Join me on June 3 at 3 pm Pacific time.  I will be the guest of Larry Kaminer, President of The Personal Safety Training Group (www.personalsafetygroup.com )for Blog Talk Radio Live Call in Program Managing Conflict in the Workplace. We will talk about:

Early recognition of tension, conflict, and potential violence in the workplace and the impact of gender on workplace conflict and resolution. Cool stuff that you really need to know.

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Yes, conflict is contagious! Suprised? I will bet not. Emotion is contageous. As contageous as a yawn or the Swine Flu.

You can’t be responsible for someone else’s happiness or anger. You can only be responsible for yourself BUT you can take a tempurature of the emotional environment of your workplace.

Are people laughing? Are people talking about each other or to each other? Is there something in place to help people handle stress?

Here is my advice.

Ask yourself these questions:

How am I doing with this work environment–really?

What is really freaking me out?

What am I disappointed with?

Would my co-workers or boss agree with me or would they describe me differently?

What one thing can I do to help me make it to lunch? To the end of the day? To the end of the week?

Then- seek out others just to say hello and how is it going. If you are concerned, share your concern then share what you are doing to make it through the day.

Why? Because unless the GIANT Pink Elephant in the room is addressed it will grow and suck the life force out of everyone. The result is that the conflict s.unless identified and addressed the emotional climate will worsen.

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Look at those pretty silos. Unfortunately, silos at work are not so pretty. Business consultants/ and HR geeks like me, referr to deliberate lack of communciation and hard boundaries between divisions or departments as “silos”.

Did you know that “silo-ing” can also take place in small and very small employers or work groups. Symptoms of siloing are lack or communication, miscommunication, or obfuscation. It can also come informs of emotional shut down at work, not talking, not even looking at each other.

What is scary about silos is this….most people don’t recognize that they contribute to the siloing. Consider this…

When is the last time that you made eye contact with a co-worker? The last time you spoke to someone–maybe even the person with the desk next to you– just to acknowledge their existence, not to make a request for information.

Here is my challenge to you….just observe yourself. Are you creating a mini silo farm? Do you see it going on around you? If so, break the silo effect. Just say “hi”.

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8. It takes an average of 2.5 times a person’s salary to find a replacement. Sharon Jordan Evans, Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em

9. Companies that have a thriving employee recognition strategy are more profitable – outperforming S&P 500 companies by 30-40%. Contented Cows Give Better Milk

www.recognitionworks.net

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1. Name the elephant in the room – yours & theirs. Acknowledge out loud that you and others are worried. It is a WASTE of emotional and psychological energy to either pretend the elephant doesn’t exist or to ignore it.

2. Avoid the blame game. Self-righteousness keeps feelings of victimization on life support.

3. Recognize that people really can’t compartmentalize their emotional states. Happy, sad, stressed – one area of our life will seep into others.

4. Stress, concern, and increased tension will cause people to have a short fuse. Expect more arguments and push back at work-but in strange and unexpected areas. Help peers and yourself. A re you angry at the person or task in front of you-or is it just a convenient target? (For action tools to address this check out The case of the convenient victim as well as the reply in the Feedback section of the next enews. )

5. If you are targeted, attempt to recognize it as the person’s way of expressing frustration.

6. Anger is an energy-redirect the energy. Take a walk. Take up kick boxing, write in a journal, have a 5 minute pity party, clean your workspace, jump up and down.

7. 60 second vent-write down everything that is pissing you off, irritating you or otherwise is “just not fair”. Cross out what is outside your immediate influence or it will take more time and emotional energy than you have this week. Determine what is within your circle of influence. Don’t ruminate over the rest.

8. Create best case-worst case & most likely case scenarios. Have an action plan for each.

9. Think of 10 things that you are grateful for – write those on 10 sticky notes and post them around your work space.

10. Then pick 1 thing that you can do something about and do just one small thing.

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Trouble sleeping this week? Workplace stress might be the culprit. The September issue of Body and Soul magazine cites a University of Michigan study found that “people who often feel hassled on the job were more likely to develop sleep problems. In fact”, says Body and Soul, “everyday struggles with coworkers seem to disrupt sleep even more than long hours, night shifts, or job insecurity.”

Yep. I have experienced that. And still experience disrupted sleep when work pressure (often self-imposed) increases. Anyone else experience this? Maybe the better question is “has anyone experienced you as cranky, ill-tempered, abrupt, even snarky because you were stress and sleep deprived. Do I even need to say how that will not help you career advancement? Did you even recognize that you weren’t at your best or did someone point it out to you? How did you recover?

While I am no expert on sleep, I do know that tired = cranky and non productive. If you need some resources to address sleep check out the articles on Body and Soul on sleep. If you would like more info on how to address the tension check out the Enews archive. (You may want to check out the H.A.L.T. Article inparticular). To hear a a newscast on the U of Michigan report click here.

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