"it wasn't me, it was...!" (conflict resolution)

(part of the Total Quality Leadership (TQL) series)

How an organization achieves world class quality excellence depends on its leaders within the organization, at all levels of the organization.  Whether your organization has just started its quality journey with ISO certification or are ready to apply for the world renowned Deming award, the critical success factor to world class quality excellence…it’s all in the leadership!

Leadership skills that make an environment successful are the same skills that we learned when we were little.  Today's skill, conflict resolution.

When children disagree, we make sure the shouting and the yelling don't get too out of hand. Name calling indicates the disagreement has gotten to the point where there is no point.  Physical hands-on each other is a definite no-no (I know this is different for parents who use the ole "go out there and kick his butt" attitude but I think we have grown enough bullies, boys and girls, with that type of stance.  just my opinion)  Our responsibility as adults is to teach children how to argue.  There is a time to allow venting (letting each state their side), then there is a time to say "stop" and move them to resolution.  They cannot hear each other if both are speaking at the same time (or yelling and screaming).  Name-calling is not a solution, it says "the real problem [I have with you] is over 'cause I don't have any more to back up my side."  An initial solution today is to call a time out. The purpose is to give both time to think about their (poor) behavior, return, apologize, and calmly discuss the problem (hopefully) to resolution.  All is good with the world (for at least 30 minutes). 

A simple swat to the head with a large club was our cave-dwelling forefathers’ method of conflict management.  Debate, alternative solutions, creative ideas, and change are the differences in people that can also breed (positive) conflict.

Cognitive Conflicts are helpful conflicts.  The focus is on issue alternatives, advantages, disadvantages, cost-benefit analysis, and opportunity costs.  They clarify the issues and result in better decisions.  Members have a high commitment to the decisions made.  Properly managed conflict yields Constructive outcomes

·       Introduction of new approaches or solutions

·       Prevelent problems are brought out in the open

·       Thoughts and feelings are clarified

·       Interest and creativity are stimulated

·       Personal capabilities are stretched

Affective Conflicts are more personal conflicts.  They focus on members, accuse each other of selfish motives, argue for self-serving alternatives, finger-pointing, lobby each other, blame the other side, and second-guess previous decisions.  They can tear a team apart.  The result is a weak or ineffective decision with little or no commitment to implementation.  Unmanaged conflict yields Destructive outcomes.   

•         It breeds a climate of distrust and suspicion

•       There is resistance to teamwork

•       People leave the situation because of the turmoil

The selection below is one I found on the children's mini-page of our local newspaper. It is a test to evaluate conflict management skills 001.  How well will you do?







 

In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data

ABCM:  “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

In the movie Superman III, "Gus" Gorman’s (actor Richard Pryor) first job was in the computer department located in the basement of a corporation.  He was responsible for the company’s 500+ employee’s salary checks.  As he settled into the job, he discovered that when calculating salaries, the computer actually went out four decimal points, and then rounded to the two-digit cents amount.  Not wanting to be too greedy, Pryor programmed the computer to forward the fourth decimal digit amount into his personal savings account.  The first week, his savings account increased $85,789.25 (the computer always rounds to two-digit).  ABCM is the programming of that fourth digit.  It may not seem like a lot, but if you add those pennies up…

ABCM measures costs at each step of the process, enabling managers to quantify the tax levied by inefficiencies and delays.  ABCM focuses on specific details such as scrap or absenteeism that must be tied to a specific product or process.  Once defined, actual problems can be resolved and eliminated.

Many organizations still run on emotions and gut feelings that have never been tried or tested.  Eliminating the emotion and getting down to the root cause of the matter will take us more quickly to the problem resolution phase and on to the next area of opportunity.

In order to get this point across in our European plants, I had t-shirts made with the saying “In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data” emblazoned across the front.  The associates questioned the meaning on the t-shirts.  I explained to them the t-shirt was multi-purpose:

§         “In God We Trust” from the face of the US dollar

o    signified the monies we were recovering through our continuous cost savings efforts.

§         “All Others Bring Data”

o    focused on reducing the time between defining the root cause of the problem to implementing the resolution. (the old “if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem” reiteration)

ABCM and performance measurements make it possible for us to immediately address the competitive endurance of the company versus focusing on the petty emotions that keep us from moving towards solution.  The shirts served as a daily ABC example that negative emotions (“it wasn’t me”) only wasted time, effort, and productivity.  The t-shirt was a constant visual (mindset change) reminder of the plant culture towards excellence (and, hence, individual contribution and team performance), not the non-value action of finger-pointing.

 

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