Press Release
Summary = April is Workplace Conflict Awareness Month, a time when
employers and employees everywhere can pause for an hour or so to
look at what they
can do to convert destructive workplace conflict into a force for
creativity. If we learn to value conflict, learn how to keep it
creative, and learn how to make it creative if it turns destructive,
we can keep from hurting each other at work. The concept is simple:
conflict is OK, as long as it’s respectful. And making this
change has a huge return on investment. When we keep conflict creative,
we’re happier, we’re less stressed, we’re more
productive and what we produce is of higher quality.
Press Release
Body = BOSTON, MA, March 8, 2005 -- April is Workplace Conflict
Awareness Month, a time when employers and employees everywhere
can pause for an hour or so to look at what they can do to convert
destructive workplace conflict into a force for creativity. Conflict
can be creative or destructive. Anyone who works knows of or has
experienced micromanagers, bullies, aggressive co-workers, screaming
sessions at meetings, email flame wars, abusive bosses, and lots
more. And we also know about debates and disagreements that result
in a better outcome than either side had in mind in the first place.
Richard Brenner of Chaco Canyon Consulting, a management consultancy
in Boston,
Massachusetts, developed Workplace Conflict Awareness Month. "We
need to change the way we view workplace conflict," says Brenner.
"Too many of us believe that conflict is always bad. We don't
want to deal with it. So we stuff
it down out of sight, until it turns really destructive. Then, when
it's so powerful that nobody can control it, it comes to the surface.
And people hurt each other. Sometimes it even gets physical."
The message of Workplace Conflict Awareness Month is that we can't
eliminate conflict, but we can eliminate destructive conflict. If
we learn to value conflict,
learn how to keep it creative, and learn how to make it creative
if it turns destructive, we can keep from hurting each other at
work. The concept is simple: conflict is OK, as long as it's respectful.
And making this change has a huge return on investment. When we
keep conflict creative, we're happier, we're less stressed, we're
more productive and what we produce is of higher quality. Mr. Brenner
offers employers and employees Ten Insights for Managing Conflict.
Here
are his top three:
* In destructive conflict, everyone plays a role. Some people are
stars, but everybody owns a piece.
* Sending the stars of the conflict to training probably won't work.
Conflict is a system thing. Think System.
* Conflict and Life go together -- you can't have one without the
other. The trick is to keep Conflict creative. In 1993, while researching
low-cost software development methods for the Department of Defense,
Mr. Brenner began to suspect that part of the solution to lowering
development costs lay not in the next new technology, but in finding
better ways for
engineers to work together. So he began studying the interpersonal
dimensions of software engineering. That led
him to study the work of Virginia Satir, a family therapist who
pioneered the application of systems thinking to resolving problems
in families and organizations. That work eventually led Brenner
to develop Workplace Conflict Awareness Month.
Chaco Canyon consulting is making available a Workplace Conflict
Awareness Month kit, including a slide presentation and an e-booklet,
"101 Tips for Managing Conflict." For more information
visit our Web site at http://www.ChacoCanyon.com, or
contact Cathy Stone at (866) 378-5470.
Web Site = http://www.ChacoCanyon.com
Contact Details
= Cathy Stone
Chaco Canyon Consulting
10 Emerson Place, Suite 16A
Boston, MA 02114
Voice: 617-263-1112; 866-378-5470
castone@chacocanyon.com
2025
