I was putting my kayak on the car the other day and mosquitoes, now in full season here in northern New England, kept distracting me from my task.

Tighten one strap, slap at the mosquitoes. Start attaching the other strap, slap, slap. They’re large enough here to have landing lights, so ignoring them is out of the question.

I finally stopped what I was doing, walked into the garage, applied bug repellent, then returned to my task. The 30 seconds it took to apply the bug repellent allowed me to focus my attention on the task at hand, and gave me some relief from the infuriating whine in my ears.

Happily paddling across a lake 30 minutes later, I mused about those mosquitoes. [Read more...]

The setting is Manitoba, Canada. The photographer is renowned wildlife photographer Norbert Rosling. The central characters are a husky sled dog and a wild polar bear, who approaches the chained husky from the tundra. Their exchange extended for more than twenty minutes.

As you watch, consider this: When someone with whom you’re experiencing tension approaches you, what do you signal, consciously or otherwise? [Read more...]

Good mediators and coaches know the power of a simple, elegant question, asked at the right time. Such questions can help unlock a conflict that’s been stuck, transform the impossible into the possible, and shine new light on problem-solving.

So I was intrigued when Chris Bailey tagged me in the Think Different Challenge, a meme working its way around the blogosphere. I rarely participate in memes because I find most of them aren’t relevant to what I write about here, but I think this one is relevant. [Read more...]

In 1896, George Stratton chose to wear a pair of eyeglasses that inverted the world. Everything looked upside down.

Imagine his first few days, trying to navigate an upside-down world. I’m guessing it might have been akin to the way we feel when thrown off balance in a conflict situation: More than a few stumbles and tumbles.

After a few days, [Read more...]

The Conflict Resolution Articles Vault is a regular dip into the archives from about a year ago:

Creating Engaged Employees shares some Gallup research on the merits of true employee engagement for the health and success of organizations.

How to Handle Difficult People turns the “managing difficult people” approach to conflict resolution on its head…and deservedly so. [Read more...]

If you’re a design professional, you may already subscribe to HOW Magazine, the graphic design community’s trusted source for creative inspiration, business advice, and tools of the trade.

Is the December 2007 issue sitting in your reading pile? Pull it on out and turn to page 85! That’s where you’ll find Mastering Difficult Conversations, for which I was interviewed by author Susan Murphy. The article offers tips for smart communications in six sticky workplace scenarios: [Read more...]

My monthly roundups are links to ideas and articles that help make relationships stronger, workplaces more dynamic, conversations more collaborative, and conflict more constructive:

Slacker Manager has a lovely post on the importance of approaching feedback with the right intention, reminding us that feedback isn’t necessarily positive or negative…it just is: There Is No Such Thing as Positive or Negative Feedback. For a bit more on feedback, [Read more...]

Team-building and workplace communications training is all the rage. Because part of my work is training, and I’m known for creating robust dialogue in workplace groups, it’s not unusual for me to receive such inquiries. And it turns out that sometimes, team-building is just a form of conflict avoidance.

My first question when I get these calls is, “Why do you want your workplace team to have communications training (or team-building)?” This question often meets with a little laugh, as though the answer should be obvious. [Read more...]

Delaney Kirk has tagged me in a book meme. The obvious choice was to share conflict resolution books. But I took a different path.

I decided to bring together two strands of my life: my love of literature (I was a lit major in college, with a specialty in the 20th century novel, and remain an avid fiction reader) and my interest in the human condition as it relates to conflict. Here’s my contribution to the meme: [Read more...]

Copyright © 2007 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.

Phil Gerbyshak extended me a kind and generous offer: To guest blog over at his place, Make It Great!

I invite you to check out my post Shift Your Thinking About Conflict. Here’s a taste: [Read more...]

Are you as turned off by whining as I am? Whining is very external locus of control and I’m an internal locus of control kind of gal.

If you whine to me, I cringe inwardly. If you share a complaint and ideas for improvement, I’m all ears.

Joseph Braun, Professor Emeritus at Illinois State University, apparently has some issues with whining, too. But he’s gone well beyond inward cringing and has elevated whining to an art form.

In his Scoring Guide for Whining, Braun proposes that whines can be scored on a 6-point scale, with consideration for purpose, audience, and quality. His scoring rubric includes such gems as: [Read more...]

The Conflict Resolution Articles Vault is a monthly feature that dips into the archives and shares still-relevant articles from one year ago:

How to Win an Argument, Part 1: A story that’ll feel familiar to most of you.

Giving Advice Is a Problem-Solving Crutch: Why a common problem-solving approach [Read more...]

Conflict at work or home isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Better decisions, greater creativity and stronger relationships come from sorting through differences of opinion and perspective.

But poorly handled or ineffectively resolved conflict, on the other hand, is a problem. Just ask your heart.

I’ve mentioned prior research connecting heart health to conflict (see, for example, Hearts Hurt When Spouses Spat). Now two studies in the news offer insights on conflict and stress on both the home and work fronts. [Read more...]

My monthly roundups are links to ideas and articles that help make relationships stronger, workplaces more dynamic, conversations more collaborative, and conflict more constructive:

Do you wish you could get a little more detachment from taking things personally on occasion? Check out Christine Kane’s How to NOT Take Things Personally: A Practical Guide. And while you’re on Christine’s site, check out her tour schedule…her concerts are as engaging, warm and smart as her blog. [Read more...]

Many of you already know that today is Blog Action Day. Bloggers all over the world are uniting to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind: The environment.

My contribution to the day is a one-page tip-sheet for distinguishing dialogue from debate. I’ve created it for people like you and me who have strong convictions about certain issues—like the environment. People who advocate for and want to influence others’ thinking about and action on those issues. People who value dialogue as a way of building shared understanding and creating opportunities for significant social change. [Read more...]

Robyn McMaster of Brain Based Biz has posted a good resource article on workplace bullying. In Stop Abuse: Bullying in the Workplace, Robyn’s compiled the thinking of a number of professionals who’ve written on the topic, and if you’re a manager or in HR, the article is well worth your read.

I want to add a note of caution about the article’s list of behaviors that bullies may employ: [Read more...]

Sitting in a faculty meeting last week, I realized I’d just been transported unwittingly to Abilene.

Abilene, Texas, that is.

Abilene in and of itself may be a fine place to visit (I’ve never been). But this particular type of trip to Abilene is one worth avoiding. It’s a form of groupthink known as the Abilene Paradox, made famous in The Abilene Paradox and Other Mediations on Management, a wonderful little late 1980s book by management professor Jerry Harvey. The gist of the story is this, as re-told in Wikipedia: [Read more...]

One of my recent conflict resolution workshop participants raised his hand. “How do you know when it’s worth raising an issue and when it would be better to let it go?”

Well that’s sure the $64,000 question! (I’m probably dating myself with that one, eh?)

In the workshop, I showed folks how to figure it out for themselves, each time that good question comes up in a conflict situation or other problem. Since I don’t have all of you in a workshop, here are some guiding questions I offer my conflict coaching clients and training participants: [Read more...]

The Conflict Resolution Articles Vault is a monthly feature that dips into the archives and shares still-relevant articles from one year ago:

Channeling Elaine: How Seinfeld Helped Me Apologize: Who knew that an episode of Seinfeld would come to my rescue?

5 Simple Ways to Keep Your Cool in Conflict: A few simple, do-able ways to help you manage your frustration during conflict.

Arguments, Conflict and Negotiations: Picking Your Battles: How a pair of red Converse All-Stars almost broke my heart but instead [Read more...]

Copyright © 2007 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.

A reader has asked me what makes dialogue “genuine,” a question prompted by my tagline, “Jump-start genuine dialogue.”

When I’m coaching a workplace team or a couple in the creation of genuine dialogue around change, conflict or key decisions to be made, I use these criteria for assessing the quality of dialogue: [Read more...]

“Is it true that if a student’s roommate dies, the surviving roommate gets automatic A’s for the semester?” When I was a college dean, a fall term rarely passed without a first-year student asking me that question.

Persistent rumors, urban legends and myths find lives of their own in the workplace, too. The conventional response? Counter the incorrect, bad or troubling information with accurate, good or upbeat information.

Unfortunately, research suggests that denials, clarifications and counter-information may have paradoxical consequences: greater resiliency of the myth. [Read more...]

My monthly roundups are links to ideas and articles that help make relationships stronger, workplaces more dynamic, conversations more collaborative, and conflict more constructive:

Do you have a “diamond in the rough” in your organization, someone whose potential is there even though they make some blunders? For some ideas about helping unleash employee potential, check out When Leading Change, Don’t Manage Time: Invest it in People.

For a great tip on organizational communication, [Read more...]

I’m contributing this week and next over at Notes on Design, offering up a 6-part series called Dialogue Jump-Start: 5 Tips for Difficult Conversations with Clients.

The first post went up today and I hope you’ll drop by Sessions School of Design’s blog to say hello, check out their other terrific content (but fair warning: I got lost in there for over an hour on my first visit, reading through all the compelling topics and tips), and join in the conversation.

To whet your curiosity, here’s what’s on tap: [Read more...]