor is asking for some time from your team to work on a big project you might agree to this if they agree to support you in extending the timeline on another project so you have time to get it all done you are trading off your team's time for an extended deadline and them on another project which makes the agreement workable for everyone as you identify possible options for an agreement be sure to summarize them so you're all on the same page it's usually a good idea to keep decisions on individual issues tentative until a final proposal is complete also getting everyone's commitment to a final agreement is an important part of making sure there's follow-through getting commitment in writing such as by including it in a meeting minutes or in an email can be very effective as you try these techniques to help you manage a conflict don't forget to that are the sources of the conflict task process relationship and status for example if two people are frustrated and angry with each other and disagree about how to get their work done you'll need to help them calm down and manage their emotions before they are able to have a productive conversation and find common ground on how to get their work done the conflict management skills we just reviewed will serve you well in dealing with the conflicts you face in your day-to-day work and keep in mind that as a supervisor you will also be coaching others and how to use these skills the more comfortable you are using these skills and the more experience you have with them the more you'll be able to be able to coach others to manage conflict effectively for help with feedback and coping skills and take a look at module 1 in the supervisory development course alright so now I'm going to turn it back over to Amanda who's going to wrap off the webinar Thank You Brandon wow that was a lot of information and there aren't any questions at the moment everyone was listening so well so we definitely appreciate that and we actually have about 450 people listening so that's wonderful that we have such a strong interest in this content so I just want to remind everyone that we have quick guides for all the skills that Brandon just told you about an example so that you can use them for your reference you can also watch this webinar at any time you'll have a recording so speaking of the module itself the managing conflict content is now available on supervising um AED you so you can go check it out we're also going to do our final Q&A section so stay tuned if you'd like to participate I actually have a couple other announcements before we get to the the Q&A section so I actually have some really exciting news about my you we actually have a new feature and by new I mean it was just added on Sunday so if you go into my you manage your info under the training section excuse me you'll find a link to the Supervisory development course so you can actually access it even more easily than just going to the website and just a note about questions and answers from all the webinars that we've had so far we answer questions as we can on the spot but then for the ones that we don't get to or ones that need a little bit more research we have a Q&A section available with its each module on supervising um indeed EU and so we also have a feature within the course that's called have a question or submit a question I can't remember off the top of my head but you'll you can definitely use that and that actually sends us a response or an email and then we follow up with you based on your question so it could be about any of the modules it could be about the Supervisory development course things that you want to know more about so please feel free to use the course to your advantage for any questions and answers that we don't get to today just allow a few weeks for them to be posted and so with that we are ready to answer your questions and I don't think I'm seeing any at the moment is Brandon oh we got a question about getting the PowerPoint we will be posting a recording of this webinar that will be available shortly I think by Friday we'll send that out actually in an email and it'll be posted to the site so you can you'll get all of that including our tell you what we said as well as the video of the slides I do want to just say a couple of things so the polls were pretty interesting 40 percent said that managing emotions was kind of the the key thing that you're struggling with and that that's true really true for most people when it comes to conflict when we give in to anger frustration is usually when things derail and then we find ourselves escalating and the situation getting worse and you know the techniques that we shared in this webinar are pretty kind of foundational for that they're not super complicated but they can be really hard to do because they get at how we you know overriding how we naturally want to respond in a situation and so I just can't emphasize enough how important and effective it is to roleplay to practice to mentally rehearse these skills it can feel really doing that as someone who's done that a lot it really does but it's really effective because then when you find yourself in the situation you've already even though it was sort of simulated you've already handled it in a way that's more effective so I really would encourage people to practice you know for supervisors you know have have your supervisees talk to you about some of the the people they struggle with the most in terms of conflict or the situations or issues and actually roleplay it and coach them and help them think it through that is one of the most helpful things you know that you could do as a supervisor for that the other thing I want to address is processed conflict came up as the most common recent example of conflict forty percent of you said that and you know there's lots of types of processed conflicts but one that so our our team does a lot of development with leadership teams and we do a lot of consultation and one of the things we see a lot is around decision-making and we see a lot of times there's conflicts around people not necessarily agreeing on or being clear on what everybody's role is in making a decision and so just simply having that conversation about okay who actually gets a veto on this decision who just gets informed of the decision is made who gets input into the decision who makes the decision clarifying some of those rules or at least identifying where you disagree about those can be really helpful I've seen so many people get really angry and frustrated because a decision was made that they felt they should have had input into and they were they weren't consulted on it and so kind of up front having those conversations can be really really helpful alright now the questions are coming in so thank you everybody so we have a question about how do you get someone who will come to you as a manager with an interpersonal conflict that is unwilling to address the conflict directly with the other person and you know it role play here too so that could be a very effective exercise as Brandon was just saying and if the person is too shy or unwilling to address the conflict directly which unfortunately we find a lot here in Minnesota with you know the whole passive-aggressive thing but that can be very helpful to that person to get them comfortable with the messaging and how they want to convey what the issue is to the other person so I think you're definitely on the right track with asking about the roleplay there's another question here that's a really good one because I see this all the time it's what about triangulation says we have a person who never brings issues to their supervisor they try to resolve using a colleague of their supervisor how do you manage the person going to another source this is so common and is really problematic as the person asking the question I'm sure knows this you know first of all this this can be a tough situation but where I've seen it be effective is it is going you need to really kind of do two things one is go to your colleague and have a conversation with your colleague about how this dynamic is undermining your ability to be an effective supervisor that can be a really difficult conversation depending on who that person is in your relationship with them I've seen some examples for example where you know one person is a faculty member one is not a faculty member and that creates a power dynamic that can be kind of tricky but so that's kind of the first piece is is really helping that colleague who's sort of part of that triangulation to understand that when they try to help that person they're actually making things worse and really seeing if you can get their support for maybe listening to the person when they complain but then having them come back to you to have a conversation about what to do about it and then the other thing is having that conversation with the the supervisee about you know the expectation that if they have concerns if they have questions if there's things that they need help less that they need to bring them to you first and have that conversation with you first and identify what is it that maybe makes them hesitant to do that are there things that you know they're afraid of or maybe it's just simply that when they go to that other person that other person is very sympathetic and so that it's an issue of kind of helping your colleague understand that they're not being helpful for you it's so those are the things that I've seen be really effective not that that's necessarily an easy thing to do there's another question about speaking to when a supervisor intervene in a conflict or wench the two parties be encouraged to work it out and then when should the supervisor mediate so you definitely as a supervisor want to get involved when the conflict is interrupting you or your team's work and it's disruptive and counterproductive so obviously if the work is not getting done that's a huge issue and that would be number one when to intervene and then also if your direct reports behavior is inconsistent with the expectations that you've set for them for how they're to get their work done so those would be the three key things about when to know when to get involved and then as far as mediating or help earth when the other people should be working it out themselves that's when you can come in and really practice your coaching skills and so I would invite you to look back to module 1 where we have the coaching information and the information I just used to answer this question is on a quick guide knowing when to get involved so if you're out in the module right now you you should be able to see all these quick guides thank you for your questions we have time for just a couple more here's a question that kind of about styles so direct versus indirect or expressive versus reserves of styles and you know one of the things as a supervisor that's really important is is to be mindful of and thinking about not only your style not only how you handle conflict but you know your personality and you know how do you express yourself are you introverted extroverted etc but you know how what are the styles and preferences of the people that report to you on your team and where I've seen this just great from a practical perspective be a challenge is when you have people reporting to you who are particularly reserved introverted quiet especially if you happen to be someone who's very extroverted and gregarious and outspoken you're going to want to really you know be thinking about how do you make sure that you're creating an environment where people who are quiet and reserved and maybe even a little shy to speak can feel comfortable doing that and a lot of that speaks to self-awareness and and maybe even to managing your emotions you know we talked about it here in the context of managing anger and frustration but you could also apply it to being really excited and enthusiastic sometimes people can find that sort of overwhelming and so if you're someone who is just very expressive and assertive that that's not actually a bad thing but if you're a supervisor just being aware of you know toning it down a bit when it may be making it uncomfortable for other people to speak up particularly those who report to you okay there's just a general question about the quick guides and so if you go to the supervising um nd D you website and looking for the quick guides and I'm not I'm navigating there myself so just one moment so once you get into module three you want to click start and just as another side note we actually have some videos and scenarios and a quiz so there was a question about what do I do if someone keeps reporting issues to me and they don't go to their direct supervisor we actually have a scenario that's very similar to that situation that I would invite you to work through and that scenario is under step two that gets set assessing conflict so in all of our modules we have them broken out by you know one two three get ready get set go and so all the materials that fall under those categories are pertaining to that that information that content so the quick eyes are kind of scattered throughout based on what you're trying to work on specifically for this one know the building skills that's where four of the quick guides that we have are available so all the skills that Brandon went through and then we have a conflict sources quick guide as well so definitely play around with that and and give a feedback if you're finding me the website to be confusing to navigate or anything like that so that's all the time that we have for today and we if there are questions that we didn't get to like I said they will be recorded and we'll answer them on the site in a couple of weeks to look for that I do have a couple of announcements so be sure to register for the next leadership essentials course which will teach you how to become more confident in leading people building and managing a high-performing team and achieving results the program meets weekly on Tuesdays July 18th through August 8th and it is an in-person course it's offered by US leadership and talent development we're from the office of human resources and we also partner with the College of continuing education so you'll want to make sure to register by July 14 in our next course module and webinar for this course the supervisory development course is leading teams and the webinar will be held on July 18th from 12:00 to 1:00 and we'll be sending out registration information in the coming week you can also check the website for the registration information and then to learn about any of our upcoming Ltd programs you can go to zu m and e d u / l pd programs so that's all the time we have today please use this extra time to explore the managing conflict module and thank you so much for attending