Workplace conflict is a form of conflict that takes place within the work environment. Although it can become a serious problem, measures can be taken to identify it and resolve those factors leading to it. Some factors related to these conflicts are common in all workplaces; however, these conflicts are usually influenced by the unique features of the organization within which they occur. These organizational features may be the hierarchical structure or the type of business, or the particular culture.

In almost all cases, these conflicts detract from the business at hand and therefore have a negative influence on the business. Some companies respond to workplace conflict by designing and implementing their own conflict mitigation programs, simple or complex; others bring in external professionals to assist with these problems; still others do little or nothing at all and simply allow the conflict to resolve itself. This last approach can lead to serious organizational and financial problems for obvious reasons.

Since the workplace is often an inherently stressful environment, some level of conflict is likely, but how much is considered to be a detriment to the operation? This can be answered by saying that any conflict that affects a business decision adversely is a detriment, and it follows that almost all conflict is a detriment. So some program should be devised to explicitly address all forms of conflict, small to large.

However, it can also be argued that mild conflict can actually lead to a more robust decision and a more profitable solution to a problem. As the old saying goes: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” This idiom has often been used to describe the amazing inventions that have resulted from warfare. When people have their lives on the line, they tend to work out ingenious solutions to solving wartime problems. In a similar fashion, workplace conflict may lead to a sort of competition that results in a better solution.

Questions For Conflict Mitigation in the Workplace

- Does your workplace harbor certain managers who routinely fight amongst themselves concerning projects or other business entities?

- Is there any formal program in place to mitigate and resolve conflicts between employees?

- Do you know of any bad business decisions that have been made as a result of workplace conflict?

- Are conflicts generally resolved in your workplace or do they tend to fester and remain unresolved?

- Does management effectively intervene to resolve conflicts or do they remain passive and inactive?

Andre Larabie
The Turnaround-120 Go-To Coach
The Debt Management Go-To Coach
www.AndreLarabie.com

What is organizational culture?

To answer this question, we should first discuss the definition of culture itself since any organizational culture is largely dependent upon the wider culture that contains the organization.

With respect to “culture” in general, we might say that a culture embodies the beliefs and behaviors that characterize a particular group, where “group” can be social, ethnic or even age-based.

So organizational culture would refer to that “essence” in a company that embodies the nature of the particular company—that essence that defines or embodies those beliefs and behaviors of the employees of the organization.

For example, if the founder/owner of a privately-owned company tends to micromanage his business in a dictatorial fashion, and many of his extended family members work in all aspects of the business, then that organizational culture will likely be quite different than what might be found in a large, multi-national corporation where multiple layers of management exist, and managerial control is much more decentralized.

Questions to Ask:

- Is the organizational culture in your company one that has been proactively endorsed and promoted or is it one that has developed/evolved on its own?

- What are the basic features of your company culture?

- Is the culture positive in general or negative?

- What formal structures exist to openly recognize and/or reward employees who go above and beyond the requirements of the job?

- Are there any key individuals who have significantly influenced your company culture and how did they do it?

- Are you familiar with formal procedures to shape and transform your company culture?

- Do you believe that company culture is something that should be tampered with and influenced, or do you believe it should be allowed to develop on its own?

- Do you have an employee suggestion program, and if so, is there a positive incentive to participate in developing innovative ideas to benefit the bottom line?

- Is there a feedback program that allows employees to effectively provide feedback about their disapproval with anything in the workplace?

- Does management proactively work to maintain a high level of quality in the culture or to improve the culture in any way?

You can distribute an employee feedback form to identify potential issues in the organizational culture. It can be used as-is or modified to meet the particular needs of any work environment. Once problems are identified, managers can take a proactive approach to alleviate the problems.

Andre Larabie
The Turnaround-120 Go-To Coach
The Debt Management Go-To Coach
www.AndreLarabie.com

Why should you transform your organizational culture?

Organizational cultures tend to remain fixed even though time passes and the world changes. To stay competitive, business leaders need to ensure that the internal organizational culture of their company stays up-to-date and does not lose touch with the world.

To illustrate the need to transform, consider that only five years ago, social networking was not a significant force in the workplace. Now, many progressive companies use Twitter as a business tool.

Do your employees in general understand how the new social networking technologies function, or do they tend to be older, less tech-savvy workers and not too interested in what’s new? Since the Internet is making most marketplaces global, there is a definite need to keep the workforce updated to stay competitive and “connected” to the customer.

Inadequate leadership is often to blame for an outdated organizational culture. In some cases, the business leaders themselves may be the core of the problem. Senior management members in many companies tend to be older, an artifact of the time required to effectively manage the business functions at a senior level. Even so, implementing the right business structures should ensure that the organizational culture does not get stuck in the last century.

When implementing drastic changes, it is usually not enough to provide only training; entirely new mindsets are required. A new way of thinking must be instilled in the workforce. In such cases, outside help can assist with implementing these cultural changes. Outside coaches, or other individuals with the proper mindset, understanding, and experience can be brought in to help.

Below are some sample employee questions.

- Would you consider yourself happy or unhappy with your job?

- What do you like most about your job?

- What do you like least about your job?

- Does your manager have reasonable expectations for your job performance?

- Have you had any major letdowns while working here?

- What suggestions do you have for your immediate manager?

- Do you feel adequately compensated for the work you do?

- What suggestions do you have for senior management?

- Do you find anything offensive in the workplace, and if so what is it and how should it be changed?

- Do you think the overall organizational culture is positive (or negative)?

- What makes the culture here positive (or negative)?

- What changes could be made to improve the work environment?

- Do you feel that you are adequately trained to function in your current capacity?

- If you feel you are not trained adequately, what training would improve your level of skill in the area(s) of deficiency?

- Do you feel your job assignments are challenging or too easy? Why?

- What tools or technologies do you feel are lacking in the workplace

Andre Larabie
The Turnaround-120 Go-To Coach
The Debt Management Go-To Coach
www.AndreLarabie.com

Teams in the workplace can be highly productive and can lead to more profits and a higher quality of work product.

What Constitutes a Team?

There is clearly not a single, widely-accepted definition for the word “team.” The entry on Wikepedia.com has the following first sentence:

“A team comprises a group of people or animals linked in a common purpose.”

If we accept this, the primary components of a team are twofold:

1.  A group

2.  Linked in a common purpose

This would meet the expectations of most people with respect to a general definition. If we accept the fact that teams are an extremely positive force in the workplace, then it makes sense to discuss the various ways to facilitate teamwork on the job.

To enhance and facilitate a teamwork-enabled culture:

- Create performance-measurement systems for all levels of employees. These systems should not only measure the performance of the individual, but also they should link individual performance to the performance of the team(s) the individual is a member of.

- Hold regular meetings for management and for employees.

- Executives and business leaders must make an explicit, highly-visible statement that they have a clear expectation for increased teamwork in the workplace.

- Business leaders—and senior management in particular—should form a highly visible team of their own as a model for the organization.

- Create an effective feedback system.

- Increase the availability of technology systems that facilitate teamwork functions. Software systems should be available to make it easier for team members to communicate and collaborate. To illustrate, suppose a team is geographically dispersed: one member in each of ten major US cities. You certainly would not expect these people to communicate via US mail. They should have software and hardware to support their activities effectively.

- Organizationally, teams should be both “deep” and “wide.” Teams should not only be comprised of members at the same levels of the organization; they should also span various levels vertically. For example, a team of first-line managers can exist along with one that contains members from different levels of management.

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie

Empowering questions to ask yourself:

- Does your business currently use teams?

- Does the senior management currently work as a team, and if so, what formal structures are in place to facilitate this?

- What structures are in place to facilitate a more general teamwork-enabled culture?

- Is there much infighting within your organization?

- Does your organization have employee performance-measurement systems that are biased toward personal performance rather than team-based performance?

- What functions or organizational gatherings exist that would strengthen a team-enabled approach to the organizational culture?

Andre Larabie
The Turnaround-120 Go-To Coach
The Debt Management Go-To Coach
www.AndreLarabie.com

Companies succeed when every employee is fully aware of the company’s stated vision, mission, and short and long-term goals. Companies succeed when every employee understands that they are equally important in achieving that mission to make this success happen. A viable plan must be put in place, and every employee should have access to that plan, and should have access to a simple concise operations manual. These documents should be readily available and should not be hidden away in a file cabinet.

A good plan functions like a lighthouse in bad weather. It is a beacon of direction, forever blinking in the night, guiding the way to success and prosperity. It is like a road map through a complex maze of twisted roadways. It is like the blueprint for a complicated building. It focuses the efforts and guides the entire team of employees and management to the desired goals. The formal plan is a communication vehicle that stays strong and true, leading everyone on a common journey. It shares the vision, sets the course, and encourages a team-oriented work environment.

The business plan leverages employee talents and sets out the organizational structure and defines the various positions and their responsibilities. It identifies products and services and defines how they will be sold and marketed. A quality business plan makes projections that allow for performance measurements. These measurements in turn help to identify any issues or problems in the company that need to be corrected to stay on track and reach the short and long-term goals.

Although small companies may be able to function without a formal plan, this prospect is not reasonable for larger companies. Since many companies start out as small family-owed businesses, it is possible for them to evolve into larger entities without a plan, but introducing one is a professional necessity.

Questions to Ask About Your Plan

• Do you have a comprehensive business plan?
• Does your business plan act like a road map, guiding the way?
• How often is your business plan being used?
• Have you used both internal and external input and expertise to construct your business plan?
• Are all employees acting within those guidelines set forth by the business plan?
• Is your business plan structured only for obtaining capital or is it also acting as a road map for your business?
• Does your plan help to identify problems before they become insurmountable?
• Does your plan increase motivation among employees?
• Does your plan contain a comprehensive marketing plan?
• Is your plan physically appealing and easy to navigate?

Andre Larabie
The Turnaround-120 Go-To Coach
The Debt Management Go-To Coach
www.AndreLarabie.com

A business plan will have two general uses: (1) to obtain financing, and (2) to be used as a road map by the employees and managers of the organization. As you read this section, you may notice the similarities between a standard business plan and a turnaround business plan. The primary difference is that a turnaround business plan addresses everything from the perspective of a failed business. Below are some key components of a standard business plan.

• Executive Summary
• Mission Statement
• Vision
• Services and Products
• Company Description
• Marketing Plan
• Business Operations
• Financials

Executive Summary

In a page or two, give a brief overview of the entire business plan. It is best to write this section last, and summarize each section by giving several sentences describing the contents of the section. The executive summary should not appear like a table of contents. Include a general description of your business as you envision it, the key players and their qualifications and backgrounds. Include the name of your business, its location, and the purpose of the business plan.

Mission Statement

The mission statement should define those things your company intends to accomplish and what the business philosophies are.

Mission Statement Exercises:

• Get on the Internet and read other mission statements.
• Identify those mission statements that resonate with your goals.
• Rephrase the sentences and include them in your own statement.
• Keep it simple (about one paragraph) and at a very high level.

Services and Products

Provide a listing of all services and products offered by the business. Rather than discussing the particular advantages of these services and products, and the strategies you will employ with each item, or any discussion of the niches for these services/products, defer this discussion to the Products and Services section of your Marketing Plan, where you can discuss these topics in detail.

Company Description

This section can start with name, address, history, and a general statement about the services you provide.

Include an overview of the management team, with a description of the people, one or more, who are key leaders in the business. Describe their roles, their backgrounds, and any experience or education they may have, and any connections or affiliations they bring that may facilitate the operations of the company.

Include an organizational chart showing all the management layers and job descriptions for each position.

Marketing Plan

Due to complexity, marketing plans are often quite extensive. They should be constructed as a standalone unit that can be removed from the overall business plan and distributed separately to those focusing on marketing. As with your business plan, include a brief introduction (again, write this last) to the marketing plan that includes the highlights of the plan. Describe the industry trends and any opportunities you see. Include any possible threats to the success of your plan.

The projections in your marketing plan should span one or two years and include the following sections:

• Services and Products – Unlike in the section of the same name in the general business plan, which simply describes the products and services, describe the competitive advantages of the services and products.
• Customers – Include a complete description of the customer base.
• Pricing – Include the various pricing strategies and logic.
• Competition – This section should identify and describe all competitors to the business.
• Advertising – Outline the periodic and ongoing advertising methods.
• Marketing Objectives and Projections – This should be comprehensive enough to allow for performance measurements.

Business Operations

This section will describe the basic business processes, and for this reason it is one of the most critical components of the business plan. This is the nuts and bolts of the road map. Describe each process (such as services, product deliveries, or product groups), the time it involves and the projected revenues to be derived from each service or product. There are several ways to organize this section. One way is to break it into three parts:

1.     Daily Processes – Those activities you perform on a daily basis. Describe how you perform these activities.

2.     Periodic Processes – These descriptions include any periodic events you may attend and derive revenue from.

3.     Special Processes – These descriptions include any special events that provide revenue to your company.

You don’t have to, but you may include the operations manual here so that it has a well-defined location for the business.

Financials

You should include a high-level budget in the plan. This should be derived directly from the data you compiled for the general business budget. This will form the basis for some of the performance measurements in the future.

Andre Larabie
The Turnaround-120 Go-To Coach
The Debt Management Go-To Coach
www.AndreLarabie.com

Saving a troubled business is a complicated process. That is why you will need business turnaround coaching, especially if you do not have any experience with owning a small business or managing its day-to-day operations. You may argue that some companies succeed without the benefit of using business turnaround coaches. Although this is true, these situations are actually rare. Below are some ways in which you can benefit from the services of a turnaround coach.

Many companies and even big corporations continue to spend a lot of money on pet projects that don’t seem to succeed no matter how hard they try. One of the reasons for this is that they can’t seem to let go of the project, or they become too attached such that they cannot see the mistakes they are making. With professional coaching, you get a new perspective on things, and sometimes this is all you need to see what is really keeping a project from flourishing or the business model from succeeding.

Think of a coach as an editor. No matter how prolific a writer you are, you still need an editor to look into your work to check for mistakes and suggest those improvements that you did not catch or think about.

Another way companies benefit from turnaround coaching is by having a coach listen to their ideas and help them to analyze and scrutinize each one. Even if a company has a team of managers available for brainstorming sessions, it is sometimes a good idea to bring in a coach so they can offer different input and insights. Turnaround coaches have the necessary tools to inspire people to think outside the box and come up with great ideas that can help bring a company to a higher level of excellence.

Lastly, turnaround coaching is important in helping guide you in whatever aspect of business you are not very good at. Over 95% of businesses fail in the first five years of existence because not all people with technical skills know how to manage businesses or market their products or services. With the help of a good coach, a person with the technical know-how would be able to learn other aspects of running a business in a shorter span of time and at a reduced cost.

Finally, a good coach is a seasoned professional with a toolkit for helping business owners grow their business more profitably, and create a valuable enterprise that runs on its own, without needing the business owner to be present. My clients typically receive a tremendous return on investments. In fact, I will not work with a client unless I am certain I can give them a three times Return On Investment (ROI) on their coaching investment. But, in reality, that’s very small compared to what I deliver in practice. I sometimes see 20%, 30%, or even 40% growth within MONTHS.

Andre Larabie
The Turnaround-120 Go-To Coach
The Debt Management Go-To Coach
www.AndreLarabie.com

In the current day and age, where technology and connectivity is far advanced over what it was even a decade ago, many people feel more isolated than ever.

This feeling of isolation is primarily because we no longer need to interact physically with other people to find our entertainment. We can simply turn on the TV, or log onto our favorite social networking site and chat with “friends” from other towns or states. We can text people using our cell phones while we drive down the road. We can play virtual reality video games with people from almost any country in the world, and all of this in real-time. In essence, we can make “connections” to others without ever being physically present.

This is in stark contrast to the time before such connectivity, a time when we were more closely connected to our local community and to our extended family. But we still need to feel that we belong to something real, something offering closer physical contact. It is a basic human need.

This is why there is a tremendous opportunity when it comes to teamwork in the workplace. While fewer and fewer people are getting the “real” contact outside the workplace, they can actually find it on the job. If a company takes proactive steps to transform their culture into a “teamwork-enabled culture,” workers can satisfy their natural need for physical companionship and fellowship, and the business will likely increase productivity.

Why teamwork is important to employees and to the company:

1. Teamwork-enabled environments lead to a sense of “family.” In our fast-paced world, many of us no longer rely on our extended family and these relationships are simply non-existent.

2. A teamwork-enabled work culture can reestablish a sense of community the modern world has all but destroyed. That basic need for human contact can be satisfied.

3. Efficiency increases and thus company competitiveness increases. The increased level of communication leads to less duplication of effort in the business.

4. A positive teamwork culture leads to increases in productivity and thus profitability. With increased global competitiveness, it is more important than ever that we increase productivity. The old adage, “Two heads are better than one,” is pertinent here. When two people are working together, innovation increases significantly.

5. Product and service quality increases when people work on teams and interdependencies increase. One reason for the increase in quality is that workers are reliant upon each other and their coworkers are using their products and solutions. These workers no longer create a product and service and send it down the pipeline to an unseen customer. This closer contact with the users of our products/services leads to increased accountability and quality.

- Teamwork leads to increased employee satisfaction with their work environment and an overall increase in morale. Studies have shown that a higher employee morale leads to more positive bottom-line results, so keeping people happy makes sense.

- These are the primary reasons company leaders should develop business approaches and paradigms that lead to a teamwork-enabled culture.

Andre Larabie
The Turnaround-120 Go-To Coach
The Debt Management Go-To Coach
www.AndreLarabie.com

- Personality differences – This is likely the most common cause of workplace conflict, and it can occur in even the most advanced and well-managed workplaces.

- Power struggles – This cause of conflict is also very common and can exist from the lowest position up to the senior managers of a larger operation.

- Poor communication skills – This also is near the top of the list when it comes to frequency.

- Seniority issues – This occurs usually when there are problems with the organizational structure and when it is not well understood.

- Misunderstandings over company mission, vision, and direction – Although this can be seen as a subset of “poor communication skills,” it also can be seen differently. True, it does imply a failure on management’s part to effectively communicate the company agenda, but it is a more critical problem.

- Inadequate performance – A simple example would be when one member of a team lets another one down by performing in a substandard way.

- Lack of adequate leadership skills – This leads to misunderstandings, usually as a result of poor communication skills on the part of the manager.

- Jealousy between coworkers – Various reasons can exist for jealousy, but it almost always leads to some form of conflict that has adverse implications for the operation.

- Misunderstanding about responsibilities – This can be a simple result of miscommunications or it can be a result of poor management skills.

- Competition for resources – An example of this would be when a highly sought after project arises and two candidates compete for it.

- Misunderstandings about organizational structure – Here we often have a communication issue since the rank of individuals is in question for some reason.

- A difference in basic values – An example of this would occur when two employees come from different cultures and those cultures have fundamental beliefs that are in conflict with those of the other culture.

- Personality (psychological) problems – This needs no explanation since if an employee has personality problems, he or she may be unable to adequately function in the workplace, and conflict may result.

It could be argued that an effective first step in reducing workplace conflict would be to address each of the above issues individually. When they do not exist or are limited in the workplace then it becomes a work environment in which conflicts are minimized. When conflicts arise after these issues have been addressed, other tools are necessary to respond to and mitigate them.

Andre Larabie
The Turnaround-120 Go-To Coach
The Debt Management Go-To Coach
www.AndreLarabie.com

Mediation is often used as a formal procedure to resolve conflicts outside the courtroom. It is an effective and inexpensive way to accomplish a resolution with little or no overhead and expense. These methods can be adopted and tailored for a particular organization.

It is not surprising that conflicts arise in the workplace. Many work environments have a high amount of stress. Therefore, conflicts between workers is a normal result, especially in those working conditions involve competition between workers. In some cases, workers may be competing for resources, such as a limited amount of money available for raises or bonuses. In times of high economic stress, workers may fear for their jobs and as a result may feel the need to compete. Thus, conflicts can arise. Conflicts can even arise between managers, and in some workplaces, they are the norm, as managers fight amongst themselves.

Some companies take the approach that it is better to stay out of employee conflicts and let those who are in conflict work out their own problems without any intervention from management. Rather than allow these conflicts to worsen, as they often do, it is often better to intervene. When intervention is taken, it is important to have good tools like mediation. This will hasten the resolution of the conflict.

Formally, mediation involves the use of a third party to help facilitate communication and resolution between the conflicting parties. Mediators use various techniques and methods to improve the communication between disputants. Usually in formal mediation, the mediator does not act as a judge who renders an ultimate decision after hearing the facts, but in the workplace, something like this may be required to ultimately resolve a dispute. Sometimes parties cannot come to an agreement after all the communications and mediation techniques are implemented.

A company should have a formal system in place to mitigate conflict, and this system should be documented in such a fashion that disputes will be ultimately resolved once the process is invoked. If this is the case, the long-term outlook for reduced conflict in the workplace is significantly improved.

Steps in the Mediation Process

1.          Introduction and summary of the mediation process

2.       Both parties tell their story

3.          Relevant information is gathered by the mediator

4.       The problems are identified and stated

5.          Common ground for a solution is identified and stated

6.          Options are presented for a partial or complete solution

Andre Larabie
The Turnaround-120 Go-To Coach
The Debt Management Go-To Coach
www.AndreLarabie.com