Synergy Builders is dedicated to
providing professional services to help build successful leaders,
teams, and organizations, with a special focus on the design and
construction industry. It is solely owned by
Carol
Warkoczewski.
Synergy Builders provides
Project Partnering,
Meeting, Retreat, and Planning Facilitation,
Culture Change Implementation,
Managing Conflict in the Workplace, and other
seminars and workshops
to address client goals and industry needs.
Next month (March)
Synergy Builders will
celebrate it's first FIVE YEARS of business!
Special offers and give-aways will be announced soon!
Wherever there are two
or more people, conflict will
occur, and whether it is a
business-related issue or a personal
“disagreement,” how you deal with
these conflicts will affect your
relationships, your personal and
organizational effectiveness, and your
project and business outcomes.
The next public seminar on
Managing Conflict in
the Workplace is March 8-9
(1 1/2 days total), in
Austin, Texas. Click
here for the flyer (MS Word).
To register:
Tel:
(512) 263-5521
Email:
inquiry@synergybuilders.com
I talked to a client
a couple of days ago. He told me that there was one key person on
his project team that "just had a bad attitude." It is
amazing, isn't it, how one "bad apple" can poison a whole team of
otherwise high-performing individuals!
What can be done about this?
Is it possible to change someone else's attitude? Personally, I hold
a pretty positive attitude, and I think people who know me would
agree that I can turn lemons into lemonade! I TRUST that
something good will come out of what may at first appear to be a
"bad" situation. This attitude of trust allows me to look at issues
in a glass "half-full" manner instead of "half-empty."
I want to make something clear,
though - although I was probably born with some genes that have
contributed to this attitude (if you ever met my Mom you would
understand), I have consciously tended this
attitude by making specific decisions to behave in ways that
promoted the glass full approach. No, I do
not always have a great attitude, but my awareness and desire to
have a good attitude gives me a pretty good chance of having a good
attitude most of the time.
Something that brings me back into
check when I am leaning towards that glass half-empty attitude is my
adult daughter. She says to me, "Well, Mom, that's
one way to look at it."
Are you one of those people
who tend towards the glass half empty? There is always
a time for what I will call "black hat thinking" (ref. "Six Thinking
Hats" by Edward DeBono). IN a nutshell, black hat thinking is when
we consider an idea in a critical way and look for the reasons why
it won't work. We need this type of thinking. But, we
also need other types of thinking: the creative type, the facts
type, the feelings type, and the positive type that encourages
thoughts of how something could work. All these types of thinking
are of value and necessary.
What can you do in dealing
with those people on your team who "have a bad attitude?"
One thing to do is to
listen to them and acknowledge their position or ideas by
saying, "Well, that's one way to look at it..." And then suggest
another approach in a manner that is not a power play, but instead
includes them in the discussion. You might even start to use the
terminology of Six Hat Thinking and incorporate this into your
everyday meetings and problem solving.
Another idea is to have a private
talk with them (to learn how to do this skillfully attend the next
Managing Conflict in
the Workplace seminar on March 8-9.) This person is probably not aware of how
his attitude affects the entire team and could jeopardize the
outcomes of the project.
Ultimately, how we choose to act is our personal CHOICE. Remember:
attitude is everything!
Do you have some
thoughts about this? Your own experiences? Send me a
note:
inquiry@synergybuilders.com.
