Welcome to the January 16, 2008 issue of The Total View

Published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Visit our Human Resources Blog and Perfect Labor Storm Blog where we can post daily (and more often) human resource updates, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts. 

What's Inside this issue of The TotalView:

1. Conflict is good!  Avoidance is bad.

    Effective teams focus on collaboration, not harmony

"We'd like to talk to you about doing some teambuilding for us," Bill tells me over the phone. Bill just searched the Internet and landed on our site. Bill's phone call is just one of several phone calls or emails I receive each month asking about teambuilding workshops or hiring people who are good team players.

I used to jump at these business opportunities, taking the manager's interest at face value. Fortunately I've learned quite a few things over the years.

The outcomes of these engagements, after checking back with the managers a few months after the trainings, rarely measured up to the manager's expectations. "Nothing really changed," was a comment I heard a lot. These disappointing results were a bit surprising because the participant evaluations generally rated our sessions as excellent or exceeding expectations. How could such a good participant response end up with such poor results?

It took me a while but I finally figured it out. Reflecting back, I can't recall a single time when a manager called me to do a team building exercise when everything was working well. I can't blame them - when employees are getting the results you want with few disruptions why invest time and money in team building. (I don't necessarily agree with that comment but a discussion around that viewpoint will have to wait for another day.)

Why a manager really picks up the phone is frustration. "I'm just wondering if you can really make two people like each other" are words heard at some point during the conversation. In other words, he's asking me to "fix" some employee or mediate some dispute.

The catalyst therefore for initiating this "team building" call is most often a last ditch effort by the manager to deal with some raging conflict between co-workers or departments. Scheduling a team building workshop is just a veiled attempt to camouflage conflict and avoid singling out one or more disruptive employees. I think this falls under the same thought process of the parent who won't let schools educate kids about illegal drugs and sex - if we don't talk about it then it can't really happen here. In effect these managers attempt to address conflicts by avoiding dealing with it head on. Ironically, the avoidance of dealing with conflict is likely the reason the conflicts exist in the first place.

(On other occasions the proposed training is an attempt to help "motivate" an underperforming or disruptive employee. In those cases, team building is rarely the answer. Coaching, training, or counseling are more effective solutions when individual performance needs to be improved. But that's another story for another day.)

Mention conflict to most people and they think four-letter word. They tighten up. "It's not that bad," a manager will say. "It's just that our team is not getting along as well as we should."

Conflict erroneously implies negativity. People commonly think anger, tension, threats, pain, stress, competition, hostility and violence when asked to describe how they feel about conflict. Many people feel that harmony is normal and conflict is abnormal. They believe conflict management requires everyone to be polite and the process orderly. People who speak up, challenge traditions, and propose change are often viewed as disruptive and poor team players.

These so-called disruptive behaviors in reality might be the very stimulus that the business needs or the voice that needs to be heard. Unfortunately very few people know how to respond positively to conflict, so conflict becomes a win-lose event.

Next Week: Collaboration:the positive outcome of conflict management.

For more information about building collaborative teams or hiring collaborative employees, call us at 800.803.4303 or 717.291.4640.

Read Part 2: Collaboration is a positive outcome of conflict. 

Read Part 3: Collaboration: What's in it for business?

Read Part 4: The Millennials - The most collaborative generation ever?

2. Perfect Labor Storm Warnings   

Every day I receive dozens of stories highlighting

another shortage of workers. Each week I'll post

one or two of the more interesting ones.  This week's

post is:

The construction industry will need an average of 185,000 new workers annually for the next 10 years to meet the nearly equal growth and replacement needs, according to a labor supply outlook released in January 2007 by the Construction Labor Research Council (CLRC)
The greatest demand in the next 10 years by craft will be for

• electricians, with an average of 22,400 annual new entrants needed,
  
• carpenters (22,000 needed), and
  
• laborers (20,100 needed).
  

"An actual shortage of bodies is highly unlikely," CLRC said of the future workforce. As has been typical in construction, there often is "a mismatch between skills available and skills required."

Read more about skilled worker shortages in the NEW Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 (soft and hard cover versions)

Now on Sale!  Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 (soft and hard cover versions)  

Order today and save 25%.

NEW Chapters!  Generational Conflicts in the Workplace, Managing the Future Workforce, Attracting Young Employees in a Seller's Job Market plus hundreds of new facts, trends and stats.

View Table of Contents  

Save 25% off retail by ordering now.

Hard Cover: $29.99         Soft Cover: $19.99  

Your Price: $22.49           Your Price: $14.99

To order Perfect Labor Storm 2.0, call 800.803.4303.  Discounts for orders of 10 or more.  Specify hard or soft cover.

3. Sales Personality and Skill Tests

    Pre-Employment and Development Assessments

What makes top performing salespeople tick?  Recent validation studies and thousands of empirical experiences prove that behavioral styles and personality traits give managers a leg up in hiring salespeople who can meet and exceed expectations. Success Performance Solutions offers sales personality and skill tests to screen, hire and develop high potential salespeople from the hourly retail associate to global account managers and sales managers.

More about Sales and Sales Management Tests

4. NEW! Clues Team Report Added  

    Unlimited 12-Month Use for as little as $1250!

Try JobClues ... a state-of-the-art, fast, affordable assessment tool guaranteed to help you make smarter, more informed hiring decisions.

Take the test yourself ... you'll be amazed at the accuracy of the assessment results ... and you'll immediately see how this tool will give you keen insights into a candidate's abilities and "fit" for the job you want to fill.

New Report added - the Clues Team Report at no additional charge!

For a FREE JobClues report, click here or call toll-free at 800-803-4303 about our special unlimited use pricing.

5. Speaking Schedule: Ira S Wolfe

2008:

January 21 - Institute of Management Consultants (Dallas, TX) - Workforce Trends That Change The Way You Will Do Business

January 22 - Optimance (Dallas, TX) - Workforce Trends That Change The Way You Will Do Business

March 4 - Hiring Right is Not Kid's Play: Fitting the Right Pegs in the Right Holes Business Solutions "On the Road"  Harrisburg Regional Chamber.  Location TBA

March 6 - National Human Resource Association, Pasadena, CA.  Breakfast Keynote: Perfect Labor Storm 2.0

May 16 - Sovereign Benefits Solutions HR Conference, Hershey PA

October 2008(tentative) - American Staffing Association Annual Meeting - Workforce Trends That Change The Way You Will Do Business  

Call 717.291.4640 to schedule Ira for your next meeting or conference.

8. Quotes from Hire Authorities

"There is little difference in people, but the little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative."

Clement Stone

Permission is granted to consultants, managers, business owners and HR professionals to reproduce content from this newsletter for your internal publications, or to distribute copies to your workforce, on the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2008 Ira S Wolfe."  We also hope you will forward the newsletter in its entirety and recommend to others that they subscribe.

Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission