Subordinates at Fault for Workplace Conflict?

I, generally speaking, do not enjoy conflict, and therefore, I don't always deal with it very well.  Suffice it to say, in the moment I usually handle it ok (although I am known to back down too easily), but I absolutely hate it, and it will run through my mind for days afterwards, resulting in an all-out effort to avoid such a situation ever again.

So, naturally, I'm constantly looking for advice and suggestions for dealing with and reacting to workplace conflict.

Today Forbes was my resource (I find myself perusing this website like a snake on water these days), and I found this article: 5 Keys of Dealing with Workplace Conflict.  Seems like a good article for someone such as I - and, generally speaking, the article had good advice.  But there was one excerpt that really stuck out to me, and at the end of the day, speaks volumes about the author that made me less likely to "take his word for it" on other aspects of his advice:

"One of my favorite examples of what I described in the paragraph above is the weak leader who cannot deal with subordinates who use emotional deceit as a weapon of destruction.  Every workplace is plagued with manipulative people who use emotion to create conflict in order to cover-up for their lack of substance. These are the drama queens/kings that when confronted about wrongdoing and/or lack of performance are quick to point the finger in another direction. They are adept at using emotional tirades which often include crocodile tears, blameshifting, little lies, half truths and other trite manipulations to get away with total lack of substance. The only thing worse than what I’ve just described is leadership that doesn’t recognize it and/or does nothing about it. Real leaders don’t play favorites, don’t get involved in drama, and they certainly don’t tolerate manipulative, self-serving behavior."

The first thing that shocks me is that he is coming out and saying this in a public article when, in my opinion, it only defines him as an ineffective leader.  It appears that he feels that his subordinates are the cause of his problems, and if they wouldn't spend so much time reacting like children, conflict in the workplace would be easier to manage.  The clearest message to me here is that he does not have an understanding of how different personality types (and just different people in general) react to and deal with high stress and/or conflict situations.  And that he is a sucky listener.

But I want to point out some specific phrases that lead me to this conclusion, and are concerning to me from a psychological perspective:


One of my favorite examples
I find this a very strange way to start the paragraph.  As if he almost enjoys watching the circus of these leaders trying to manage their drama queens?

the weak leader who cannot deal with subordinates
This is a clear judgement without any substance.  He does not attempt to understand why a leader might respond in what he considers to be 'weakness'.  He insults his fellow leaders (who may have differing opinions) right out the door without regret.

Every workplace is plagued with manipulative people who use emotion to create conflict in order to cover-up for their lack of substance
Ok, here's my problem with this one: I get it - these people exist.  I've worked with them, for them, under them, you name it.  But I would say they are few and far between.  "The workplace is plagued" with them???  Come on!  This guy needs to spend more time paying attention to the reasons for these kinds of behavior, and understanding the motivations and needs of his workers instead of shutting them down everytime they show a reaction to stress.

They are adept at using emotional tirades which often include crocodile tears, blameshifting, little lies, half truths and other trite manipulations
Again, I don't think he's listening to his employees to understand their frustration.  I am one who has been known to cry in front of my boss once or twice in the past.  It's not manipulation; I'm just a sensitive person and sometimes I can't hold the tears back (and believe me I'm trying)!  And I'll tell you that there have been times in the past when I have resorted to things like blameshifting, little lies, half truths because I had tried being open and honest with my boss previously and the result was always the same: I get yelled at, blamed, punished, whatever because mistakes are unacceptable.  I'm happy to take responsibility for my mistakes.  But I'm not okay with angry inferences about my abilities or attitude as a result of my mistakes.  Just admit that you're human, I'm human, we're going to make mistakes, and when it happens we'll work through it to fix it, and examine options for preventing it in the future.  Is that so hard?

Real leaders don’t play favorites, don’t get involved in drama, and they certainly don’t tolerate manipulative, self-serving behavior."
I actually agree with this statement (outside of the wording "real leaders" which I think implies judgement against the "weak" referenced earlier in the paragraph), but I can't agree with it completely in the context of this paragraph.  It seems to imply to me that this leadership characteristic is expected to be applied quite often in the workplace, rather than on the rare occasion.


I was shocked that no commentators made any mention of these things at the end of the article.  Of course, his article doesn't exactly wreak with openness to disagreement or criticism. 

What do you think?  Do you agree with him?  Is there something I'm missing?  Am I irked about this simply because I am one of these manipulators he describes?

Unlimited Vacation for Full-Time Employees?

http://www.fastcompany.com/1823415/why-unlimited-vacation-policies-ensure-productivity?partner=rss

I have mixed feelings about this article.  Trust your employees to manage their vacation time?  Awesome.  Communicate to your employees that they need to be sure to "recharge their batteries" and avoid burnout?  Awesome.  Promote a work smarter, not harder atmosphere - as long as the job is done, take all the vacation you want?  Awesome.

I just want to point out that this only works if these messages are actually communicated and supported by management.  I had a job once that had a similar policy - as long as the job is done, I trust you to take time off when you need it.  Unfortunately, in this case, the expectations of "getting the job done" were ever increasing.  Whenever the job appeared to be coming to a close and some vacation time could be taken, the expectations increased and suddenly you couldn't take the time off because your "additional" responsibilities were now in need of attention.  So I think Management upholding their ethics and not using this as an excuse to talk employees out of vacation are essential to this type of policy working to it's full extent.  In which case, I think it's fantastic.

The other potential pitfall is that we simply live in a country of workaholics.  We are taught to work, work, work, at the expense of all else because that's how success is achieved.  If you are a person who is willing to sacrifice everything for success, than this is a great mantra, and I say go for it.  But I think it's very important for employees with families, hobbies, other responsibilities to be encouraged to put the phone and email aside during vacation.  Sometimes we just need a break.  A chance to be with family, to relax, and enjoy the daily beauties of life.  A good Manager implementing this policy will remind employees that though there may occasionally be critical issues to take care of during vacation time, be sure to actually stop working during vacation and enjoy the time off!  This has always been a struggle for me, and a lot of that is because former employers have emphasized work, work, work over taking time to "recharge the batteries".

If those two issues can be managed well (which I think simply requires an employee-centered workplace over a profit-centered workplace - knowing that an employee-centered workplace produces profits) then BRING ON THE UNLIMITED VACATION!!

Sales Article on TechCrunch.com

I found this article today while tooling around on the internet to see if others struggle with some of the sales challenges I face. 

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/05/the-excuse-department-is-closed/

I think this is a very important read for any sales professional.  Why?  Because it proves how easily and commonly this attitude prevails in Executive Management.  This article basically proves exactly why the guy behind the desk should not be managing and directing the sales team and their quotas.  It's so easy to say these kinds of things when you're not on the front lines.

I personally have experienced this quite a bit in my sales positions, much to my frustration.  I always imagine there exists a company out there that trusts its sales team and the feedback they provide... maybe someday.  This is where my desire to pursue a degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology comes in; I think the business world needs a serious slap in the face when it comes to the way that they manage their sales force.

Be sure to read the comments.  There are a couple of CEO's right on target there that bring some light and real-life experience to a naive and un-researched article.

What do you think?

Creativity Gone Wrong

I saw this sign today, and I just had to share it.  It was the store name for a bakery, displayed prominantly over the door: "Nothing Bundt Cakes".

Now, I definitely have very specific opinions when it comes to creativity, and what ideas are good and which ones are bad and I'm sure the person who thought this up felt pretty clever.  Lord knows I've come up with some pretty stupid ideas in the past that I felt deserved a whole lot more attention and validation than they merited... but there are three distinct reasons why I'm particular annoyed by this one:

1) I generally vote against almost any sign/slogan/ad/title that uses a pun.  With a few exceptions, and usually the exceptions are in the form of a commercial where the stupidness of the pun is sort of assumed by the surrounding context.  In this case, the pun isn't just the slogan, it's the store name!  I just wonder what kind of cheesy people run a place with a name like that?


2) The purpose of a pun is to mix words together that can mean two different things.  For example, if I made a comment in this post like "this store really 'takes the cake'", it would be funny (to some other than me because I hate puns) because 'takes the cake' can mean taking an actual piece of cake (which is one of the main ideas of the post) or a phrase intended as a complement towards the subject of the statement.  Well, "Nothing Bundt Cakes" thus should have two meanings, the obvious one is the play on "Nothing But Cakes", which makes tons of sense, and the other is "Nothing Bundt Cakes" which means....what??  Bundt cakes made out of nothing?  That makes it sound like the bundt cakes suck!

3) The store obviously served more than just bundt cakes.  But, personally, I've never had a friggin bundt cake that I liked, so I'm not going to step a single foot into that bakery.  Especially since the the title "Nothing Bundt Cakes" implies that they sell nothing but bundt cakes!

Anyways, my expressed frustration here is supposed to be jovial, so it's not like I'm going to lose sleep over this, but sometimes I think "if they'd just consulted a marketing person for 5 minutes they could've avoided such a silly idea!".  Hahaha.  Maybe the fact that it's silly will get them the attention they need to boost their business?  You never know...

Ideas for Sales Consulting

I've been thinking a lot lately about various skills and services I could offer to companies as a consultant.  At heart, I'm very much a free spirit, and I think someday that will ideally translate into being a contractor or consultant, rather than being employed by a company.  I like the idea of having the freedom of having full control over my schedule and my destiny, and I also like the variety something like that could offer.


So, one of my thoughts piggy-backs a bit off my first two posts, which have to do with Organizational Management and dealing with Sales Managers and Sales Reps.  Throughout my sales career so far, I've seen a lot of instances where there is a breakdown of communication between Management and the Sales Reps.  Not that the Sales Reps aren't understanding the communication from a literal perspective (although sometimes this is the case as well), but more that they are misunderstanding the tone and intention behind the communication.  Or in a worst case scenario, the tone and communication intended simply isn't meant to provide positive motivation.


Having been a Manager once or twice in my career, I see how easily this can happen.  You provide instruction and direction to your team, in what you feel is a positive but firm way, but what is received is a more negative, unsupportive (or even frustrated) version of the words that were delivered.  I see it even more acutely from the perspective of a Sales Rep.  There have been so many times when support, confidence, and loyalty were what I needed most, and Management instead delivered a swift kick in the butt.  Or when Management continually delivered swift kicks in the butt as a means to motivate our team, when they did nothing more than demoralize and depress us. 

Of course, the last thing the Sales Reps are going to do is approach Management about their flawed, or ineffective management style.  And I'm not sure it would be useful for them to do so anyways.  Wouldn't it be nice for there to be an advocate available to analyze this situation and make some suggestions for improvement?

What do you think?  This Sales Consultant (advocate) would need to have some additional skills beyond your typical strategy-focused Consultant.  Like the ability to get people to talk about more personal issues with their work that they otherwise would be uncomfortable divulging to a stranger, or the ability to be able to explain sensitive issues to Management, or skills in mediation.  I think the idea would be to keep it low-conflict, never isolate any one person (Sales Rep or Management), but simply to communicate the overall tone of the top-to-bottom communications and how to improve them.  Would you hire someone to do this within your organization?