Working through Conflict

Conflict can either break people and teams apart, or it can bring productivity and innovative solutions to move forward.

The types of conflict that break people and teams apart are the interpersonal conflicts that occur. However, cognitive conflict is the disagreement about approaches and ideas. If the team recognizes and understands the types of conflict, it can be a resource to nurture productivity.

Building teams and building trust

The most constructive ways to deal with conflict is to use great communication skills, and connect with others to build trust and stronger relationships. By paraphrasing and asking questions, the issues stay separated from the person.

Communication skills

Shelee King George & me 2010
I once heard Shelee King George explain communication skills in an analogy of a phone call and call waiting:
When we are listeners, we have three inhibitors that get in the way, so we need to put them on call waiting:
1) Autobiographical Listener (the ME TOO listener), who is constantly thinking of their own story, while it would be better to focus on the other person;

2) Solution Listener (the Mr./Mrs. Fix It Person), who offers solutions, however it would be better to paraphrase first then ask questions;

3) Inquisitive Listener (has personal questions that are unrelated to the topic), this person is easily distracted, therefore needs to work on focusing on the message of the other person.

Get Adobe Flash player

Shelee then reminded me that paraphrasing serves two purposes: 
  1. For myself, to clarify and summarize in my head what I heard, then usually clarifying questions follow.
  2. Paraphrase for the speaker, to help the speaker summarize his/her thoughts. This is followed by probing questions for the speaker to help shift the conversation to where I want it to go, or to move it on.

We often fall into one of the three categories, so it's important to know which one is my own inhibitor, and to work towards being a better listener and communicator. By working on these skills, it helps foster trust, clarity, and it can keep differences in opinions focused on the issues rather than becoming interpersonal conflicts that separates teams. 

I'd like to hear from you:
  • How do you build trust and build your team?
  • How do you identify the types of conflict? 
  • How do you turn conflict into productivity?
The word cloud was created on Tagul, with the descriptions from my Year 1 Collaboration Coaches on how to build a team.

Comments

  1. Jon_CastelhanoApril 3, 2012 at 4:26 PM

    Building trust and team takes time and is something that only takes one little situation to break down. John Maxwell says that building trust first takes a leader with self-confidence, then build trust by being respectful, dependable, and speak truthfully. Being consistent with all of the above is very important in my opinion with building relationships that can form a strong team. When trust is earned between team members, working through conflicts can make the team stronger as you stated. If trust is lost, conflict can break down the team and re-building can be difficult, but not impossible. Keep the lines of communication open and remember that trust will need to be earned again. Great post Tracy, enjoyed it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tracy WatanabeApril 3, 2012 at 5:17 PM

      Thanks JC, for the encouragement and insightful comment. That is so true about it taking time to build trust and the relationship, but it only takes one thing to break it down. I do appreciate your reminder of rebuilding the relationship being possible.

      Regards,
      T

      Delete

Post a Comment

Directions for posting:

1) Choose "Comment As" first. If you don't have a Google/Blogger account, you can choose Name/URL and type in your name, then place the web site that best describes you in the URL (i.e. www.ajusd.org). Or, you can choose "Anonymous".

2) You may need to press "Post Comment" more than one time.

It is always wise to copy your comment before pressing "Post Comment" just in case something happens.

3) Type in the word verification.

4) If you did everything correctly, it will state, "Your comment has been saved and will be visible after blog owner approval." If you do not get that message, please try again.

Click here for a tutorial on how to comment.

Thank you!

Popular posts from this blog

Quality Blogging and Commenting Audit Meme

Image
Silvia Tolisano (@langwitches) challenges us in a meme to audit blogs and comments to raise awareness of quality blogging. I'm honored that both Kathleen Morris and Sheri Edwards tagged me in this meme. Here is Silvia's meme challenge : Select a blog post or blog comment to audit (Professional or Student) Take a screenshot or copy and paste the post or comment into your blog post (be sensitive whether you want to reveal any names or references) Include or link to the rubric you use to assess the quality of post or comment Audit the post or comment by describing your train of thought regarding the level of quality you would assess your chosen post or comment Suggest how you would coach the author of audited post or comment to improve Tag (at least) three educators and challenge them to audit a post or comment Leave a comment with the link to your audit post on Langwitches Quality blog posts I created a few variations of checklists as guides for qu
Read more

Striving for Higher-Order Thinking and Depth of Knowledge

Image
A little over a year ago, I read Higher-order thinking is the exception rather than the norm for most classrooms on Scott McLeod's blog, Dangerously Irrelevant , and have been mulling it over, wondering if our school district is any different. Over the past year, our teachers periodically collect data with their teams on the types of questions/tasks they ask students. One teacher records teacher questions and the other records student responses on a shared Google Doc ; then teams sort through their own data, plotting teacher questions by Bloom's Revised Taxonomy , and student responses to those questions/tasks with Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK) . The 2012-2013 data showed we were not very different from other districts; therefore, our teams set their own goals for higher-order thinking and depth of knowledge. The data so far for the 2013-2014 school year shows questions asked of students are up and down the Bloom's ladder, equally distributed (with a little
Read more

Craft and Structure, Deeper Thinking, and Tech Integration

Image
What type of thinking does the Common Core ask of students when it comes to Craft and Structure? Analysis. Analyzing the author's craft and structure is a shift for students to do, and a shift for teachers to design tasks and questions that require analysis.  This is the critical thinking we want students to engage in. Shifts The big shift in this is the analysis. What does that look like at the elementary level? How do you teach Craft and Structure? There are many ways to teach craft and structure . Make sure students are analyzing the text , not just identifying the answers . Craft structure close read questions from tracywatanabe Every spring, our school district uses Title IIa funds to pay teachers to attend training. This year, our Spring Academy focuses on various aspects of Common Core... and teaching Craft and Structure is one of the sessions. I was charged with creating a training module for the K-6 sessions. Training Document:
Read more