Prioritization is the essential skill you need to make the very best use of your own efforts and those of your team.
It is particularly important when time is limited and demands are seemingly unlimited. It helps you to allocate your time where it is most-needed and most wisely spent, freeing you and your team up from less important tasks that can be attended to later. or quietly dropped.
With good prioritization (and careful management of deprioritized tasks) you can bring order to chaos, massively reduce stress, and move towards a successful conclusion. Without it, you'll flounder around, drowning in competing demands.
Simple Prioritization
At a simple level, you can prioritize based on time constraints, on the potential profitability or benefit of the task you're facing, or on the pressure you're under to complete a job:
Prioritization based on project value or profitability is probably the most commonly-used and rational basis for prioritization. Whether this is based on a subjective guess at value or a sophisticated financial evaluation, it often gives the most efficient results.
Time constraints are important where other people are depending on you to complete a task, and particularly where this task is on the critical path of an important project. Here, a small amount of your own effort can go a very long way.
And it's a brave (and maybe foolish) person who resists his or her boss's pressure to complete a task, when that pressure is reasonable and legitimate.
Prioritization Tools
While these simple approaches to prioritization suit many situations, there are plenty of special cases where you'll need other prioritization and time management tools if you're going to be truly effective. We look at some of these below:
While these simple approaches to prioritization suit many situations, there are plenty of special cases where you'll need other tools if you're going to be truly effective. We look at some of these below:
1.Paired Comparison Analysis: Paired Comparison Analysis is most useful where decision criteria are vague, subjective or inconsistent. It helps you prioritize options by asking you to compare each item on a list with all other items on the list individually. By deciding in each case which of the two is most important, you can consolidate results to get a prioritized list.
Grid Analysis: Grid Analysis helps you prioritize a list of tasks where you need to take many different factors into consideration.
The Action Priority Matrix: This quick and simple diagramming technique asks you to plot the value of the task against the effort it will consume.
By doing this you can quickly spot the "quick wins" which will give you the greatest rewards in the shortest possible time, and avoid the "hard slogs" which soak up time for little eventual reward. This is an ingenious approach for making highly efficient prioritization decisions.
The Urgent/Important Matrix: Similar to the Action Priority Matrix, this technique asks you to think about whether tasks are urgent or important.
Frequently, seemingly urgent tasks actually aren't that important. And often, really important activities (like working towards your life goals) just aren't that urgent. This approach helps you cut through this.
The Ansoff & Boston Matrices: These give you quick "rules of thumb" for prioritizing the opportunities open to you.
The Ansoff Matrix helps you evaluate and prioritize opportunities by risk. The Boston Matrix does a similar job, helping you prioritize opportunities based on the attractiveness of a market and your ability to take advantage of it.
Pareto Analysis: Where you're facing a flurry of problems needing to be solved, Pareto Analysis helps you identify the most important changes to make.
It firstly asks you to group together the different types of problem you face, and then asks you to count the number of cases of each type of problem. By prioritizing the most common type of problem, you can focus your efforts on resolving it. This clears time to focus on the next set of problems, and so on.
Nominal Group Technique: Nominal Group Technique is a useful technique for prioritizing issues and projects within a group, giving everyone fair input into the prioritization process. This is particularly useful where consensus is important, and where a robust group decision needs to be made.
Using this tool, each group participant "nominates" his or her priority issues, and then ranks them on a scale, of say 1 to 10. The score for each issue is then added up, with issues then prioritized based on scores. The obvious fairness of this approach makes it particularly useful where prioritization is based on subjective criteria, and where people's "buy in" to the prioritization decision is needed.
You are probably familiar with the idea of "To-Do Lists."
To-Do Lists are great for managing a small number of tasks. The problem is that, for most of us, our To-Do List is not really a planned, focused action list. Rather, it is a sort of a catch-all for a lot of things that are unresolved and not yet translated into outcomes.
Specific entries, such as "Call Tina," exist along with vaguer aspirations, such as "Get started on house painting project." Often, the real actionable details of what the list-maker has "to do" are actually missing. (Take, for instance, the house painting project: more precise entries would be choose color scheme, buy paints, and so on.)
What this means is that you tend to do the specific tasks, and fail to make progress with the big, important projects. And even if you do get beyond the quick actions, having a complete project as a "to do" can lead you to focus all of your attention on it. This makes multi-tasking difficult.
This can be a serious problem in a job where you need to make progress on many different projects at the same time - and this is exactly the situation most senior managers find themselves in.
This is where Action Programs are useful. Action Programs are "industrial strength" versions of To-Do Lists.
Because they incorporate short-, medium- and long-term goals, they allow you to plan your time, without forgotten commitments coming in to blow your schedule apart. Because priorities are properly thought through, you'll be focusing on the things that matter, and not frittering your time away on low value activities. And because they support delegation, they help you get into the habit of delegating jobs where you can. All of this lets you save time - and get away on time - whilst also significantly increasing your effectiveness and productivity.
How to Use the Tool:
Follow this four-step procedure to create your Action Program:
Step 1. Collection
First, make a list inventory of all the things in your world that require resolution. Try to collect and write down everything - urgent or not, big or small, personal or professional - that you feel is incomplete and needs action from you to get completed.
To an extent, this collection is taking place automatically. E-mail requests are getting stored in your email account, memos demanding attention are being delivered to your in-tray, mail is reaching your mailbox and messages asking for action are accumulating on your voice mail.
But there is other stuff - stuff that is idling in your head, projects you want to run, things you intend to deal with lying at the bottom of the drawer, ideas written down on stray bits of paper - that need to be gathered and put in place too. Bring all of these actions and projects together and inventory them in one place.
And - this is really important - make sure that your personal goals are brought onto this list.
Tip 1: You can experience tremendous stress if you have too many mental "To Dos" floating around in your head. You never know whether you've forgotten things, and you always have that terrible feeling of not having achieved everything you want to achieve.
By writing down everything on your Action Program, you can empty your mind of these stressful reminders and make sure you prioritize these actions coherently and consistently. This has the incidental benefit of helping you improve your concentration, simply because you do not have these distractions buzzing around your mind.
Tip 2: The first time you create your Action Program, you're going to spend a while - maybe two hours - putting it together. This is the up front cost of organizing your life. However, once you've done it, you'll be amazed at how much more in control you feel. Also, it will take relatively little effort to keep your Program up-to-date after this.
Tip 3: You'll find it easiest if you keep your Action Program on your computer as a word processor document. This will make it easy to put together, update and maintain on a routine basis without a lot of tedious redrafting.
Step 2. Pruning
Now, process the list you made in step 1, by looking carefully at each item.
Decide whether you should, actually, take action on it. A lot of what comes our way has no real relevance to us, or is really not important in the scale of things. If that is the case, then delete these things from your inventory.
Step 3. Organizing and Prioritizing
This comes in three parts.
First of all, review your inventory of items. For any which are separate, individual actions that make up part of a larger project, group these individual actions together into their projects.
For example, at home, you may want to improve your bathroom, and repaint your living room: these can go into a "Home Renovation" project. At work, you may be providing input into the requirements for a new computer system, and may be expected to test and then train your team on this system at a point in the future: all of these go into a "computer system" project.
What you'll find is that once you start, items will almost seem to "organize themselves" into coherent projects.
You also need to make sure that your personal goals are included as individual projects.
Second, review these projects, and allocate a priority to them (for example, by coding them from A to F) depending on their importance. Clearly, your personal goals are exceptionally important projects!
Third, insert your projects into a formatted Action Program.
The Action Program is split up into three parts:
A "Next Action List," which shows the small next actions that you will take to move your projects forward.
A "Delegated Actions List," which shows projects and actions have delegated to other people.
A "Project Catalog" that shows all of the projects you are engaged in and the small individual tasks that you have identified so far that contribute to them.
The great news is that, by this stage, you've already created the largest part of this: the Project Catalog! This is the list of prioritized projects and activities that you've just completed.
Typically, the Project Catalog is at the back of the Action Program, as it's often only referred to during a weekly review process.
Next, create the Delegated Actions List by working through your Project Catalog, and identifying tasks that you've delegated. Record these under the name of the person who you've delegated the activity to, along with the checkpoints you've agreed.
Tip: If you haven't yet delegated anything, or you haven't yet agreed checkpoints, don't worry! What we're doing here is creating the right framework - you'll have plenty of time to use this framework properly!
Typically, the Delegated Actions List sits in front of the Project Catalog in your Action Program document, as it's referred to quite often.
Finally, create your Next Action List by working through the projects to which you've given the highest priority - the projects that you want and need to move forward on straight away - and extracting the small, logical next actions for these projects.
The Next Action List goes on the front page of your Action Program, as you'll refer to it many times a day.
Tip 1: If the Next Action is going to take less than a couple of minutes, then why not do it right away? Make sure, though, that you come back and complete your Action Program!
Tip 2: It's this selection of appropriate next actions that takes a certain amount of judgment. If one of your projects is of over-riding importance, then have several Next Actions from this project on your list, and keep other Next Actions to a bare minimum. However, if you need to keep a lot of projects "simmering away", have Next Actions from each on your list.
Tip 3: Keep your Next Actions small and achievable, ideally taking no more that a couple of hours to complete. This helps you keep momentum up on projects and strongly enhances your sense of having had a productive, successful day.
If Next Actions are larger than this, break them down. For example, if your Next Action is to write an article, break this down into research, planning, writing, fact-checking and editing phases. Then make the research phase your Next Action, and put the rest of the stages in your project catalog.
Tip 4: Where you have several Next Actions, prioritize them from A to F, depending on their importance, value, urgency and relevance to your goals.
Then monitor your success in dealing with these actions. If you find that actions are "stagnating" on your list, consider whether you should either cancel these projects, or whether you should raise their priority so that you deal with them.
Whatever you do, make sure you don't have too many actions on your Next Action List.
Tip 5: As you work through this process, ask yourself if there are any tasks that you can delegate or, if appropriate, get help with. As you identify these, put these on your Next Action List, with the action being to delegate the task.
When you've delegated the task, move it onto your Delegated Actions List, along with the checkpoint times and dates you've agreed.
Now review the Next Action List. If it is too cluttered, move some of the less urgent/important jobs back into the project catalog. If it is thin and under-challenging, pull up some more Next Actions from the Project Catalog.
Also, it makes sense to prioritize the items (for example, from A-C) in the Next Action List so you know what to focus on (it's unlikely you'll have any Actions with a priority lower than C on your Next Action List).
Step 4. "Working" Your Action Program
An Action Program is typically fairly long. But you don't have to run through the entire Program every day!
Usually, you'll only be dealing with the top page or pages. Some activities may be day-specific or time-specific. Depending of the way you work, these can be either maintained as the top page of your Action Program or marked on your calendar.
In effect, these pages are just a new form of your old To-Do List. It is just that only specific short actions are outlined here, while the major projects to which the actions belong are stored in your Project Catalog.
What you must do, however, is review your Action Program periodically, for example, every week (put time for this in your schedule). Delete or archive items you've completed, move items from the Project Catalog to the front pages as you make progress on your project, and add any new actions that have come your way.
Summary:
The Action Program is an "industrial strength" version of the To-Do List. It helps you to process the projects you want to run into actionable activities, and then manage them within a three-tier structure.
The "Next Action List" heading lists the precise, immediate actions that you need to perform to move your projects forwards.
The "Delegated Actions List" records details of the projects and actions you have delegated.
The "Project Catalog" heading lists the projects that you want to work on, along with other actions non-urgent you have gathered that will contribute to the completion of these projects.
This approach helps you maintain focus on daily jobs and long-term goals at the same time, and it means that you always have a plan for "next action" at any moment. This puts you in control, and also gives you a real sense of achievement.
More than this, this approach helps you to multi-task effectively, helping you to manage and progress many projects simultaneously. This is particularly important as you progress your career, and as the jobs you take on become increasingly complex and challenging.
Do you frequently feel overwhelmed by the amount of work you have to do? Do you face a constant barrage of looming deadlines? Or do you sometimes just forget to do something important, so that people have to chase you to get work done?
All of these are symptoms of not keeping a proper "To-Do List". To-Do Lists are prioritized lists of all the tasks that you need to carry out. They list everything that you have to do, with the most important tasks at the top of the list, and the least important tasks at the bottom.
While this sounds a simple thing to do, it's when people start to use To-Do Lists properly that they often make their first personal productivity / time management breakthrough, and start to make a real success of their careers.
By keeping a To-Do List, you make sure that you capture all of the tasks you have to complete in one place. This is essential if you're not going to forget things. And by prioritizing work, you plan the order in which you'll do things, so you can tell what needs your immediate attention, and what you can quietly forget about until much, much later. This is essential if you're going to beat work overload. Without To-Do Lists, you'll seem dizzy, unfocused and unreliable to the people around you. With To-Do Lists, you'll be much better organized, and will seem much more reliable. This is very important!
Preparing a To-Do List
To start prepare your To-Do List.
Start by writing down all of the tasks that you need to complete, and if they are large, break them down into their component elements. If these still seem large, break them down again. Do this until you have listed everything that you have to do, and until tasks are will take no more than 1-2 hours to complete. This may be a huge and intimidating list, but our next step makes it manageable!
Next, run through these jobs allocating priorities from A (very important, or very urgent) to F (unimportant, or not at all urgent). If too many tasks have a high priority, run through the list again and demote the less important ones. Once you have done this, rewrite the list in priority order.
You will then have a precise plan that you can use to eliminate the problems you face. You will be able to tackle these in order of importance or urgency. This allows you to separate important jobs from the many time-consuming trivial ones.
Tip: Once you're comfortable with use of To-Do Lists, you need to start differentiating between urgency and importance.
Using Your To-Do Lists
Different people use To-Do Lists in different ways in different situations: if you are in a sales-type role, a good way of motivating yourself is to keep your list relatively short and aim to complete it every day.
In an operational role, or if tasks are large or dependent on too many other people, then it may be better to keep one list and 'chip away' at it.
It may be that you carry unimportant jobs from one To-Do List to the next. You may not be able to complete some very low priority jobs for several months. Only worry about this if you need to – if you are running up against a deadline for them, raise their priority.
If you have not used To-Do Lists before, try them now: They are one of the keys to being really productive and efficient.
Key points:
Prioritized To-Do Lists are fundamentally important to efficient work. If you use To-Do Lists, you will ensure that:
You remember to carry out all necessary tasks
You tackle the most important jobs first, and do not waste time on trivial tasks.
You do not get stressed by a large number of unimportant jobs.
Draw up a Prioritized To-Do List and use it to list all the tasks you must carry out. Mark the importance of the task next to it, with a priority from A (very important) to F (unimportant). Redraft the list into this order of importance.
Now carry out the jobs at the top of the list first. These are the most important, most beneficial tasks to complete.
How long do you spend each day on unimportant things; Things that don't really contribute to your success at work? Do you KNOW how much time you've spent reading junk mail, talking to colleagues, making coffee and eating lunch? And how often have you thought, "I could achieve so much more if I just had another half hour each day."
And are you aware of when in the day you check your e-mail, write important articles or do your long-term planning?
Most people find they function at different levels of effectiveness at different times of day as their energy levels fluctuate. Your effectiveness may vary depending on the amount of sugar in your blood, the length of time since you last took a break, routine distractions, stress, discomfort, or a range of other factors.
Activity logs help you to analyze how you actually spend your time. The first time you use an activity log you may be shocked to see the amount of time that you waste! Memory is a very poor guide when it comes to this, as it can be too easy to forget time spent on non-core tasks.
How to Use the Tool
Keeping an Activity Log for several days helps you to understand how you spend your time, and when you perform at your best. Without modifying your behavior any further than you have to, note down the things you do as you do them. Every time you change activities, whether opening mail, working, making coffee, gossiping with colleagues or whatever, note down the time of the change.
As well as recording activities, note how you feel, whether alert, flat, tired, energetic, etc. Do this periodically throughout the day. You may decide to integrate your activity log with a stress diary.
Learning from Your Log
Once you have logged your time for a few days, analyze your daily activity log. You may be alarmed to see the amount of time you spend doing low value jobs!
You may also see that you are energetic in some parts of the day, and flat in other parts. A lot of this can depend on the rest breaks you take, the times and amounts you eat, and quality of your nutrition. The activity log gives you some basis for experimenting with these variables.
Your analysis should help you to free up extra time in your day by applying one of the following actions to most activities:
·Eliminate jobs that your employer shouldn't be paying you to do. These may include tasks that someone else in the organization should be doing, possibly at a lower pay rate, or personal activities such as sending non-work e-mails.
·Schedule your most challenging tasks for the times of day when your energy is highest. That way your work will be better and it should take you less time.
·Try to minimize the number of times a day you switch between types of task. For example, read and reply to e-mails in blocks once in the morning and once in the afternoon only.
·Reduce the amount of time spent on legitimate personal activities such as making coffee (take turns in your team to do this - it saves time and strengthens team spirit).
Key points:
Activity logs are useful tools for auditing the way that you use your time. They can also help you to track changes in your energy, alertness and effectiveness throughout the day.
By analyzing your activity log you will be able to identify and eliminate time-wasting or low-yield jobs. You will also know the times of day at which you are most effective, so that you can carry out your most important tasks during these times.
If you’ve found yourself putting off important tasks over and over again, you’re not alone. In fact, many people procrastinate to some degree - but some are so chronically affected by procrastination that it stops them achieving things they're capable of and disrupts their careers.
The key to controlling and ultimately combating this destructive habit is to recognize when you start procrastinating, understand why it happens (even to the best of us), and take active steps to better manage your time and outcomes.
Why do we Procrastinate?
In a nutshell, you procrastinate when you put off things that you should be focusing on right now, usually in favor of doing something that is more enjoyable or that you’re more comfortable doing.
Procrastinators work as many hours in the day as other people (and often work longer hours) but they invest their time in the wrong tasks. Sometimes this is simply because they don't understand the difference between urgent tasks and important tasks, and jump straight into getting on with urgent tasks that aren't actually important.
They may feel that they're doing the right thing by reacting fast. Or they may not even think about their approach and simply be driven by the person whose demands are loudest. Either way, by doing this, they have little or no time left for the important tasks, despite the unpleasant outcomes this may bring about.
Another common cause of procrastination is feeling overwhelmed by the task. You may not know where to begin. Or you may doubt that you have the skills or resources you think you need. So you seek comfort in doing tasks you know you're capable of completing. Unfortunately, the big task isn't going to go away – truly important tasks rarely do.
Other causes of procrastination include:
Waiting for the “right” mood or the “right” time to tackle the important task at hand
A fear of failure or success
Underdeveloped decision making skills
Poor organizational skills
Perfectionism ("I don't have the right skills or resources to do this perfectly now, so I won't do it at all.")
How to Overcome Procrastination:
Whatever the reason behind procrastination, it must be recognized, dealt with and controlled before you miss opportunities or your career is derailed.
Step 1: Recognize that you're Procrastinating
If you're honest with yourself, you probably know when you're procrastinating.
But to be sure, you first need to make sure you know your priorities. Putting off an unimportant task isn't procrastination, it's probably good prioritization. Use the Action Priority Matrix to identify your priorities, and then work from a Prioritized To Do List on a daily basis.
Some useful indicators which will help you pull yourself up as soon as you start procrastinating include:
Filling your day with low priority tasks from your To Do List;
Reading an e-mail or request that you've noted in your notebook or on your To Do List more than once, without starting work on it or deciding when you're going to start work on it;
Sitting down to start a high-priority task, and almost immediately going off to make a cup of coffee or check your e-mails;
Leaving an item on your To Do list for a long time, even though you know it's important;
Regularly saying "Yes" to unimportant tasks that others ask you to do, and filling your time with these instead of getting on with the important tasks already on your list.
Step 2: Work out WHY You're Procrastinating
Why you procrastinate can depend on both you and the task. But it's important to understand what the reasons for procrastination are for each situation, so that you can select the best approach for overcoming your reluctance to get going.
Common causes of procrastination were discussed in detail above, but they can often be reduced to two main reasons:
You find the task unpleasant; or
You find the task overwhelming
Step 3: Get over it!
If you are putting something off because you just don't want to do it, and you really can't delegate the work to someone else, you need to find ways of motivating yourself to get moving. The following approaches can be helpful here:
·Make up your own rewards. For example, promise yourself a piece of tasty flapjack at lunchtime if you've completed a certain task.
·Ask someone else to check up on you. Peer pressure works! This is the principle behind slimming and other self-help groups, and it is widely recognized as a highly effective approach.
·Identify the unpleasant consequences of NOT doing the task.
·Work out the cost of your time to your employer. As your employers are paying you to do the things that they think are important, you're not delivering value for money if you're not doing those things. Shame yourself into getting going!
If you're putting off starting a project because you find it overwhelming, you need to take a different approach. Here are some tips:
·Break the project into a set of smaller, more manageable tasks. You may find it helpful to create an action plan.
·Start with some quick, small tasks if you can, even if these aren't the logical first actions. You'll feel that you're achieving things, and so perhaps the whole project won't be so overwhelming after all.
Key points:
To have a good chance of conquering procrastination, you need to spot straight away that you're doing it. Then, you need to identify why you're procrastinating and taken appropriate steps to overcome the block.
Part of the solution is to develop good time management, organizational and personal effectiveness habits. This helps you establish the right priorities, and manage your time in such a way that you make the most of the opportunities open to you.
Personal time management skills are essential skills for effective people. People who use these techniques routinely are the highest achievers in all walks of life, from business to sport to public service. If you use these skills well, then you will be able to function exceptionally well, even under intense pressure.
What's more, as you master these skills, you'll find that you take control of your workload, and say goodbye to the often intense stress of work overload.
At the heart of time management is an important shift in focus:
Concentrate on results, not on being busy
Many people spend their days in a frenzy of activity, but achieve very little, because they're not concentrating their effort on the things that matter the most.
The 80:20 Rule
This is neatly summed up in the Pareto Principle, or the '80:20 Rule'. This says that typically 80% of unfocussed effort generates only 20% of results. This means that the remaining 80% of results are achieved with only 20% of the effort. While the ratio is not always 80:20, this broad pattern of a small proportion of activity generating non-scalar returns recurs so frequently that it is the norm in many situations.
By applying the time management tips and skills in this section you can optimize your effort to ensure that you concentrate as much of your time and energy as possible on the high payoff tasks. This ensures that you achieve the greatest benefit possible with the limited amount of time available to you.
Time Management Tools
In this section, we start off with simple and practical techniques, so that you can get off to a quick start in taking control of your time. The articles on Beating Procrastination and Activity Logs help you quickly eliminate the most common time-wasters, while the articles on Action Plans and Prioritized To Do Lists teach simple techniques helping you focus on the most important short-term activities.
We then move onto the really powerful and life-changing technique of goal setting, and then look at the important, well-known, and usually-neglected technique of scheduling, which is fundamentally important if you're going to take control of your workload.
So start learning!
Discover the tools that can help you - How Good is Your Time Management?
Manage time. Get things done - Beating Procrastination.
Finding out how you really spend your time - Activity Logs.
Tackling the right tasks first - Prioritized To Do Lists.
Deciding your personal priorities - Personal Goal Setting.
Planning to make the best use of your time - Effective Scheduling.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Time Management
Beat Work Overload. Increase Your Effectiveness. Achieve Much More.
This section of Mind Tools teaches you personal time management skills. These are the simple, practical techniques that have helped the leading people in business, sport and public service reach the pinnacles of their careers.
The skills we explain help you become highly effective, by showing you how to identify and focus on the activities that give you the greatest returns. Investing in these time management activities will actually save you time, helping you work smarter, not harder. What's more, these same techniques help you beat work overload – a key source of stress.
You'll finish by learning about goal setting, a vitally important skill for deciding what you want to achieve with your life.
Enjoy the articles!
Introduction to Time Management
How Good is Your Time Management? - Discover time management tools that can help you
Beating Procrastination – Manage your time. Get it all done.
Activity Logs – Know where your time goes
Prioritized To Do Lists – Taking control of your time
Action Programs – Becoming exceptionally well organized
Prioritization – Making best use of your time and resources
Effective Scheduling – Bringing your workload under control
Personal Goal Setting – Planning to live your life your way
Locke's Goal Setting Theory – Understanding SMART goal setting
The Golden Rules of Goal Setting – Five rules to set yourself up for success
Backward Goal Setting – Using backward planning to set goals
In Flow – Maximizing productivity through improved focus
In many cases, conflict in the workplace just seems to be a fact of life. We've all seen situations where different people with different goals and needs have come into conflict. And we've all seen the often-intense personal animosity that can result.
The fact that conflict exists, however, is not necessarily a bad thing: As long as it is resolved effectively, it can lead to personal and professional growth.
In many cases, effective conflict resolution skills can make the difference between positive and negative outcomes.
The good news is that by resolving conflict successfully, you can solve many of the problems that it has brought to the surface, as well as getting benefits that you might not at first expect:
Increased understanding: The discussion needed to resolve conflict expands people's awareness of the situation, giving them an insight into how they can achieve their own goals without undermining those of other people;
Increased group cohesion: When conflict is resolved effectively, team members can develop stronger mutual respect, and a renewed faith in their ability to work together; and
Improved self-knowledge: Conflict pushes individuals to examine their goals in close detail, helping them understand the things that are most important to them, sharpening their focus, and enhancing their effectiveness.
However, if conflict is not handled effectively, the results can be damaging. Conflicting goals can quickly turn into personal dislike. Teamwork breaks down. Talent is wasted as people disengage from their work. And it's easy to end up in a vicious downward spiral of negativity and recrimination.
If you're to keep your team or organization working effectively, you need to stop this downward spiral as soon as you can. To do this, it helps to understand two of the theories that lie behind effective conflict resolution techniques:
Understanding the Theory: Conflict Styles
In the 1970s Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann identified five main styles of dealing with conflict that vary in their degrees of cooperativeness and assertiveness. They argued that people typically have a preferred conflict resolution style. However they also noted that different styles were most useful in different situations. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) helps you to identify which style you tend towards when conflict arises.
Thomas and Kilmann's styles are:
Competitive: People who tend towards a competitive style take a firm stand, and know what they want. They usually operate from a position of power, drawn from things like position, rank, expertise, or persuasive ability. This style can be useful when there is an emergency and a decision needs to be make fast; when the decision is unpopular; or when defending against someone who is trying to exploit the situation selfishly. However it can leave people feeling bruised, unsatisfied and resentful when used in less urgent situations.
Collaborative: People tending towards a collaborative style try to meet the needs of all people involved. These people can be highly assertive but unlike the competitor, they cooperate effectively and acknowledge that everyone is important. This style is useful when a you need to bring together a variety of viewpoints to get the best solution; when there have been previous conflicts in the group; or when the situation is too important for a simple trade-off.
Compromising: People who prefer a compromising style try to find a solution that will at least partially satisfy everyone. Everyone is expected to give up something, and the compromiser him- or herself also expects to relinquish something. Compromise is useful when the cost of conflict is higher than the cost of losing ground, when equal strength opponents are at a standstill and when there is a deadline looming.
Accommodating: This style indicates a willingness to meet the needs of others at the expense of the person’s own needs. The accommodator often knows when to give in to others, but can be persuaded to surrender a position even when it is not warranted. This person is not assertive but is highly cooperative. Accommodation is appropriate when the issues matter more to the other party, when peace is more valuable than winning, or when you want to be in a position to collect on this “favor” you gave. However people may not return favors, and overall this approach is unlikely to give the best outcomes.
Avoiding: People tending towards this style seek to evade the conflict entirely. This style is typified by delegating controversial decisions, accepting default decisions, and not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings. It can be appropriate when victory is impossible, when the controversy is trivial, or when someone else is in a better position to solve the problem. However in many situations this is a weak and ineffective approach to take.
Once you understand the different styles, you can use them to think about the most appropriate approach (or mixture of approaches) for the situation you're in. You can also think about your own instinctive approach, and learn how you need to change this if necessary.
Ideally you can adopt an approach that meets the situation, resolves the problem, respects people's legitimate interests, and mends damaged working relationships.
Understanding The Theory: The "Interest-Based Relational Approach"
The second theory is commonly referred to as the "Interest-Based Relational (IBR) Approach". This conflict resolution strategy respects individual differences while helping people avoid becoming too entrenched in a fixed position.
In resolving conflict using this approach, you follow these rules:
Make sure that good relationships are the first priority: As far as possible, make sure that you treat the other calmly and that you try to build mutual respect. Do your best to be courteous to one-another and remain constructive under pressure;
Keep people and problems separate: Recognize that in many cases the other person is not just "being difficult" – real and valid differences can lie behind conflictive positions. By separating the problem from the person, real issues can be debated without damaging working relationships;
Pay attention to the interests that are being presented: By listening carefully you'll most-likely understand why the person is adopting his or her position;
Listen first; talk second: To solve a problem effectively you have to understand where the other person is coming from before defending your own position;
Set out the “Facts”: Agree and establish the objective, observable elements that will have an impact on the decision; and
Explore options together: Be open to the idea that a third position may exist, and that you can get to this idea jointly.
By following these rules, you can often keep contentious discussions positive and constructive. This helps to prevent the antagonism and dislike which so-often causes conflict to spin out of control.
Using the Tool: A Conflict Resolution Process
Based on these approaches, a starting point for dealing with conflict is to identify the overriding conflict style employed by yourself, your team or your organization.
Over time, people's conflict management styles tend to mesh, and a “right” way to solve conflict emerges. It's good to recognize when this style can be used effectively, however make sure that people understand that different styles may suit different situations.
Look at the circumstances, and think about the style that may be appropriate.
Then use the process below to resolve the conflict:
Step One:Set the Scene If appropriate to the situation, agree the rules of the IBR Approach (or at least consider using the approach yourself.) Make sure that people understand that the conflict may be a mutual problem, which may be best resolved through discussion and negotiation rather than through raw aggression.
If you are involved in the conflict, emphasize the fact that you are presenting your perception of the problem. Use active listening skills to ensure you hear and understand other’s positions and perceptions.
Restate
Paraphrase
Summarize
And make sure that when you talk, you're using an adult, assertive approach rather than a submissive or aggressive style.
Step Two:Gather Information Here you are trying to get to the underlying interests, needs, and concerns. Ask for the other person’s viewpoint and confirm that you respect his or her opinion and need his or her cooperation to solve the problem.
Try to understand his or her motivations and goals, and see how your actions may be affecting these.
Also, try to understand the conflict in objective terms: Is it affecting work performance? damaging the delivery to the client? disrupting team work? hampering decision-making? or so on. Be sure to focus on work issues and leave personalities out of the discussion.
Listen with empathy and see the conflict from the other person’s point of view
Identify issues clearly and concisely
Use “I” statements
Remain flexible
Clarify feelings
Step Three: Agree the Problem This sounds like an obvious step, but often different underlying needs, interests and goals can cause people to perceive problems very differently. You'll need to agree the problems that you are trying to solve before you'll find a mutually acceptable solution.
Sometimes different people will see different but interlocking problems - if you can't reach a common perception of the problem, then at the very least, you need to understand what the other person sees as the problem.
Step Four:Brainstorm Possible Solutions If everyone is going to feel satisfied with the resolution, it will help if everyone has had fair input in generating solutions. Brainstorm possible solutions, and be open to all ideas, including ones you never considered before.
Step Five: Negotiate a Solution
By this stage, the conflict may be resolved: Both sides may better understand the position of the other, and a mutually satisfactory solution may be clear to all.
However you may also have uncovered real differences between your positions. This is where a technique like win-win negotiation can be useful to find a solution that, at least to some extent, satisfies everyone.
There are three guiding principles here: Be Calm, Be Patient, Have Respect…
Key Points
Conflict in the workplace can be incredibly destructive to good teamwork. Managed in the wrong way, real and legitimate differences between people can quickly spiral out of control, resulting in situations where co-operation breaks down and the team's mission is threatened. This is particularly the case where the wrong approaches to conflict resolution are used.
To calm these situations down, it helps to take a positive approach to conflict resolution, where discussion is courteous and non-confrontational, and the focus is on issues rather than on individuals. If this is done, then, as long as people listen carefully and explore facts, issues and possible solutions properly, conflict can often be resolved effectively.
