The World Directory of ADR Blogs has just added a new entry to its catalog: Resolving Conflict in Teams, published by American conflict resolution specialist Guy Harris, who describes himself as a “recovering engineer”. Guy explains:
I completed both a BS and MS in Chemical Engineering, and I served as a Nuclear trained submarine officer in the US Navy.
As my career progressed through various leadership roles, I began to realize that my biggest problems were with people and not with equipment. So, I started to study and apply “people skills” to get better at my job. I eventually grew to love the study of leadership, communication, and conflict resolution principles. Now, I am a Conflict Resolution Specialist. I specialize in helping teams resolve conflicts so that they can get better results.
On this new blog, Guy shares his insights in posts like “Are You at War or at Peace?“, which describes how your heart affects the way you perceive others in conflict.
Welcome, Guy, to the ADR blogosphere.
Idiosyncratic deals, or i-deals as they are also known, are agreements negotiated between individual employees and employers that benefit both sides. Although such deals give an individual employee a benefit that other, similarly situated employees may not have, these deals are not the products of favoritism, nor are they one-sided, since by definition the organization as well as the individual benefits. I-deals in fact can be an effective way for organizations to motivate individuals and reward job performance.
Denise Rousseau, H. J. Heinz II Professor of Organizational Behavior and Public Policy at the H. J. Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Tepper School of Business, and a nationally recognized expert on the i-deal, gives a series of short video interviews explaining how they work and why they foster innovation, and has some advice to employees on negotiating i-deals for themselves.
A Purdue University employee and student has been accused of racial harassment simply for reading a book. The book that got Keith Sampson into trouble was the critically acclaimed Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan, which surveys Notre Dame and anti-Catholic bigotry during a troubled time in U.S. history.
According to the Freedom for Individual Rights in Education’s (FIRE) The Torch,
First, a shop steward told Sampson that reading a book about the KKK was like bringing pornography to work (apparently this holds true in his eyes regardless of the context in which a book discusses the KKK, the position it takes, and so on). Likewise, a co-worker who happened to be sitting across the table from Sampson in the break room remarked that she found the KKK offensive. On both occasions, Sampson tried to explain what the book was really about. Both times, the other individual refused to listen.
A few weeks later, Sampson was notified by Marguerite Watkins of the school’s Affirmative Action Office (AAO) that a co-worker had filed a racial harassment complaint against him for reading the book in the break room. Once again, he attempted to explain the book’s content, but Watkins too had no interest in hearing it.
(Emphasis mine.)
Apart from the significant threat posed by “an over-aggressive application of employment discrimination laws poses for First Amendment rights in the public employment context”, in the words of Concurring Opinions blogger Paul Secunda put it, what is deeply disturbing to me as a dispute resolution professional is the utter failure of anyone to listen to Sampson. Had anyone bothered to do so, any concerns about the subject matter of the book would have been instantly allayed.
A little listening would have meant a very different outcome for everyone involved — including Sampson. Consider how many misunderstandings, the vast majority below the radar and unreported, arise out of the failure to communicate — and how many complaints, lawsuits, and conflicts might be avoided if people assumed less and listened more.
(Hat tip to Concurring Opinions.)
PART27.com, a web site dedicated to providing resources that help organizations, companies, and agencies create safer workplaces, also publishes Workplace Violence, a blog that delivers news and links to resources for employers and others seeking ways to address and prevent violence at work.
Among the stories covered recently are:
I will remember always the pride I felt the day I was sworn in as a member of the bar.
I was the first woman in my family to go to college, to get an advanced degree, and now, to become a lawyer. It was an important achievement for me and for my whole family.
It meant a great deal, this formal commitment to the courts and to the law that courts serve — to become a member of a profession dedicated to principles so lofty that when you speak their names out loud, you can hear the capital letters ring out:
Justice. Liberty. Equality. Rights.
Such is the romanticism of youth.
A week or so after the ceremony, something unexpected happened to crush my youthful idealism.
I can no longer remember what mission the partner who was supervising me had sent me on, but for the first time I walked into a courtroom as a lawyer. I wore a brand-new suit and carried a leather briefcase (also new). I walked past the gleaming wood rail that marked the area where the general public waited, entered the lawyers’ bullpen, and proudly sat down.
A few minutes later, two attorneys, men in their late sixties, approached my row, caught sight of me, and then glared at me. They stood for a moment, and I had the impression that they were about to ask me to move. Instead, they glanced meaningfully at each other and then sat down directly behind me.
They began whispering to each other, just loudly enough that I could hear every word. “It’s an outrage what’s happened to the legal profession. People these days evidently don’t know their place,” said one. “Looks like anyone can be a lawyer these days,” said the other, “they’ve certainly lowered the bar.” There was more along those lines.
Nothing in my law school career had prepared me for that. I had no idea what to do. I could feel my face burning. I felt sick to my stomach. And really, really angry. The attorney sitting next to me rolled his eyes in disgust. “Ignore it,” he whispered, “and don’t let it get to you. Dinosaurs like that are on their way out.”
As it turns out, his prediction was wrong.
Sexism is alive and well and living in the comments section of an article in the ABA Journal’s Law News Now about a woman who contacts an advice columnist to get some help with a toxic workplace — specifically, the law firm that employs her.
Go see for yourself that dinosaurs still walk the earth.
