Written by Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.
Tussman
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Mistakes are inevitable, so you should work on two sides: trying to avoid them and reacting fast to the error to minimize consequences.
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Posts tagged Avoid
Cleverness
Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else — unless it is an enemy. Albert Einstein
Dealing with conflict
Dealing with conflict is always complex and cannot be easily generalized.
The problem with conflicts is that they tend to go personal even if they are on other levels.
Also those that are often in a conflictual situation, have the tendency to cheat on their real level of stress generated by discussion, because is not possible to keep a complete separation and discuss without consequences.
The real thing is to limit as much as possible the level of stress inherited by discussions.
And where possible, avoid conflict itself.
This doesn’t mean being beaten every time, but knowing when to attack and when to defend.
As a rule of thumb, to avoid going personal, I use the approach of avoiding conflict when in a multi-person discussion I am the only one standing in this position. I make a try to bring people on board, but avoid the fight if I remain isolated.
Avoiding misunderstanding
It happens often to incur in misunderstanding.
It happens in different situations both in a working environment or in a personal context.
Is not easy to interact with misunderstanding, because is related to many factors:
- Personal behavior
- Education
- Company values and commonly accepted behaviors
Not always staying quiet and ride the misunderstanding (or let it pass) is a good choice, because leaves you at risk of an increasing cycle on it, making it bigger than it was at beginning.
And the bigger the misunderstanding, the bigger the problem when you have to face the solution.
Attacking counterparts or clarifying each misunderstanding, is something that could take too much time and doesn’t let you be effective.
But avoiding clarification brings to the problem before mentioned.
How to escape?
- Make an “acid test” of the misunderstanding (means a rapid evaluation) and consider if it makes sense to go deeper in clarifying. If most of the time the answer is Yes you should consider taking a little bit more risks, if is No you should strengthen your criteria. Normally 1/3 of misunderstandings could be worth a clarifying.
- Ask yourself if the misunderstanding can have wider implications
- Ponder the bigger picture for a moment (is it an isolated misunderstanding or could be a part of the chain?)
- Ask a 3rd party a counsel
Empowering a team (or at least not dis-empowering)
I came through a wikihow old post (original here) on how to obtain a balance between managing and not dis-empowering your team.
Suggestions in the post and my comments:
- Avoid using empowerment as an excuse for a “hands off” approach: empowering and managing a team doesn’t put You on an ivory tower. Put yourself in a discussing mood, being one step back but make at same time your resources feel that there’s a parachute or a “partner” available for them to talk and grow their self.
- Practice knowing when to stand back, when to intervene: This is a tough one, especially if you come from an operational career and you’re facing your first big or small team. Try to put yourself in their shoes and think if you would appreciate an intervention. After intervention debrief yourself for a moment to evaluate if it was correct
- Don’t be tempted to pull the leash too tight: Leave them walk alone step by step if needed, but avoid keeping too tight reins on the team. Your team is professional and deserves professional respect. Try them and gradually leave operations at their judgement.
- Avoid confusing the mission of the organization with empowerment of the team: People don’t live of missions and slogans, but absorb them and use them as tool either consciously or not. Grow your team with a mission in mind but don’t frustrate them through a straight line. Life sometimes allows creative turns.
- Keep positive and avoid taking a threatened stance.: This is another difficult one, because deals with your natural limits. Try to be a “schock absorber” for your team and gain their respect.
- Avoid dismissing team ideas out of hand: Always valuate team ideas also if their not useful at first touch. I use to keep a log of all team ideas, as a reminder for future businesses.
- Don’t deny leadership within a team. : All resources are equal, but leaders are more equal than the others. Especially if they stay on your side.
Avoid work
How people try to avoid work, and how well some of them succeed…
Willian Feather
Avoiding work
How people try to avoid work, and how well some of them succeed…
Willian Feather
Dealing with conflict
An anonymous, reported by Ilead365 (http://www.ilead365.com/) says that “Conflict is a collision between two truths which don’t fit together in one story”.
Dealing with conflict seems quite complex, because of people generally being not capable doing this.
Worse than that, people tend to be condescending with others in order to avoid conflict, not because conflict should be avoided, but because fearing the discussion or consequences arising or simply as bon ton.
I think that conflict is not always the best option, but in some cases is an option to be considered, because “shuffles” the situation giving the basis for a new startup.
The only real trigger to decide if is advantageous to “go to mattresses” or not is your own ability to sustain the discussion.
In a business environment, in my experience, the only real tip in dealing with conflict, is not to bring it to a personal level.
Avoiding complexity
Avoidable complexity should indeed be avoided.
Anonymous
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