Are You One of the Managers Who Spends 25% of Your Time Dealing with Conflict?

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According to my recent research, the greatest source of inefficiency and profit loss in organizations lies in ineffective working relationships. In fact, several sources on the cost of what is commonly called “people problems” indicate the following statistics:

• For Managers who are not prepared to handle it or help in the resolution, 20-25% of their time is spent in day to day team member conflict
• For each issue that requires disciplinary action, an average of 13 days are spent, invested, or what many would refer to as lost.
• If that disciplinary issue escalates and requires additional follow through or formal documentation up to an including termination, the average additional investment of time is 9 days.

What could that 25% of time and 13 plus 9 days of productivity be put toward instead? If we refer back to the headline of this Monday Moment, one clear option would be revenue generating activities or those which are customer focused and will potentially increase profits.

When a manager is promoted, but not prepared, as we’ve discussed in recent posts, the problems are contagious. Their inability or lack of knowledge on how to handle challenging issues can often make the issue larger, stick around longer, or more damaging than it might be otherwise. So, what do you do?

Perhaps the first few items of importance include:

• Ensure those with a focus on management or a promotion, have exceptional communication skills, particularly when under stress
• Determine that person’s experience with conflict and how easily he or she is able to accept a resolution good for a team, that may not have been his or preferred course of action.
• Learn more about this person’s chameleon skills. Can they modify how they behave for the benefit of greater understanding from others or must it always be their way or that proverbial highway?
• Look more closely at his or her confidence level. A person who struggles with self-esteem will often struggle with leading those who do not.

Determining these items may not be as easy as you think, but they are worth a second look if you’ve not considered them to date. There are tools that we use that can dig a bit deeper and share specific insights in these areas. For more information on that tool, contact our office at 1-866-382-0121 or go to the CORE Profile page on our site. At a minimum, you want to consider the above factors before you promote someone who may not be prepared, into a potential leadership position. If they aren’t able to lead the people, they won’t be able to produce the profit.

What are your leadership struggles? We want to hear from you so tweet me @monicawofford or send me a message on LinkedIn and let’s keep up the connection! Also, if you know someone to whom this particular MondayMoment would be most helpful, forward it to them or suggest they sign up at www.MondayMoment.com.

Have a great Monday, an even better week and of course, stay contagious!