• Moving from Conflict to Collaboration
• Making the Most of Team Differences
• Raising Difficult Issues With Your Team
• Handling Emotions Under Pressure
• Resolving Conflict
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Moving from Conflict To Collaboration

Overview:

Changes in the workplace are placing new emphasis on the importance of effective collaboration. Organizations are expecting employees at all levels to work together, often across functions, to make decisions that were formerly the exclusive responsibility of management. This type of collaboration can bring out new potentials for conflict, thus creating a need for employees at every level of an organization to have the skills to deal successfully with conflict. This unit gives participants the skills they need to turn conflicts into opportunities to achieve positive, productive results.

Objectives:

• Explain influences that are contributing to conflict in today's organizations.
• Identify behavior patterns that under¬mine the ability to address conflict constructively.
• Describe productive methods of dealing with these undermining behaviors.
• Distinguish between positions taken in a conflict and the underlying issues.
• Use the Key Actions to address conflict facing them on the job.

Class Length:

4 hours
By AG

Making the Most of Team Differences

Overview:

Interpersonal tension and differences of opinion often impede the progress of a team. In this unit, team leaders learn how to deal with these differences constructively.

Participants begin by analyzing the differences and similarities that exist within their own teams and then explore how those differences affect team performance. Leaders learn and practice intervention techniques designed to help keep the team on track when differences impede progress.

Objectives:

• Analyze the differences and similarities in teams and find ways to make the most of those differences and similarities.
• Identify when team differences become disruptive and warrant intervention.
• Demonstrate how to use the Key Actions to help the team work through differences.

Class Length:

4 hours
By AG

Raising Difficult Issues With Your Team

Overview:

A crucial team skill is knowing how to manage issues that impede the team's ability to accomplish its mission and goals. Some of these issues are difficult to manage, especially those that arise out of another team member's actions, but they still have to be addressed sensitively and honestly in order for the team to move forward.

This unit helps participants deal with these difficult situations in a way that will build trust and strengthen the ability to work together as a team.

Objectives:

• Identify sources of tension that can affect the team's performance.
• Explain how the trust level among team members affects their willingness to bring up difficult issues with the team.
• Describe specific actions team members can take to help build trust among team members.
• Demonstrate how to use the Key Actions to manage difficult issues with the team.

Class Length:

4 hours
By AG

Handling Emotions Under Pressure

Overview:

In today’s high-pressure work environment, emotions are bound to erupt. The challenges are to prevent them from building to the point where they inhibit rational and productive interactions, and to transform them from negative outbursts into positive opportunities for solving problems.

An emotional outbreak is often a cue that a problem is affecting an employee’s ability to work effectively. When others are able to deal with the emotion and move the discussion forward, a solution is more likely to occur.

This unit gives participants a process for handling the emotions in daily work situations. They learn to remain calm and objective, to recover quickly and to help others do the same, and to take charge in difficult circumstances to keep the discussion moving forward.

Objectives:

• Explain why emotions are normal, and can even be helpful, in work situations.
• Identify situations in which emotional behavior is inhibiting productive discussion.
• Explain why the ability to maintain composure at work, or to regain it quickly, is an important skill.
• Identify ways to manage their own reactions to the emotional behavior of others.
• Use appropriate techniques to diffuse emotional behavior when it hinders progress in a work discussion.

Class Length:

4 hours
By AG

Resolving Conflict

Overview:

Differences of opinion can quickly escalate into an out-and-out battle. In the workplace, it's the leader's role to recognize the signs of conflict, and then to quickly choose the appropriate level of involvement to help resolve the issue.

This course teaches leaders how to recognize that a conflict is escalating and minimize damage by using the most appropriate resolution tactic-regardless of which stage a conflict is in. Leaders also learn the true cost of conflict to an organization, and techniques for handling even the most challenging conflict-related discussions effectively.

Objectives:

• Effectively resolve workplace conflict and enhance productivity, efficiency, and morale.
• Help others take responsibility for resolving workplace conflict.
• Reduce the negative effects of workplace conflict on individuals, groups, and the organization.

Class Length:

3 hours, 20 minutes
By DDI

MBTI® (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®)

Overview:

One of the single biggest issues any organization faces when trying to implement a team environment is dealing with differences in personality. By understanding differences we can overcome them.

Objectives:

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® is a popular tool used to help individuals identify and understand normal personality differences. Understanding personality differences can help reduce unproductive interpersonal and internal organizational conflict. Teams and departmental units have found the MBTI® helpful in assessing strengths, motivations, and blind spots of their group in a non-judgmental way. In this training we look at personality preferences on four scales: extroversion vs. introversion; sensing vs. intuition; thinking vs. feeling; and judging vs. perceiving. We identify basic personality patterns explaining how we get our energy, gather information, make decisions, and structure our lifestyles. By becoming more aware of our own preferences we identify ways to improve our relationships and interactions with others.

Class Length:

3 hours.
By DMACC

For more information or to register for a class contact Bonnie Slykhuis via email or 515-965-7011.