7 Steps in Handling Conflicts for Successful Team Collaboration

Many teams who were perceived as underdogs have won championships because they focused on the team goal rather than their own individual goals. The key to collaboration is the ability of team members to work interdependently. Of course, all team members are different from one another. In fact, some teams are purposely designed to maximize the differences among team members. These differences can often lead to friction, tension, and conflict. Conflicts are forks in the road to high performance. How conflicts are handled determine whether a team stagnates or moves to an even higher level of results. When conflict happens, use the following steps to help team members overcome the conflict:

1. Identify the real conflict and the specific team members involved.
2. Communicate with each other. This means each team member has a chance to talk about his or her thoughts and feelings and is also willing to listen to other team members.

Blended Learning - For Employees and Managers

What are the advantages of Blended Learning?

One of the most obvious advantages of blended learning is the ability to maximize effectiveness by matching the best medium for each learning objective or course segment. What’s the hard
evid­ence that a blen­ded learn­ing approach can deliver benefits? When Amer­ican Express
con­duc­ted a study of the ROI on dif­fer­ent types of train­ing for 2000 of their man­agers, they found that blen­ded learn­ing delivered a 12% increase in pro­ductiv­ity.

"The term blended learning is used to describe a solution that combines several different delivery methods, such as collaboration software, web-based courses, EPSS and knowledge management practices. Blended learning also is used to describe learning that mixes various event-based activities, including face-to-face classroom, live e-learning, and self-paced instruction." - Purnima Valiathan

Here are some of the ways learning can be blended:

1. Classroom - Good for workshops, coaching, exercises on activites and paper-based tests.
2. Self-Paced E-Learning - Good for simulations, online case studies, interactive learning modules, email
3. Live E-Learning -  Good for application exercises, online coaching, interaction between students, online feedback, assessment, chats and instant messaging (source: Blended Learning by Ron Kurtus)

The coupling of an effective Learning Management System with an application and action delivery system plus experience facilitation can really make a difference in almost every sized company.

Innovative is pleased to offer on of the most comprehensive Online Learning Training and E-Learning Programs for employees. Our partnership with leading producers of online training courses allow us to offer a low-cost e-learning solutions to small and mid-sized organizations. We’ll help you select the courses your employees need from our catalog of more than 7,000 high-quality courses. Click here to learn more.

Do employees really leave because of bad managers?

The reasons that employers score poorly are varied and many:

• 39% of workers said their supervisor failed to keep promises
  
  
• 37% indicated their supervisor failed to give credit when due
  
  
• 31% said their supervisor gave them the "silent treatment" during the past year
  
  
• 27% report their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers
  
  
• 24% indicated their boss invaded their privacy
  
  
• 23% said their supervisor blamed other to cover up personal mistakes or minimize embarrassment

Read Full Florida State University Study Here

So, now what? Innovative Leadership of the Delaware Valley helps build stronger businesses, one employee at a time. With our Making of an Effective Manager, we teach managers with real life situations, blended learning built for adults and classroom interaction with peers and facilitators with over 30 years experience. Click here for more info

How to Solve Problems as a Team in 8 Steps

Like decision making, problem solving may involve a relatively insignificant item, or it may concern a serious issue with the possibility of a major impact on the entire organization. The larger and more important the problem, the more time and detail
that go into each step of the problem-solving process. For minor problems, several of the steps may be accomplished mentally in only a few seconds. But the process always includes these steps:

1. Crystallize the goal. Many problems are caused simply because the goal is not clearly understood by all team members. Take time to review the purpose of the team and its primary goals.

Who Benefits from Coaching?

I answer a question I get most often, "Who benefits from Coaching?", by stating that I feel anyone in a leadership role or anyone who wants to be in a leadership role is a candidate for Coaching. The criteria I use is the individual must be willing to learn, try new things, try old things that have failed, and is committed to improving their business behavior. It is well documented that an integral component to a leader’s success is how well you relate to other people in your organization, at all levels. It goes back to the fact that first, you need to manage yourself, and then you must manage the relationships you have with others.

In my ten years of coaching, I have been called in mostly by HR Professionals when someone is not living up to company’s expectations of them. In most Talent Management articles, development of future leaders is at the top of the HR list of “To Do’s”. The issue is the majority of HR Professionals are now reporting to Chief Financial Officers. Cost-reduction usually hits the people development first with marketing expenses a close second. This contradicts the real need of developing future leaders. We have to dig deeper than the senior level.

Today a positive trend is emerging, the majority of Coaching is designed for leadership development (Sherpa 2012 Survey). We have to look at each employee as a leader and teach them leadership skills that makes them more productive for the benefit of the company.