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3 Steps to Positive Confrontation

Posted on October 19, 2021 by Catherine Osborne

All great relationships require constructive conflict and confrontation to grow and thrive.
Influential leaders orchestrate the culture in which people can be energized, engaged, and fully aware of their meaningful contributions to the enterprise. Much of the personal and organizational benefits of such a culture can be negated if we resist and fear constructive conflict and confrontation. The ability to overcome this fear can be achieved taking the following steps:

1. Reconnect with the mission of the organization. The stated purpose of the organization is to be of service to a great number of people, not to forward one group’s interests. When we avoid strategies (like constructive conflict and confrontation) that enable that mission to be fulfilled, we invite not only disruptions but also harm. For example, the collision of two 747 airplanes over the Canary Islands, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, and countless fatal medical errors that occurred because people who knew something was wrong did not speak up. When we reconnect with the primary meaning and purpose of our work, we can gain clarity, courage, and commitment. These ideals then drive us to pursue constructive conflict and confrontation, which help us make better decisions.

2. View conflict and confrontation as positive rather than negative. The key is to be intentional and deliberate. Generally, people’s mental model about conflict is set to “fight or flight” – that is, we run from it if we cannot fight it. When we stay to fight, we often (if not always) lose, so we do not bother. This mind-set prevents us from considering a third option – viewing conflict and confrontation as allies, not as enemies. When our mind regards conflict and confrontation as helpful, we create positive emotional reactions to both and gain positive, optimal outcomes as a result.

3. Get out of the way and let constructive conflict and confrontation do their job. According to Patrick Lencioni, the leader should enable their people to work out their own problems: “It is key that leaders demonstrate restraint when their people engage in confrontation, and allow resolution to occur naturally, as messy as it can get sometimes.” Kerry Patterson and colleagues suggest in their book Crucial Confrontations that constructive confrontation is essential to organizational relationships, growth, and prosperity, particularly when it involves people who are at different levels: “We really perked up when the person was about to confront a leader who was more powerful – say a supervisor going head to head with a vice president. And if the person had a reputation for being abusive, we couldn’t wait to see what happened.”

CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.

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The Advantage of Conflict and Confrontation

Posted on October 12, 2021 by Catherine Osborne

Even constructive conflict and confrontation makes the best of us anxious for a variety of reasons that include the following:

1. Conflict and confrontation force us to be accountable. The core of a conflict or confrontation within a team is the question: “Are you doing what you promised to do?” This “promise keeping” question is intended to keep the team members honest so that they can maintain focus, take personal responsibility, manage behaviour, and achieve their goals. The problems with this question are that (1) no one likes to ask it, and (2) no one likes to be asked it; the question makes people feel judged and pressured.

2. Conflict and confrontation give us honest feedback. We are more emboldened during a conflict or a confrontation. Thus, we are not hesitant to speak our mind about the person with whom we are in conflict or about the situation over which we have a problem. This feedback can reveal to us how other people experience us through our behaviour and how that experience influences their perception of us. These revelations can, however, make us feel uncomfortable at best and combative at worst.

The truth is however, that all great relationships that last over time require productive confrontation to grow. People in strong relationships are not afraid of conflict. When there is conflict, they engage in candid and unfiltered dialogue, and they openly (often passionately) debate and disagree about ideas and key issues without damaging the relationship. As a result, they discuss and resolve issues more quickly and completely, eager and ready to take on the next important challenge.

CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.

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Keeping Conflict and Confrontation Constructive

Posted on October 6, 2021 by Catherine Osborne

Everyone faces it — conflict and confrontation. It cannot be avoided in today’s fast-paced workplace … but it doesn’t have to be a negative experience. We can choose it to be, well if not positive, at least constructive.

The first step is to ‘think’ of conflict and confrontation as the opportunity for a positive outcome. We can take advantage of conflict and confrontation to enhance our connection to those around us. Connection does not mean the absence of conflict and confrontation. On the contrary, a culture that embraces collaboration and connection welcomes constructive conflict and confrontation.

The operative word here is constructive, as this kind of conflict or confrontation is purposeful and helps a team in several ways, such as building commitment, talking candidly about challenges, revealing points of behavioral and performance weakness, and examining solutions and new approaches.

At the end of the day, you must understand that conflict is a necessary part of success and must exist and flow with the positive energy of passion. In a high stress environment, such as hospital or healthcare operations during a pandemic, negative energy can run rampant and get out of control. The stress of today’s work environment is not going away. In healthcare particularly, the demands, the chaos, the uncertainty and lightning-fast changes are likely not going to change either. However, what we can do is learn to respond to it in a positive and healthy manner.

When you feel the grip of negativity take hold, remind yourself to stop, do your breathing, adjust your thoughts and your feelings. To do this we all need to continuously train our brain to stop and refocus. The skill of Positive Presence – your ability to adjust for and create a positive and energized mindset through conscious thought processes – requires a focused self-awareness for a new way of thinking and being. It is a way of thinking that focuses on improving the emotional energy flow within us and around us, at home, at work, and in our community. It is a purposeful way of thinking and behaving that brings us life and strengthens every human relationships. And it is a necessary skill to keep conflict and confrontation in the workplace on the positive and constructive side of the pendulum.

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Are You Change Capable?

Posted on September 28, 2021 by Catherine Osborne

In today’s knowledge economy your behaviour is the most critical element in your performance, and you have the ability to manage it. If you conduct a self-examination, you will learn why and how to transform your daily routine from simply “going through the motions” to “making a difference.”

Self-examination takes willingness and courage. It is not an easy exercise to undertake because it has the potential to reveal negative aspects of yourself that can make you uncomfortable, or that you may be too busy to deal with or to correct. This kind of attitude however only prolongs the status quo – the established approach that no longer works (if it ever worked at all) in your current reality. There is no bad time to conduct a self-examination, much as there is no bad time to start behaving in a manner that increases your ability to connect with other people.

Self-awareness begins with self-examination. Self-examination helps you identify your mindsets, habits, emotions, and beliefs and then sorts them into “what works” and “what does not work.” More important, this in-depth awareness enables you to take consistent, deliberate, and disciplined actions to improve. Essentially, self-examination renews, refreshes, and/or resets your mind, giving you an opportunity to make better behavioural choices as you go about your day. Honing your skill of Positive Presence creates the mindset that is needed for self-examination and self-awareness.

So why is it that some people cling to inappropriate behaviour habits willingly? There are three basic reasons that explain the tendency:

Some people automatically reject change, regardless of how beneficial it may be. Also known as the Semmelweis reflex, this response represents our attachments to entrenched norms, beliefs, paradigms, and behaviours. This reflex is a form of extreme denial. The status quo is a better alternative, and no amount of evidence can prove to us that we are wrong. The Semmelweis reflex is operative in many organizations today. It is responsible for the failure to commit to innovation, transform dysfunctional cultures, and improve performance.

Some people refuse to accept that these behaviours are negative. In this case, the existence of these habits is acknowledged, but the idea that they are harmful to others is rejected. The typical thought is that if a leader has achieved success in their profession, then their habits must not have been bad. Author and executive coach Marshall Goldsmith provides an insightful explanation for this reasoning: “We think our past success is predictive of great things in our future…This wacky delusional belief in our godlike omniscience instills us with confidence, however unearned it might be. It blinds us to the risks and challenges in our work. But our delusions become a serious liability when we need to change… And that’s the paradox of success: These beliefs that carried us here may be holding us back in our quest to go there.”

Some people are not ready to change. Having the capability to change and the willingness to change are both necessary to transform behaviour. It is difficult to persuade people who are not mentally and emotionally prepared for a change. This level of resistance may only be overcome when the person is convinced that the change serves their best interest.

Behaviour change is a process. In fact, behaviour change is a lifelong pursuit of study, dedication and self-discipline. But it must be driven internally by the person, not externally by a third party: The person must make a commitment to their own development.

CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.

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Leaders that Hinder Connection

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Catherine Osborne

You cannot make a connection with others if you are not connected to yourself. That simple truth gets lost in the daily flurry of activity in the workplace. Even the most conscientious leaders can be blind to habits that serve as barriers to making a connection. The first step therefore is to identify and mitigate your blind spots through self-awareness.

These blind spots are often in the form of paradoxes that leaders are confronted with daily. For example, the less time you have to spare, the more you rely on technological advances to do the work, hence the more people problems you should expect to encounter. Perhaps one of the greatest paradoxes in leadership is this: Leaders gain more power by giving more power. This paradox is at the heart of connection. It reminds us that an influential leader fulfills the primary job of leadership: to lead others in becoming leaders themselves. An authoritarian leader cannot do that.

Another paradox is the conduct of a command-and-control leader. This type of leader is very common in the workplace and is directly opposite of that of an influential leader. The command-and-control leader is arrogant, unapproachable, intimidating, emotionally volatile, impatient, judgmental, manipulative, and stingy with praise. Their immediate staff and management team, not to mention the rest of the organization, are relieved when they are away from the office.

Under the command-and-control leadership style, fear and stress are the ongoing reality. Productivity is marginal because this type of leader constantly watches and micromanages the workflow, leaving no opportunities for creativity or innovation. In addition, competition is rampant, pitting team members against one another and introducing toxic behaviours. In this culture, dominating the market and increasing revenues are the main goals. Open communication, cooperative attitudes, and integrated teamwork are not part of their strategy or operating paradigm.

Is this kind of leader successful? Yes, but only in the short term. Is it sustainable? Never. Sooner or later, a command-and-control leader collapses under the weight of unethical behaviour, low staff morale, bad clinical practices, and questionable financial approaches. Command-and-Control leadership is not a behavioural style. Behavioural styles are preferences based on professionalism. Even people with an analytical style are not expected to be rude or manipulative. Command-and-control, on the other hand, is the product of antiquated, undemocratic mental models.

In the past, management was put in place to ensure that people followed the rules and protocols that kept the production line moving. In today’s organizations it is now knowledge workers – people whose jobs require formal and/or advanced education and are often professionals in their own right – occupying front-line positions rather than line workers. Performance no longer requires peoples’ hands to keep a production line moving. Performance, productivity, and efficiency in today’s knowledge economy lies in the hearts and minds of your people.

CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.

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Workplace Connectedness

Posted on September 14, 2021 by Catherine Osborne

As the knowledge economy evolves amidst the chaos and complexity, so too leadership, as we’ve always known it, must also evolve and change. Today’s environment of chaos and complexity rends the idea of leader as controller and guardian an impossible situation. Out of the knowledge era has arisen the acknowledgement of the business organization as a system, and the necessity for connectedness. The chaos and complexity itself stem from the interconnectedness of all the parts – and therefore the need for participation and contribution from all the parts. Regardless of the size of the system – whether it’s the world food system or the IT department – in the knowledge era we’re all connected participants.

So the next challenge as we evolve through the knowledge era into an age of connectivity, is to understand and learn how we as humans connect with one another, and what that means to the role of the leader and what that means for future organizational success.

Leaders today must understand that the greatest opportunities for growing an organization lie in maximizing the potential of its people. Studies of American business, including health care, reveal the following general truths.
1. The average leader spends three-fourths of the workday dealing with people issues.
2. People make up the largest single cost in most businesses.
3. People are the largest, most valuable asset of any company.
4. People are responsible for carrying out the mission and vision of the organization.

Faced with these truths, leaders must invest time and effort in connecting with their workforce – that is, building effective relationships that enable the highest levels of performance. Positive connections with people start with developing the self. A leader’s behaviour is the single predictor of an organization’s performance level of connection.

Leaders must undertake a comprehensive program of self-awareness in which they learn about the convictions, mental models, and emotions that power their behaviour. Only by being aware can the leader make a choice to act according to behaviours that are most appropriate for inspiring, engaging, and guiding their people.

CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.

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The Five Generations

Posted on September 7, 2021 by Catherine Osborne

Understanding your behaviour style and the behaviour styles of your team is invaluable today in creating high performance in your organization. Today five generations of people make up the current workforce in Canada – silent or traditional (born before 1946), baby boomers, (born approximately between 1946 and 1964), generation X (born approximately between 1965 and 1979), millennial or generation Y (born approximately between 1980 and 2000), and generation Z (born approximately 2000 and after). All the generations share strong work ethics and workplace needs. They all want work that is meaningful and that adds purpose to their lives.

Following is a brief description of each generation’s needs and motivations.

Traditionalists need respect. They are motivated by acknowledgement of their historical experience and expertise. They maintain an attitude of commitment and endurance and make personal sacrifices for the greater good. Their professional relationships are formal and reinforce workplace hierarchies.

Baby boomers need success. They view money as evidence of social status. They are motivated by material gain and professional advancement. Although driven, as individuals, boomers promote collaborative efforts and prefer business decisions to be made by consensus. Boomers believe in the importance of following historical precedents and take a process-oriented approach to their work.

Generation X needs autonomy. Supervisors should provide feedback, not give orders. Generation X employees are motivated by professional growth and flexibility in their work. They work independently, believe in personal responsibility, and struggle to fit work into their lives. For Generation X, precedent is superseded by what is pragmatic, and its members’ informal approach undermines workplace hierarchy and positional authority.

Generation Y need validation. Generation Y employees seek to contribute to society and to make a difference. Flexibility and the opportunity to pursue personal growth are highly motivational to Generation Y employees. Generation Y expects equality and its members consider everyone from the CEO to the mail clerk as their peers. Their casual approach to work and social interactions reflects their desire for immediate recognition on a professional and personal level.

Generation Z need stability. Generation Z employees are entrepreneurial and tech savvy. They tend to want independence and may be motivated by security. Multi-tasking could come naturally for this group. In spite of the fact they are tech-savvy and live in a connected world, this group generally prefers to talk face-to-face. Generation Z can easily adapt to different technologies and pick up new software. They will seek out environments that prioritize social responsibility and diversity and they want to participate in highly collaborative management relationships.

There is an art to motivating employees from differing generations to work together and share their knowledge – it’s mission critical in a time where the answers of today will be outdated by tomorrow. Furthermore, no matter how you look at it, you will end up with a multi-generational workforce or customer base.

Advancing a culture of Positive Presence develops in you and your employees the behavioural and emotional awareness necessary to be mindful of each other, to treat each other as individuals and to stay open to listening. There is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to managing in this day and age.

CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.

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Workplace Behaviour – What’s Your Style?

Posted on August 31, 2021 by Catherine Osborne

Your emotions are your response to your thinking and mental patterns. Your mental patterns, in turn predict your behavioural style. Your behavioural style has the ability to stir up emotions in others.

Behavioural style, or social/communication style, is the way you conduct yourselves in front of other people, particularly in the workplace. Are you friendly and warm? Are you reserved? Are you assertive? Are you in full control? Your behavioural style, which is important to delineate from personality, either attracts or repels other people, and vice versa. Sometimes you cannot articulate why you like or dislike someone’s behaviour, because these types of preferences are unconscious. Influential leaders and those desiring to be influential in their workplaces, understand their own behaviour and the impact it has on others around them. Understanding this is critical to enhancing the performance of your workplace.

There are four main categories of behavioural styles that are generally recognized. Note that different researchers assign different names to these attributes:

1. Driver (aka Director, Dominant, thinker/intuitive): A driver is assertive, interrupts conversation, answers quickly, seeks out key facts, has low levels of empathy, and is extremely task focused.

2. Expressive (aka Socializer, Influencer, intuitive/feelings): An expressive person is enthusiastic and friendly, talks a lot and talks fast, loves to tell stories to convey a point, can be loud, seeks to grasp concepts, is assertive, has high levels of empathy, and is people focused.

3. Amiable (aka Relator, Steady, feelings/sensing): An amiable person is a good listener, responsive, people focused, and friendly. This person seeks to understand and thrives on building relationships.

4. Analytical (aka Thinker, Conscientious, thinker/sensing): An analytical person is more responsive than assertive, attentive to facts, unemotional, extremely precise, detail oriented, and not fond of small talk.

All of us have a dominant style, but we also have habits that fall into the other three categories. Each style has its strengths and weaknesses, an important consideration in team formation. When building a team, you should include people with different behavioural styles because each style contributes differently and beneficially to team dynamics and team goals.

Identifying your own and being aware of others’ behavioural style will contribute to your leadership success in several ways. First, this recognition improves your interaction and communication with others. For example, if you
know someone has an analytical style, you will adjust the way you talk and act to avoid triggering an emotional reaction in that person, and so that your interaction with that person accomplishes its goal. Second, it allows you to showcase or model, and thus teach, the combination of behavioural styles that work best. Third, it gives you an opportunity to play to your strength.

As a leader, you are in a unique position to make a difference in peoples’ lives. Initiating Positive Presence as a high-priority business strategy and performance improvement initiative develops your emotional awareness and understanding of your and others behavioural styles – and in doing so, transform your workplace into the peak performing environment we all desire.

CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.

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The human factors of Ineffective Communication

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Catherine Osborne

Much of the communication today in business and health care entails an exchange, wherein all parties involved must act as both giver and recipient of information. This exchange ensures that the information is received and the recipient has an opportunity to express agreement, disagreement, confusion, understanding, need for clarification or any other response.

For example, a recent study by the U.S. Center for Studying Health System Change found that “reliance on electronic medical records (EMRs) could result in poorer communications with other providers in inpatient or clinical environments. While the use of other communication tools with EMRs – such as email and instant messaging – can sometimes help clinicians, they can also hinder care when a time lag occurs between responses.” Communication starts and stops all effective collaborations. Learning how to effectively communicate is a critical component of your development as a leader.

Some of the causes of ineffective communication are a mixture of both organizational and human factors. Time pressures, work stress, a multilayered corporate structure, language incompatibilities, and information overload are cited as some of the organization related causes. The human factors are mental, behavioural and emotional weakness, such as the following:
1. Poor listening skills
2. Lack of focus or mental disorganization
3. Impatience and arrogance
4. Tendency to assume instead of double-check
5. Uncontrolled emotional attachment or response to the information
6. Disinterest in the information or task
7. Refusal to clarify or follow up
8. Fatigue or burnout

People who display these and similar interpersonal inadequacies put themselves, their communication partners, and those affected by the information in a dangerous position. They send and receive only partial and possibly incorrect information and consequently they create time consuming double work, confusion, frustration and conflict. In this case, communication will not improve if behaviours and mindset do not improve. This is particularly true in trying to prevent medical errors as we seek to improve health care quality and safety.

Ineffective communication is a leading cause of untoward events and harm to patients whether it is an organizational factor or a human factor of disruptive behaviour. Adopting the skill of Positive Presence as a business improvement strategy is the first step to acquiring the necessary mindset for behavioural awareness.

CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.

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Life With A Purpose

Posted on August 17, 2021 by Catherine Osborne

Colonel Joshua Chamberlin, an 1863 British soldier demonstrated the power of living a life of purpose. Discovering your life’s purpose stimulates volition, urging you to perform at a higher level. Performance rather than success should be the goal because success is subjective while performance is objective. When you find this purpose, you also gain the desire to live with sincerity and pursue life goals and objectives that make a difference in your life and the lives of the others.

High-performing organizations know their fundamental purpose, their mission, and pursue it with a great sense of urgency. The same adage is true for high performing individuals. A clear life purpose enables you to choose the most effective response for any situation without making compromises that will derail your performance.

John Kenagy, M.D., is a physician, former visiting scholar at Harvard Business School and author of Designed to Adapt: Leading Healthcare in Challenging Times. Kenagy identifies the keys to leadership success in getting people to act their way to a new way of thinking:
First, set a clear, simple and meaningful direction – the vision and compelling “why.”
Second, develop and empower people; it is your people, not technology and process that make the real difference to performance.
Third, build trust and optimism through positive results in problem solving the needs of patients.
Fourth, solve those problems as real-time experience, close to the work, not in meetings.
And finally, fifth, grow by repeating your success and relentlessly challenging the status quo.

The results are always positive. For example, in one year, staff on a Midwestern hospital medical-surgical nursing unit changed their behaviour to generate the greatest increase in patient satisfaction in a 17-hospital system, while simultaneously increasing productivity 14 percent, decreasing length of stay 8 percent, and generating $1.7 million in new revenue and savings.

Changing behaviours is a lot harder than most realize, even if not doing so means lost business, bankruptcy, the demise of a company, or harming patients. Focusing on the aspect of belief and behaviour over technology and process is working for leaders and their organizations that are adopting the skill of Positive Presence as a high-priority business strategy and performance improvement initiative. Dr. Deming may have said it best this way, summing up with an urgency imperative, “You do not have to change. You do not have to survive either.”

CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.

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