Lead and manage effective worklpace relationships (BSBLDR502)

Lead and manage effective workplace relationships

BSBLDR502

Student Workbook

1st Edition

Student Workbook BSBLDR502 Lead and manage effective

workplace relationships 1st Edition 2015

Part of a suite of support materials for the

BSB Business Services Training Package

Copyright and Trade Mark Statement

© 2015 Innovation and Business Industry Skills Council Ltd

All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, Innovation and Business Industry Skills Council Ltd (‘IBSA’).

Use of this work for purposes other than those indicated above, requires the prior written permission of IBSA. Requests should be addressed to the Product Development Manager, IBSA, Level 11, 176 Wellington Pde, East Melbourne VIC 3002 or email [email protected].

‘Innovation and Business Skills Australia’, ‘IBSA’ and the IBSA logo are trade marks of IBSA.

Disclaimer

Care has been taken in the preparation of the material in this document, but, to the extent permitted by law, IBSA and the original developer do not warrant that any licensing or registration requirements specified in this document are either complete or up-to-date for your State or Territory or that the information contained in this document is error-free or fit for any particular purpose. To the extent permitted by law, IBSA and the original developer do not accept any liability for any damage or loss (including loss of profits, loss of revenue, indirect and consequential loss) incurred by any person as a result of relying on the information contained in this document.

The information is provided on the basis that all persons accessing the information contained in this document undertake responsibility for assessing the relevance and accuracy of its content. If this information appears online, no responsibility is taken for any information or services which may appear on any linked websites, or other linked information sources, that are not controlled by IBSA. Use of versions of this document made available online or in other electronic formats is subject to the applicable terms of use.

To the extent permitted by law, all implied terms are excluded from the arrangement under which this document is purchased from IBSA, and, if any term or condition that cannot lawfully be excluded is implied by law into, or deemed to apply to, that arrangement, then the liability of IBSA, and the purchaser’s sole remedy, for a breach of the term or condition is limited, at IBSA’s option, to any one of the following, as applicable:

(a) if the breach relates to goods: (i) repairing; (ii) replacing; or (iii) paying the cost of repairing or replacing, the goods; or

(b) if the breach relates to services: (i) re-supplying; or (ii) paying the cost of re-supplying, the services.

Published by: Innovation and Business Industry Skills Council Ltd Level 11 176 Wellington Pde East Melbourne VIC 3002 Phone: +61 3 9815 7000 Fax: +61 3 9815 7001 Email: [email protected] www.ibsa.org.au

First published: March 2015

1st edition version: 1

Release date: March 2015

ISBN: 978-1-925123-66-1

Stock code: BSBLDR5021D

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.ibsa.org.au/

Table of Contents

Introduction ...........................................................................................................................1

Features of the training program ...................................................................................1

Structure of the training program ...................................................................................1

Recommended reading ...................................................................................................1

Section 1 – Manage Communication and Information Flow .............................................3

What skills will you need? ...............................................................................................3

Establish communication strategies and processes ....................................................4

Communication strategies or plans ...............................................................................5

Develop consultative processes .................................................................................. 15

Policies and procedures for dispute management .................................................... 20

Section summary .......................................................................................................... 26

Further reading ............................................................................................................. 26

Section checklist........................................................................................................... 26

Section 2 – Establish Organisational Values and Maintain Networks ........................... 27

What skills will you need? ............................................................................................ 27

Establish organisational values ................................................................................... 28

Understand and manage sources of diversity ............................................................ 34

Build personal trust ...................................................................................................... 39

Use effective interpersonal communication ............................................................... 45

Use networks to solve problems and grow ................................................................. 55

Section summary .......................................................................................................... 60

Further reading ............................................................................................................. 60


Section 3 – Manage Difficulties in Work Relationships .................................................. 62

What skills will you need? ............................................................................................ 62

Implement strategies to resolve workplace conflict ................................................... 62

Establish systems for managing conflict .................................................................... 81

Provide guidance and support to co-workers ............................................................. 84

Plan actions to address conflict .................................................................................. 92

Section summary .......................................................................................................... 95

Further reading ............................................................................................................. 96


Glossary .............................................................................................................................. 97

BSBLDR502 Lead and manage effective workplace relationships 1st edition version: 1 © 2015 Innovation and Business Industry Skills Council Ltd

Appendices ....................................................................................................................... 100

Appendix 1: Max Lionel Realty simulated business .............................................. 100

Appendix 2: Communication plan template ........................................................... 106

Appendix 3: Grievance policy and procedure ......................................................... 110

Appendix 4: Managing people; be insistent, persistent and consistent .............. 113

Appendix 5: Coaching contract ............................................................................... 115

1st edition version: 1 BSBLDR502 Lead and manage effective workplace relationships © 2015 Innovation and Business Industry Skills Council Ltd

Student Workbook Introduction

Introduction

Features of the training program

The key features of this program are:

• Student Workbook – Self-paced learning activities to help you to develop an understanding of key concepts and terms. The Student Workbook is broken down into several sections.

• Facilitator-led sessions – Challenging and interesting learning activities that can be completed in the classroom or by distance learning that will help you consolidate and apply what you have learned in the Student Workbook.

• Assessment Tasks – Summative assessments where you can apply your new skills and knowledge to solve authentic workplace tasks and problems.

Structure of the training program

This training program introduces you to lead and manage effective workplace relationships. Specifically, you will develop the skills and knowledge in the following topic areas:

1. Manage communication and information flow

2. Establish organisational values and maintain networks

3. Manage difficulties in work relationships.

Your facilitator may choose to combine or split sessions. For example, in some cases, this Training Program may be delivered in two or three sessions, or in others, as many as eight sessions.

Recommended reading

Some recommended reading for this unit includes:

• Barton, P., 2014, Maximizing Internal Communication: strategies to turn heads, win hearts, engage employees and get results, eBook edn, BookBaby.

• Caruso, D. and Salovey, P., 2004, The emotionally intelligent manager: how to develop and use the four key emotional skills of leadership, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

• Cole, K., 2012, Management: theory and practice, 5th edn, Pearson Education, NSW.

• Cloke, K. and Goldsmith, J., 2011, Resolving conflicts at work: ten strategies for everyone on the job, 3rd edn, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

BSBLDR502 Lead and manage effective workplace relationships 1st edition version: 1 © 2015 Innovation and Business Industry Skills Council Ltd Page 1 of 116

Introduction Student Workbook

• Cowan, D., 2014, Strategic internal communication: how to build employee engagement and performance, Kogan Page.

• Goleman, D., 2004, ‘What makes a leader?’, Harvard business review, vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 82–91. Available online, viewed February 2015, <https://hbr.org/2004/01/what-makes-a-leader/ar/1>.

• Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. and McKee, A., 2013, Primal leadership: unleashing the power of emotional intelligence, 10th anniversary edn, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

• Johnson, S., 2001, Meeting the challenge of change, Eastern House, Croydon, Victoria.

• Jones, P., 2008, Communicating strategy, Gower, England.

• Robbins, S., Bergman, R., Stagg, I. and Coulter, M. 2011, Management, 6th edn, Pearson Education, NSW.

• Robbins, S., Judge, T., Millett, B. and Boyle, M., 2013, Organisational behaviour: leading and managing in Australia and New Zealand, 7th edn, Pearson Education, NSW.

Please note that any URLs contained in the recommended reading, learning content and learning activities of this publication were checked for currency during the production process. Note, however, that IBSA cannot vouch for the ongoing currency of URLs.

Every endeavour has been made to provide a full reference for all web links. Where URLs are not current we recommend using the reference information provided to search for the source in your chosen search engine.

1st edition version: 1 BSBLDR502 Lead and manage effective workplace relationships Page 2 of 116 © 2015 Innovation and Business Industry Skills Council Ltd

Student Workbook Section 1 – Manage Communication and Information Flow

Section 1 – Manage Communication and Information Flow

The focus of this section is on managing communications and information flow throughout the organisation. Section 1 outlines effective communication strategies for achieving organisational objectives, consultation processes, and processes for managing feedback. This section also addresses the development of grievance and dispute resolution processes.

Scenario: Communications at Max Lionel Realty

Max Lionel Realty (MLR) manages property sales and rentals (both residential and commercial) on behalf of a range of clients. The organisation also separately engages in investment activities, such as property and land development.

Senior management at Max Lionel sees effective communication and information flow as crucial to MLR’s success. Its agents need to be able to collaborate with each other, sharing information on client needs; they also need to be aware of shifts in strategic direction and operational improvements. The use of business social media platforms is central to MLR’s approach.

Both top-down and bottom-up feedback is valued at MLR to facilitate consultation, identify issues, and underpin the sense that everyone has a stake in the organisation’s success.

Aware that difficulties and conflicts will arise from time to time, Max Lionel Realty, has developed and communicated a strong policy framework to promote its values and resolve conflict.

More information on Max Lionel Realty is provided in the Appendices of this Student Workbook. Appendix 1 provides more general detail about Max Lionel Realty.

What skills will you need?

In order to manage communication and information flow, you must be able to:

ensure strategies and processes are in place to communicate progress against work responsibilities to all co-workers

develop and implement consultation processes to ensure that employees have the opportunity to contribute to issues related to their work role

facilitate feedback to employees on outcomes of the consultation processes

develop and implement processes to ensure that issues raised are resolved promptly or referred to relevant personnel.


Section 1 – Manage Communication and Information Flow Student Workbook

Establish communication strategies and processes

A key component of leading and managing effective workplace relationships is establishing strategies and processes for communicating information to employees and people in management positions. Communication has several functions within an organisation, from public relations and promoting organisational initiatives to managing information flow. Communication processes need to ensure that employees and managers have access to the information they need to perform job tasks when they need it, and in the most usable formats. Let’s look at communication functions and how they are realised in communications strategies and processes.

Communication functions Communication in the workplace serves four crucial, and partially overlapping functions:

• knowledge management

• facilitating collaborative decision-making

• coordinating work activities

• fulfilling emotional and social needs

Knowledge management Communication strategies enable the effective transfer of formal knowledge and practical know-how from one person to another, from one person to many others (for example, to a work group) and from many to many (one work group to another work group, for example). For instance, senior management may need to socialise organisational strategy among staff, a department may wish to make available new work instructions, or members of a workgroup may wish to communicate process innovations, improvements or efficiency gains to others. Knowledge management includes sharing examples of ‘hard knowledge’, such as strategy documents and procedures. Knowledge management may also include examples of soft knowledge such as the more informal transfer of know-how or ethical practices through emulation, shared cultural practices and on-the-job team interactions.

Facilitating sound, collaborative decision-making Effective communication strategies support good decision-making throughout the process of determining solutions. That is the process of:

1. Defining the problem:

a. What is the impact of the problem?

b. Who is impacted by the problem?

c. What behaviour has to change to fix the problem?

d. Whose behaviour has to change to fix the problem?

2. Gathering information.

3. Creating solutions.

4. Choosing a preferred solution against set criteria.



Effective top-down and bottom-up communication ensures access by decision-makers to both key technical information and the cultural or emotional context. Consultation on decisions and implementation can improve both the quality of the decision-making and buy-in by stakeholders responsible for implementing decisions. Communication strengthens relationships through supporting collaborative decision-making.

Coordinating work activities Effective communication strategies – such as the use of telecommunications, social networking platforms or instant messaging – facilitate greater team coordination and cohesion. Work in most organisations is affected by, or affects the work of others. Communication of tasks, deadlines, quantities, errors, omissions and general issues are part of the daily communications between individuals and between teams that is required to ’get the job done’.

Fulfilling emotional and social needs Effective communication strategies help build strong internal and external relationships through building trust and loyalty, a sense of belonging and group purpose. Anthropologists and psychologists such as Abraham Maslow are in general agreement that once employees’ most basic needs of safety, shelter and job security are reliably taken care of, they seek social acceptance and esteem. Both verbal and non-verbal communication forms the basis by which humans determine their level of acceptance into or rejection by a group. This means you must take care to design messages and media to emotionally connect with your audience and support social cohesion.

Communication strategies or plans

One of the most important tasks in managing information flow and building relationships across an organisation is developing a communication strategy, or plan. To develop a communication strategy, you will need to determine your communication objectives and promotional activities, as well as your audience characteristics and needs. Your communication strategy should also set out how you plan to craft and customise your message to meet those needs and use appropriate media to achieve your communication objectives. You will also need to consider other important aspects of planning, such as resources and budgets, as well as who will be responsible for delivering or managing communications. Finally, you will need to consider how you will evaluate your communication plan against communication objectives.

SWOT analysis Before looking at the purpose and target audience of the communication strategy, it is worth looking at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of communications within the organisation. Generally the SWOT analysis takes the form of a matrix in which strengths and weaknesses are considered to originate from within the organisation and opportunities and threats originate externally. Strengths and opportunities are considered as being beneficial to the organisation, while weaknesses and threats are considered to be harmful.



Positive progress towards organisational goals can be categorised as strengths. Lack of progress towards organisational goals are weaknesses. External threats and opportunities are interpreted as risks to planned outcomes and opportunities to improve (through, for example, reducing costs or providing more value to the organisation for its investment in communication).

Purpose and audience Possibly the two most important considerations in business communications are purpose and audience.

First, the purpose of your communication plan should focus on the impact you intend to make on your audience and the organisation. Some generic purposes for your communication strategy are to:

• communicate and socialise the organisation’s strategies and expected performance outcomes to stakeholders

• promote a positive and effective work culture by ensuring that employees’ approaches to work are aligned with the business strategy

• energise employees by informing them how their work is aligned to organisational objectives

• empower employees to participate in knowledge management, consultation and to focus their efforts on the right tasks and activities to advance organisational aims

• motivate employees by showing them how their work is crucial to the success of the organisation.



The first step when thinking about how to achieve the purpose of your communication strategy, is to start by asking a number of questions:

• What do you want your audience to know?

• What do you want your audience to be capable of doing?

• What actions do you want your audience to take?

• What changes in attitude do you want to promote?

The purpose can usually be expressed as two or three objectives or goals for communicating. Be clear about these and how your communication goals relate to overall organisational goals. In an organisational setting it is often best to design your communications with the organisation’s goals firmly in mind; your mission being to convince others to take actions or support actions in order to further those goals.

Second, in order to achieve your purpose, you will need to consider the informational, social and emotional needs of your audience. In a business setting, audience needs are likely to be needs for:

• useful, relevant information for one’s job role or to effect change

• user-friendly tools and media to participate in two-way communications and provide feedback

• correct information

• reassurance that risk to the organisation or the individual has been considered and minimised

• clear, actionable recommendations

• personal respect

• respect towards the organisation: its goals, values and business culture.

Remember, your audience one individual or group, or a range of internal and external stakeholders, including:

• senior managers

• line managers

• frontline employees

• customers

• suppliers

• special interest groups.

In designing your strategy, you may have to consider a range of approaches to meeting the needs of different audiences. Consider your purpose and audience carefully to make sure your communication strategies achieve organisational goals.



Message/s You may have a clear goal in mind to achieve through your communications plan or strategy, but not everyone in the organisation or every level of the organisation has to hear exactly the same message to achieve that goal. It is important to consider what message you want to convey to each audience, bearing in mind their needs, role within the organisational hierarchy, level of power and influence, and level of support. For example, some audiences may require only a summary of progress on a particular project to keep them on side, while others on the front line may need detailed action plans or procedures for new processes.

In any case, messages should be clear and unambiguous and relate directly to your communications objectives. Remember to tailor the style and content of your message to suit the needs of your audience.

Media Once you have determined your objectives, audience needs, and the message/s you wish to convey, it is time to consider the best media or means for communicating the message/s and facilitate information flow to and among your target audience.

Some suggested means of communicating are as follows:

• team meetings

• word-of-mouth

• training sessions

• staff orientations and inductions

• information sessions

• promotional videos

• organisational meetings

• responding to enquiries

• online document repositories or other knowledge management technologies

• management blogs

• work-related social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Yammer or Slack

• project management software, with facilities for alerts and setting tasks

• job aids

• email

• intranet

• noticeboards

• brochures

• fact sheets

• newsletters

• magazines

• employee handbooks

• organisational wiki

• podcasts.

It is important to consider how you can use your chosen media to the best effect to achieve your communications objectives. You may also consider combining media or integrating media with approaches to training and development and employee performance management. For example, job aids and written procedures, accessed through online document repositories, may help employees to retain knowledge and apply it on-the-job. When considering media choices, you will also need to consider your organisation’s financial and budgetary needs.



To determine the most effective media or mix of communication channels, you may wish to develop a media matrix for internal or external communications. According to Paul Barton in Maximizing internal communication, when creating a media matrix for your organisation, you should ask four important guiding questions:

• Who is the audience we are trying to reach?

• Which channels reach that audience?

• What is the goal or outcome we are seeking?

• Which channel work best to achieve that outcome?1

The following is an example of a media matrix.

Media channels Social media platforms

Podcasts Organisational WIKI

Strategic purpose

Facilitate real-time information on project updates and process improvements.

To communicate messages consistently in digestible chunks.

To facilitate collaboration and group information sharing; and promote engagement through participation.

Audiences Project teams. Project teams Managers, project teams.

Advantages Supports bottom-up and top-down information flow and feedback.

Consistent, controlled top-down messaging. Supports multitasking and efficient use of time. Appealing to a younger audience.

Supports bottom-up and top-down information flow and feedback.

Disadvantages May be misused for social purposes

May be ignored and not downloaded by intended audience

Edits need to be monitored by content experts

When to use When real-time collaboration and complex coordination between employees is required.

When staff are motived to access podcasts.

If expert can manage monitor site.

1 P. Barton, 2014, Maximizing internal communication: strategies to turn heads, win hearts, engage employees and get results, eBook edn, BookBaby.



Media channels Social media platforms

Podcasts Organisational WIKI

When not to use For complex communications requiring high degree of top-down control.

For crucial messages.

If an expert is not available.

Works well with Project work and day-to-day teamwork

Other forms of top-down communication such as e-newsletters.

Links from other online sites. Policies and procedures. Group collaborations such as brainstorming.2

Now that you have considered purpose, audience, message and media, let’s look at an example strategy to meet a narrow set of communication objectives. The example provided is designed for a real estate agency that needs to implement a new performance management system.

2 Adapted from: P. Barton, 2014, ‘Chapter 4: Choosing the right channels’, in Maximizing internal communication: strategies to turn heads, win hearts, engage employees and get results, eBook edn, BookBaby.



Communications strategy at Max Lionel Real Estate for decision to implement new Performance Management System

Communication objectives: (aligned to HR objectives and organisational strategic goals)

Inform employees of decision to implement new performance management framework.

Promote employee engagement and cooperation.

Provide background information necessary to implement the decision effectively.

Audience: (characteristics/receptivity to message)

Message: Strategy: media, approach, rationale: (why it will communicate message and meet objectives)

Resources/budget: (if applicable, estimate)

Person:

Real estate agents and administrative staff

Explanation of decision; how it was arrived at and who made it.

Discussion on need, feeling and views expressed in consultation process.

Organisation’s objectives and positive approach to performance.

Explanation of new procedures.

Examples and possible variations of implementation.

Podcast form CEO to introduce decision and prepare employees for presentation.

Face-to-face presentation allowing personal interaction.

Access to electronic versions of new policies on organisational document management system.

Request for ongoing feedback from affected employees to supervisors and via wiki to build trust and sense of personal ownership of decision.

N/A CEO

HR Business Partner



Communication plans or strategies may be directed at communication with regard to narrow range of goals, or provide a general framework for the whole of the organisation’s approach to communications. An example of a communication plan template appears in Appendix 2 of this Student Workbook.

Evaluation Finally, after a communication strategy has been implemented, it is important to plan to evaluate its success against the original objectives. For complex communications, you may need to create a monitoring strategy comprising objectives, KPIs, benchmarking, results at key dates and milestones, and data analysis techniques. Depending on organisational needs, you may also wish to evaluate against the four commonly used levels of evaluation first put forward by Donald Kirkpatrick with respect to organisational learning initiatives:

Level 1 Reaction Did the target audience respond positively to the message?

Were they engaged by the media?

Level 2 Learning Were the informational objectives achieved?

Did people learn?

Did people receive timely, correct information as they needed it?

Level 3 Application Besides learning information, did the intended audience actually use the information on the job, to create value for the organisation or its customers?

Did people provide feedback as requested?

Did people take action?

Did people actually work smarter or more safely as a result of the communication strategy?

Level 4 Impact or return on investment (ROI)

How much revenue was achieved directly or indirectly by the organisation?

How much money was saved?

How much risk was reduced?

What was the percentage return on resources consumed by the communication strategy?

Arguably, evaluation is the most important part of your communication strategy. Planning evaluation helps you to focus on the right goals and for the organisation and individuals to learn and improve future communications performance.



Learning activity: Develop a communication strategy

Conduct research into your organisation or another organisation you wish to research. Determine a project or organisational initiative that requires communication. Consider:

• organisational goals

• communication objectives

• audience

• media

• resources/budget

• activities

• evaluation.

Use the template provided in Appendix 2 to develop a communications strategy.

Communication processes Beyond creating the communication plan, you may need to provide managers or employees with additional guidance on how to implement it. Depending on organisational and communication needs, you may need to explain informal processes within communications or develop additional written procedures. For example, you may need to explain the use of social media or organisational wikis. You will need to enable:

• usage, through

o written step-by-step processes

o work flows and flow charts

o diagrams

o illustrations

• authority to initiate communication and edits

• resources required by the use of the procedure

• legislative or licensing requirements.

When developing processes, especially formal, written procedures, you will need to consider existing organisational practices, ethical codes and policy frameworks. Policy frameworks will be discussed in more detail at the end of this section.



Learning activity: Design a communication procedure

Consider the communication strategy you developed in the previous activity using the communication plan template.

Develop a procedure for using a communication channel in accordance with the communicating strategy.

Consider the following when you are creating the procedure:

• the strategic objectives of the organisation

• the purpose of the procedure (what communication objective it is designed to achieve)

• presentation of communication processes – for example, will you use step-by-step, written instructions or flow charts to illustrate the process of using communication channels?

• resources or tools required to use the procedure

• responsibility and authorisation for carrying out the procedure

• knowledge management, for example:

○ How are documents to be created and stored?

○ How exactly, under the general communication strategy, are teams to be provided the right information as they need it to perform work responsibilities?

Feedback and the learning organisation It is worth emphasising the importance of including opportunity for feedback in your communications strategies. Feedback can be gained through mechanisms for both top-down and bottom-up communication or feedback. Critical information and ideas for improvement ideas can come from a variety of sources within the organisation, for example:

• surveys, suggestion boxes and internal social media platforms

• external forums, focus groups and industry groups

• internal task forces, focus groups and cross-functional continuous improvement teams.

A common mistake made by managers or those in positions of authority within organisations, is to act as if they have to provide all new ideas for the workplace. This is an ineffective and disempowering attitude. In fact, the organisation can learn and improve from a variety of feedback, even negative feedback or feedback in the form of disputes, particularly when these are seen by management as opportunities to improve processes or communication and managed through effective policies and procedures.



In the influential management book, The fifth discipline, Peter Senge outlined his vision of the learning organisation, in which the organisation gains competitive advantage through exploiting the collective expertise and initiative of its workforce. What role do you think a communication strategy could play in achieving the vision of the learning organisation through facilitating feedback?

Learning activity: Reflect on feedback mechanisms

Review the communications strategy and communication processes you developed in the two previous activities and answer the following questions:

• Did you include both top-down and bottom-up communication?

• Did you consider all the ways in which information and feedback must travel throughout the organisation to achieve its objectives?

• What mechanisms for feedback and consultation did you include? Why?

Develop consultative processes

As discussed above, in addition to planning communications from a top-down perspective, you will need to incorporate processes for gaining feedback and consulting from the bottom up. It is important to be able to distinguish between consultation and communication. It is also important to explore some legal requirements for consultation, particularly with respect to health and safety.



Consultation Determining the needs of employees, customers, suppliers, colleagues or your manager requires consultation – not just communication. When we consult with people, we ask them what is important to them, for feedback on our performance on those key criteria and, most importantly, empower people to provide input into the decision-making process.

Consultation: The process of actively providing stakeholders with an opportunity to contribute to the decision-making process.

Communication: The process of sending and receiving information. Communication can be one-way, two-way or multi-lateral.

Clearly, communication provides an important basis for consultation, but two-way communication is not necessarily the same as consultation. The purpose of communication is to inform and learn, while the purpose of consultation is to actually involve stakeholders in decision-making. After consultation, the final decision might be made by a manager, but the consultation has provided the manager with an understanding of the interests of those people who have been consulted. Consultation is important to build support and ownership for decisions. It often helps implementation to go more smoothly as a result. Effective consultation – which seeks information and balances stakeholder interests – also results in better decisions.

Learning activity: Consulting to make decisions

Consider two decisions that were recently made within your organisation (either by you or another person in authority).

Decision Strategies, activities and media used to communicate decision and collect information or feedback

Strategies, activities and media used to consult on the decision

1.

2.

Reflecting on the chart you have filled in, how do you think you or your organisation could become more consultative and involve others in decision-making?



Facilitate feedback Once consultation has occurred and decisions have been made, you will need to ensure processes are in place to ensure the feedback reaches the right people. For example, a suggestion box can be used to collect feedback from customers, but there needs to be a process in place to make sure that somebody gets the feedback slips out of the suggestion box and delivers suggestions to the people that have the power to take action on those suggestions. Your communication strategy may outline specific types of media, processes or frameworks for this purpose.

Consultation strategies

To ensure consultation meets the needs of the organisation without wasting time and resources, you will need to consider strategic approaches.

Firstly, you need to determine who the stakeholders are and the level and type of interaction and communication required for each. A useful tool to determine who needs to be consulted or communicated with is RACI. RACI describes the types of roles you will need to consult and/or communicate with when a decision is being made. RACI stands for: responsible, accountable, consulted and informed.

Responsible The responsible role is the role that carries out work involved in a process. There may be multiple responsible roles for a single process, or perhaps an entire team.

Accountable The accountable role is the one that periodically reviews the effectiveness of the process and is the only role that can make changes to the process itself. There should only ever be one accountable role for any process.

Consulted A role that is consulted about a process provides essential information to the decision-maker before the decision is made. The person consulted may, for example, be a subject-matter expert. The consulted person should not, however, have any authority over the process. Signing off and/or verifying work is not the job of a consulted role. Engages in two-way communication.

Informed A role that is informed about a process only receives information. Communication is in only one direction. Determine who must be informed of a decision.

Note that the roles described in this model are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, you may need to consult with the people who are responsible for implementation to gather essential information, and ensure the support required.



Once you have determined who you need to consult with, you will need to determine what forms of communication and consultation are appropriate for each stakeholder. You will need to put in place or adhere to existing consultation processes, structures and frameworks such as committees, regular meetings, cross-functional continuous improvement teams, forums or focus groups. Accordingly, your communication strategies should allow for:

• immediate two-way communication, possibly to support consultation through consultation processes structures and frameworks

• communication on consultation processes structures and frameworks

• dissemination of planned messages to those that need to be informed

• access to revised policies, procedures and work instructions, to responsible persons

• feedback through surveys on the consultation process or outcomes to gauge the effectiveness of consultation strategies and promote organisational learning.

Legal and ethical requirements for consultation In addition to providing critical information on a process, consultation can have important legal and ethical implications. Look at some key examples.

Health and safety consultation When it comes to workplace health and safety, every company must consult with workers and their representatives. Safety in the workplace is improved by drawing input from as many affected people as possible and responding to that input promptly and appropriately.

Under sections 46–49 of the WHS Act, for example, employers have a responsibility to consult, cooperate and coordinate health and safety activities.3 Employees should be consulted in activities such as:

• identifying or assessing hazards or risks

• making decisions about the:

○ measures to be taken to control risks

○ adequacy of facilities for the welfare of the employees

○ procedures for resolving health and safety issues

• monitoring the health of employees and the conditions at the workplace

• providing information and training

• determining the membership of health and safety committees

• proposing changes, that may affect the health or safety of employees, such as changes to the workplace, plant, substances or the conduct of the work performed.

3 Safe Work Australia, 2012, Guide to the model Work Health and Safety Act, available online, Safe Work Australia, viewed January 2015, <http://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/SWA/about/Publications/ Documents/717/Guide-to-the-WHS-Act.pdf>, p. 8.



An employer or company officer who is required to consult with employees must do so by:

• sharing information with employees – which could be achieved through WHS meetings, bulletins or other means of communication

• giving the employees reasonable opportunity to express their views about the matter

• taking into account those views.

If you are consulting for health and safety purposes, you will need to use consultative structures that include roles defined under the Work Health and Safety Act (or your state’s alternative). These roles may include work groups, health and safety representatives (HSRs), and health and safety committees. These roles define individual and collective responsibilities to identify risks to health and safety, facilitate discussion of risk control measures and approaches to safety, and provide an important conduit for effective cooperation and communication between workers, management and executive decision-makers.

Other legal implications Involving others in decisions that directly affect them is an important principle of business ethics. In many cases, it is obviously not fair to ask people to comply with procedures or decisions that are against their interests or do not take their specific circumstances into account. Consultation is the mechanism that is used to ensure that decisions take these interests and circumstances into account.

As we have seen, consultation is an important element of health and safety legislation. Consultation is important for managing employee relations and is included in the Fair Work act 2009. For instance consultation forms a part of dispute resolution between individuals and enterprise bargaining – where employees have the right to negotiate directly with employers, or to negotiate through a representative. In a similar way, while not directly requiring consultation, anti-discrimination legislation may effectively require you to consult with others to ensure that decisions do not inadvertently discriminate against individual people or groups based on protected characteristics such as age or gender.

Learning activity: Reflect on consultation

Review the communications strategy and communication processes you developed earlier and answer the following questions:

• How does the strategy support or promote consultation as opposed to mere communication?



• How does the strategy support legal or ethical requirements for consultation, such as for health and safety or industrial relations?

• How could you improve your strategy?

Policies and procedures for dispute management

Policies and procedures are the main underpinning documents of organisational management systems, including communications and knowledge management. In general, policies set out the aims of the organisation in an area organisational activity or responsibility. They also describe the organisation’s commitment to the policy. Procedures give practical and sometimes step-by-step guidance for carrying out policy aims.

In addition, policy frameworks set out the larger context of policy-making within the organisation, including the purpose of creating policy, applicable legal and ethical requirements or frameworks, and who is responsible for developing or approving policy changes.

There are several reasons why organisations have policies and procedures. They not only provide for consistency and direction within an organisation; they also assist with training, communication, demonstrating compliance with legislation and standards. Overall, they provide for consistent and fair organisational processes and help support a positive workplace culture.

Let’s look at policies and procedures, as well as policy frameworks, in more detail –focusing in particular on policies and procedures aimed at promoting relationship-building and harmonious employee relations, for example, dispute resolution policies and procedures.



Policies A policy is a general statement of aims with respect to the behaviour of employees. For example, a health and safety consultation policy may state the intention of the organisation to adhere to legal and ethical requirements regarding the involvement of workers in health and safety decision-making. A grievance or dispute resolution policy may state the intention of the organisation to adhere to ethical and legal requirements for fairness while promoting the principle of managing the dispute at the lowest level of escalation. Policies generally include:

• purpose or intent of policy

• scope (what areas or staff the policy covers)

• responsibilities for implementation

• applicable legislation, standards and codes of practice.

At a minimum, a workplace policy should contain a statement of purpose and one or more broad guidelines on action to be taken to achieve that purpose. The statement of purpose should rarely exceed one page in length and should be written in simple terms that are free of jargon. The length of the policy may vary depending on the issues it addresses.

A policy may be required where there is a diversity of interests and preferences, which result in vague and conflicting objectives among those who are directly involved. In the case of dispute management, there are certainly a variety of interests to balance in a way that ensures that the interests of the organisation are met. From an organisation’s perspective, one purpose may be to ensure against the risk of legal non-compliance, but the overriding purpose may be to ensure that the relationships that underpin the organisation’s success are not undermined. The principle of managing the dispute at the lowest level ensures that the dispute remains as isolated as possible and provides an opportunity for the people most directly involved in the dispute to resolve their differences together.

Some examples of workplace policies include:

• leave policy

• code of conduct

• recruitment policy

• internet and email policy

• mobile phone policy

• non-smoking policy

• drug and alcohol policy

• health and safety policy

• anti-discrimination and harassment policy

• grievance handling policy

• discipline and termination policy.

Not all workplace issues require a policy. Many routine matters can be dealt through simple procedures or common sense.

Policies are typically supported by a range of factors, including culture and management practices, and procedures. Policies, to be effectively implemented, need whole-hearted commitment from all levels of the organisation, including senior management. An example grievance and dispute management policy is provided in Appendix 3 of this Student Workbook.



Procedures A procedure, also known as a work instruction, is a written instruction outlining the preferred method of performing a task or activity.

Procedures often include:

• actions or tasks

• description of action taken

• standards

• who is responsible

• safety requirements

• step-by-step instructions

• diagrams and flow charts

• reporting, documentation and recordkeeping requirements.

Where policies provide the overall aims, the procedures tell people how things will be done. A procedure specifies what will be done, when, by whom, and what records are to be kept. It is the ‘recipe’ by which the policies are enacted.

Typically, a grievance procedure outlines the steps to take to raise and resolve a dispute. It provide managers and employees with concrete guidance on implementing policy aims and principles such as allowing the relevant parties to own and resolve their own disputes at the lowest possible level. It also provides guidance on mediation options, should mediation be required. A grievance procedure may also involve steps to follow up a dispute and ensure the root issues of the dispute are also resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

Policy frameworks Policy frameworks set out the larger context of policy-making within the organisation. You could think of a policy framework as a policy about policies; that is, a statement of the general purpose of creating policies within the organisation, the overall process through which policy-making is undertaken and communicated, and the legal and ethical requirements that may apply more generally to policy making.

At the highest levels of organisational planning, decisions must be made about what activities and values matter most to the organisation and its stakeholders, namely shareholders and investors, customers and employees. These constitute the key determinants of quality for the organisation.



Consider the diagram below:

The key determinants of quality provide the principles that define specific policies and procedures at different levels of the framework.

Max Lionel Realty, for example values integrity, teamwork and recognition of the diversity and expertise of MLR employees and agents. A consistent dispute resolution process is one way to ensure that these key values are effectively put into practice throughout the organisation. For many organisations, such as Max Lionel, effective dispute resolution may be crucial to the organisation because of high costs associated with unresolved disputes and the effect of chronic conflict on both productivity and employee engagement.

Policy frameworks should support a systematic approach to achieving organisational goals and values through organisational learning. Continuing with the example of conflict resolution, this means identifying actual or potential sources of conflict within the organisation and developing intelligent, sensitive and responsive policies to deal with the root causes of conflict, preventing disputes from occurring, if possible, and managing them when they do occur. For example, an organisation may deploy special cross-functional teams to collect information on actual conflict and brainstorm policy responses.

As organisations grow and change, the sources of conflict may also change. This means the effectiveness of policy needs to be regularly monitored and evaluated. Above all, the process of developing policy needs to be consultative, involving the employees and managers it is intended to serve. Purely top-down policy approaches – that don’t consider the needs of employees or engage them in the development process – are unlikely to effectively address real problems when they arise.



In the sections that follow, we will explore the application of policies, statements of values, procedures and processes that support a systematic and sustainable approach to reducing conflict and workplace relationship-building.

Learning activity: Review grievance policies and procedures

Locate grievance or dispute management policies and procedures for your organisation or an organisation you wish to research. Answer the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the policies or procedures?

• How can grievance or dispute resolution processes support relationship-building within the organisation?

• Who is responsible for implementation?

• What are the relevant pieces of legislation or codes of practice which apply?



• What specific guidance is contained in dispute resolution procedures or processes to help managers and employees implement the policy?

• What principles or values are embedded within the policies and procedures?

● Where do these principles and values come from?

• What is the process or framework in the organisation for developing policies and procedures?

• What other policies exist within the organisation that are relevant to managing communication, consultation and relationship-building?



Section summary

Section 1 covered the skills and knowledge required to develop communication plans, manage consultation and both top-down and bottom-up feedback. This section also covered grievance and dispute resolution policies and procedures.

Further reading

• Barton, P., 2014, Maximizing internal communication: strategies to turn heads, win hearts, engage employees and get results, eBook edn, BookBaby.

• Cowan, D., 2014, Strategic internal communication: how to build employee engagement and performance, Kogan Page.

• Jones, P., 2010, ‘Socialising strategy (or socializing strategy)’, Communicating strategy, viewed February 2015, <http://www.communicating-strategy.com/?p=47>.

Section checklist

Before you proceed to the next section, make sure that you are able to:

ensure strategies and processes are in place to communicate information ensure strategies and processes are in place to communicate progress against work responsibilities to all co-workers

develop and implement consultation processes to ensure that employees have the opportunity to contribute to issues related to their work role

facilitate feedback to employees on outcomes of the consultation processes

develop and implement processes to ensure that issues raised are resolved promptly or referred to relevant personnel.


Student Workbook Section 2 – Establish Organisational Values and Maintain Networks

Section 2 – Establish Organisational Values and Maintain Networks

The focus of this section is on establishing organisational values and maintaining internal and external networks. Section 2 outlines diversity and ethical policy frameworks, maintaining trust with colleagues by modelling appropriate behaviours, and adapting your interpersonal communication style. Section 2 also covers planning and using networks to solve problems and complete work tasks.

Scenario: Establishing values at Max Lionel Realty

Max Lionel Realty’s core values include integrity, client-focus, active encouragement of excellence, innovation and continuous improvement, teamwork, and recognition of the diversity and expertise of MLR employees and agents.

Max Lionel Realty places a great deal of emphasis on the importance of building and maintaining strong internal and external networks. To build effective stakeholder relationships, leaders will need to model attributes that exemplify its core values and use interpersonal skills to respond to others’ needs.

Leaders will need strong networking skills and plan networking activities for themselves and others in order to achieve desired work outcomes.


In order to establish systems to develop trust and confidence and to manage effective networks, you must be able to:

establish and/or implement policies to ensure that the organisation’s cultural diversity and ethical values are adhered to

gain and maintain the trust and confidence of colleagues and external contacts through professional conduct

adjust your interpersonal communication styles to meet the organisation’s cultural diversity and ethical environment and guide and support

use networks to build workplace relationships providing identifiable outcomes for the team and the organisation

conduct ongoing planning to ensure that effective internal and external workplace relationships are developed and maintained.


Section 2 – Establish Organisational Values and Maintain Networks Student Workbook

Establish organisational values

To be an effective leader and support strong internal and external relationships, you will need to model and promote personal integrity, fairness and respect for diversity. As a manager, you will need to work to identify and establish such positive organisational values. This means you will need to understand formal ethical frameworks and ensure their implementation. You will also need to understand softer, more informal, and potentially more important forms of positive culture building. Let’s look at an overview of company culture, the values and behaviours that underpin workplace culture, the formal ethical frameworks and their effective establishment through careful planning.

Organisational culture Organisational culture is often referred to as ‘how things get done around here’. Another term used to describe corporate culture is the ‘personality’ of the workplace. The personality of the workplace reflects the values and behaviours of the people who work there.

Managers can have a positive or negative influence on organisational culture. Here are some methods and approaches to building a positive culture that is consistent with the organisational vision, mission and values:

• Tell positive stories related to the goal of your team, and the teams you interact with, in terms of process and how you are all contributing to the organisation’s vision.

• Reward and recognise positive performance within the bounds of your organisation’s policies and processes. Positive, specific feedback is often all that is required. Avoid generalised, non-specific feedback such as ‘well done’. Frontline managers must be specific about what was done well and how that links to the team goal and the organisation vision.

• Encourage power to develop where it is consistent with the mission. If people in your team or other teams are willing to assume positions of leadership in executing the strategy and tactics of the organisation, allow it to happen.

• Make decisions consistent with the values. Always check that you are not going against the organisation’s values when you make decisions. It is the organisation’s values that need to be taken into account, not your own.

• Be inclusive, fair and consistent in your day-to-day management of the team and implementation of policy. Model the values and behaviours that you and the organisation wish to see reflected in the way things are done.

Remember that organisations are dynamic systems, constantly changing and responding to sources of internal and external information, much like a living organism.

Values and core aims and objectives may stay relatively stable, but the way those values are effectively practiced and communicated may vary based on a number of factors, including the behaviour and attitudes of direct supervisors and managers.



Values Values form the basis of an organisation’s way of doing things, and are often written into official organisational documentation such as strategic plans and ethical statements. A survey of core company values listed the following as the most highly ranked by employees and managers:

• customer satisfaction

• ethics/integrity

• accountability

• respect for others

• open communication.4

It is up to management and staff to implement these values. The extent to which management demonstrates these values will have a significant influence on the organisational culture. In addition, there is the collective value system held by the individual workers and these may or may not align to the corporate view. For example, a company may strongly support a multicultural value system, yet different worksites may be for or against the principle, depending on the values of the individuals at each site. It is a management responsibility to monitor the values of each workplace and implement strategies and procedures at local levels to ensure that, while conflict is not ignored, it is learned from and resolved in a manner consistent with organisational needs, fairness and legal requirements.

Behaviours In addition to the documented values, each workplace, over time, develops a set of informal behaviours that define its organisational culture.

These social behaviours are evident on a day-to-day basis and include:

• how work gets done

• how employees treat one another

• how employees treat customers and other external contacts

• how willing employees are to share ideas and information

• how flexible the company is in empowering employees to choose the way work gets done.

Cultural behaviours develop over time and, in older, more rigidly hierarchical and autocratic organisations, can be firmly ingrained. Recruitment managers tend to select new staff that ‘fit the bill’ and are likely to share the company values, ensuring the established culture is maintained.

4 S. Robbins, R. Bergman, I. Stagg and M. Coulter, 2008, Management, 5th edn, Pearson Education, NSW, p. 173.



Learning activity: Corporate culture

The culture of an organisation is often apparent after interacting with the first person inside the front door. Talk to people from different workplaces. Write down some notes on ‘how things get done’ in relation to:

• values

• behaviours.

Research some corporate values that drive successful international companies. Note down some of their ideas.



Ethical frameworks An ethical framework is a statement of principles or values that an organisation adheres to. It is aligned to external legal and ethical constraints and harmonises with the organisation’s mission, vision and goals. Note that goals extend beyond purely financial objectives and include social and environmental responsibility.

Business ethics is often incorporated into organisational planning in a systematic way. Just as policy frameworks (discussed in Section 1) outline a process for translating key determinants of quality into individual policies and practices, ethical frameworks provide an overall guide for first determining values and then embedding those values into the day-to-day work of the organisation:

Organisational values statements articulate professional values and ethical principles that all employees are expected to adhere to. These ethical principles: are set out in statements, such as ethical statements and codes of conduct; influence governance and reporting; and are integrated into policies and procedures for specific areas of operations or human resources, such as recruitment or performance management.

An ethical framework provides many benefits. Some of the benefits that arise from effective ethical frameworks include:

• developing consistency in the behaviours of staff and management

• legitimising management actions taken within an ethical context

• strengthening the culture of the organisations by linking operations and HR processes to ethics and fairness

• consistency in decision-making within the organisation

• improving trust between groups and individuals within the organisation

• supporting greater consistency in organisational performance

• reduction in grievances, conflict and disputes.

Working within ethical frameworks, managers are expected to build company values into the way they manage teams and exemplify ethical behaviours such as fairness and openness.

Values

Ethical statements/

codes of ethics

Codes of conduct

Governance and

reporting

Policies and procedures



Codes of ethics As discussed above, ethical frameworks are essentially statements of principles which are applied throughout the organisation. A code of ethics provides a set of guiding principles for the way in which employees should behave. A code of ethics should:

• have a broad focus and provide general information regarding expected behaviour

• provide guidance as to how employees ‘should’ behave, rather than what to do

• set the foundation for an organisation’s other documentation, such as codes of conduct and policies and procedures.

Learning activity: Review a code of ethics

Obtain a copy of your organisation’s code of ethics (or another organisation’s code of ethics that you can find online) and review the contents.

Tip: If you are currently employed, you can use your organisation’s code of ethics; however, if you are not employed, you can obtain an example by searching the internet for ‘code of ethics’. The following websites may be useful:

• Monash University, ‘Monash University ethics statement’, Monash University, viewed February 2015, <http://adm.monash.edu/human-resources/ ethics/>.

• St James Ethics Centre, 2012, ‘Codes of ethics’, St James Ethics Centre, viewed February 2015, <http://www.ethics.org.au/about/what-is-ethics>.

• The University of Western Australia, 2014, ‘UWA code of ethics and code of conduct’, The University of Western Australia, viewed February 2015, <http://www.hr.uwa.edu.au/publications/code_of_ethics>.

Answer the following questions:

• What principles does the code of ethics provide for employee behaviour?

• What sort of workplace culture do you think these principles provide for?



• How are the principles applied by managers?

• How could application be improved?

Ensure ethical principles are observed across the organisation You will need to ensure that codes of ethics and codes of conduct are observed across the organisation. As a manager, some of the ways you can do this include ensuring policies and procedures are consistent with the ethical framework.

You will also need to develop communication strategies, as discussed in the previous section, to ensure that ethical principles are understood and able to be applied. You may also need to undertake a training needs analysis to determine teams or individual competencies with regard to the application or knowledge of ethical practices and then arrange training as required.

Importantly, you will need to show leadership by embodying the following required attributes and values:

• be honest with internal and external clients: develop a reputation for truthfulness

• ensure consistency and fairness in your personal behaviour

• eliminate the fact or appearance of conflict of interest

• monitor ethics and be seen to take ethical behaviour seriously.

Above all, you will need to act to redress breaches of the code, by acting immediately to correct behaviour or bring the behaviour to the attention of designated persons.

Ethical frameworks are designed to ensure management has a systematic, transparent, and consistent way to link organisational goals and values to managing individual performance and behaviour. Aligning behaviour to ethics is critical to the smooth functioning of the organisation and ensures that where issues, including conflicts, arise they can be dealt with fairly and consistently and in accordance with relevant legislative or statutory requirements.



Learning activity: Implement a code of ethics

Consider the code of ethics or statement of ethics you reviewed in the previous activity.

Identify the steps you would take to implement and apply the ethical principles it contains regarding the following categories.

Documents Management of others Personal actions and growth

Understand and manage sources of diversity

Diversity can easily be a source of misunderstanding and conflict; however, those conflicts can also be sources of personal and organisational learning, strength and resilience. As a manager, in order to implement company values of fairness and diversity, you will need to identify and manage diversity. Let’s look at sources of diversity and explore some models of cultural and intergenerational diversity.



Sources of diversity Diversity is variety in all areas of life. In the work environment, you might consider a diverse workplace to include differences in:

• gender

• nationality

• cultural background

• age or generation

• language

• sexual orientation

• religious belief

• family responsibilities

• life experience

• educational background

• wealth

• marital status

• personal responsibilities

• family

• clothing

• previous experiences

• perspectives

• food preferences

• working styles

• personality

• aspirations.

Diversity poses problems for team cohesion and relationship-building when people with different backgrounds have different expectations and read different meaning into workplace interactions.

Cultural differences In the 1960s, Dr Geert Hofstede conducted a comprehensive study of how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. He collected and analysed data from over 100,000 individuals from forty countries while working as a psychologist with IBM. Hofstede developed a model that identifies five primary dimensions to differentiate cultures.

Although Hofstede's results are categorised by country, often there is more than one cultural group within that country. In these cases there may be significant deviation from the study's result. For example, in Canada, the English speaking population and the French speaking population in Quebec have moderate cultural differences.

Hofstede's dimensions analysis can assist you to better understand the intercultural differences within regions and between countries.

The five dimensions of the Hofstede Cultural Dimensions model are:

• Power Distance Index (PDI) is the extent to which the less powerful members of organisations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.

• Individualism (IDV) is the degree to which individual rights and freedom is valued over social cohesion and group rights.

• Masculinity (MAS) refers to the degree to which the culture exhibits ‘masculine’ characteristics over ‘feminine’ characteristics.



• Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) refers to the extent to which a culture feels uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations.

• Long-Term Orientation (LTO) refers to the degree long-term planning and savings behaviours predominate in the culture.

Learning activity: Hofstede Cultural Dimensions model

Visit the Hofstede Cultural Dimensions website:

• <http://geert-hofstede.com>

Use the ‘countries comparison tool’ <http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html> to compare Australia with another culture in each of the dimensions.

Compare the two cultures in the table below.

Australia Other country

PDI

IND

MAS

UA

LTD

If you were to interact with a team member from the culture you researched, what changes to your approach might you consider?

Generational differences Generations differ according to how they think, how they behave and what they value. Many business leaders and social scientists advise business managers to get ready for the impact of generational change on organisational culture.



A survey of the Australian population in 2012 found the following data5:

Description Born % of Population % of Workforce

Builders 1925–1945 13% 2%

Boomers 1946–1964 24% 36%

Gen X 1965–1979 21% 44%

Gen Y 1980–1994 21% 18%

Gen Z 1995–2010 19% 0%

So how do the differing generations see the world, and in particular their workplace? The following table sets out some general traits ascribed to three of these generations.

Boomers (1946–1964): Boomers dominate the workforce due to their large numbers and the executive positions that they hold in many workplaces. They have a strong belief in loyalty to the company and in working long and hard to get ahead. Boomers value:

• achievement

• advancement and promotion

• economic security

• power and authority

• stability and status.

Gen X (1965–1979): Gen X is the ‘between’ generation. They have been waiting patiently for their turn at the top, yet some say they have grown resentful of the wait. They can hear the footsteps of a highly educated and technologically advanced generation that is catching up and, increasingly, overtaking them. Their work values include:

• self-belief

• meaningful work

• balance

• resilience

• equality

5 McCrindle Research, 2012, Generations defined report, available online, McCrindle Research, viewed February 2015, <http://mccrindle.com.au/resources/whitepapers/McCrindle-Research_ABC-01_Generations-Defined_Mark-McCrindle.pdf>.



Gen Y (1980–1994): Gen Ys were born into a world of ever-increasing technology. They are highly educated and highly networked. Gen Y is entering the workforce in numbers, looking for the opportunity to learn and develop. Their work values include:

• relationships

• technology

• finances

• cultural diversity

• lifelong education

• continuous change.

Research findings suggest that Gen Y places a high value on workplace relationships. Generation Y was found to be motivated by external factors more so than internal factors. Motivators, such as ‘power’, ’influence’ and ‘equality’ scored the lowest whilst their highest value was ‘teamwork’.

Learning activity: Generational differences

Do some internet research to find out how different generations differ. Start with the following generations definition table:

• McCrindle Research, 2012, ‘Generations defined’, McCrindle Research, viewed February 2015, <http://mccrindle.com.au/resources/Generations- Defined-Sociologically.pdf>.

Note down a summary of what you discover in the space provided below. How could you modify your management or communication approach to accommodate the different generations?

• Baby Boomers:

• Gen X:



• Gen Y:

Build personal trust

To build workplace relationships, you will need to build personal trust. To do this, you will need to be consistent, persistent, and insistent in upholding and modelling the organisation’s mission, vision, and values. You will need to demonstrate integrity, respect for others, empathy and competence.

Insistent persistent, consistent To build trust a frontline manager needs to be:

• Insistent – If you are insistent, people will know that you are serious about what you say.

• Persistent – If you are persistent, people will know that you believe in what you say, and that you will not compromise on standards.

• Consistent – If you are consistent people will know what to expect and even if they do not agree with you will respect you for the consistency of your values.

Learning activity: Insistent, persistent and consistent

Read the article in Appendix 4 of this Student Workbook, titled ‘Managing people; be insistent, persistent and consistent’.

Reflect on your leadership in your workplace. What tools are you using or should you be using to be insistent, persistent and consistent with your team?

Action Tool

Insistent



Action Tool

Persistent

Consistent

Show integrity Demonstrating integrity is an important way of building personal trust.

Integrity is the steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code. There are lots of words that could describe a person with integrity:

Integrity is many things

Integrity

Fair

Consistent

Loyal

Whole

Truthful

Reliable

Sincere

Honest



Learning activity: Integrity

Pick three words from the group above (or choose some others) that best describe your view of management integrity. Give reasons for each choice.

1.

2.

3.

Describe a time when you believe someone acted towards you with integrity in the workplace. How did it make you feel?



In your role as a frontline manager, there are several ways that you can demonstrate integrity:

• be consistent in your decision-making

• share information

• be a role-model for sincere behaviour

• encourage honesty and openness

• follow up on promised actions

• reward people for good performance

• highlight integrity in your performance appraisals.

Demonstrate respect Carl Rogers, a psychologist, believed that the formation of a genuine, trusting relationship was the essence of any positive interaction. Being genuine involved the demonstration of respect to all people. Carl Rogers called this principle for building relationships ‘unconditional positive regard’ (UPR).

Learning activity: Respect and UPR

Search the internet for information on Carl Rogers and the concept of ‘unconditional positive regard’. Note down a few thoughts on what you find in answer to the following questions:

• What are the benefits to UPR?

• How could you apply UPR to your role as a manager?



Respect is not to be confused with liking someone; you don’t have to like someone to have a genuine relationship with them. In fact, the quickest way to disrespect someone is to pretend to like them. In a large organisation it is not possible to like everyone who you interact with. However, good communicators and leaders have the ability to interact successfully with a wide range of people from very different backgrounds. There are a range of behaviours that indicate respect. These include the following.

• Being courteous – Think of a time when you went to a shop and the salesperson greeted you in a friendly way, listened carefully to your request and paid attention to the details of your order. You probably still go to that store and recommend it to others. If you are treated in a similar way by your co-workers and bosses, you look forward to going to work. Many workplaces place a high value on showing respect to customers; yet let the standards slip when dealing with staff. Remember that the organisation is a system and any action at one level affects the people at all other levels.

• Showing tolerance – A tolerant person will treat all their daily contacts with acceptance, irrespective of age, appearance, occupation or background. The essence of tolerance is fairness and openness towards others who are not like you.

• Displaying appreciation – People respond well to feeling valued and having their efforts recognised. Humanistic psychological theories suggest that recognition as a person of worth is a basic human need. It costs very little to show appreciation as people respond well to psychological rewards such as a ‘thumbs up’, a kind word, or an email of thanks.

Demonstrate Empathy Empathy is the ability to look at a situation through the eyes of another person. To build trust and strong business relationships with people, you will need to demonstrate that you are interested in them and their particular needs, not simply work outcomes. You will need to show interest by asking questions to find out:

• technical and work needs

• emotional needs, for example, for respect or social acceptance.

An empathetic person will think about others and their special needs, and make adjustments in their behaviour and communication accordingly. Do your internal and external contacts believe that you have their interests at heart? Do they believe it is genuinely possible to collaborate with you without putting themselves at risk?

Demonstrate competence Finally and most importantly, to build a trusting relationship with your team, you must demonstrate the ability to do your job well. As a leader, others depend on you to demonstrate leadership competencies and meet the technical, work-related and emotional needs of your team.



Your job may involve performing tasks, and your performance of these tasks should serve as a model of quality. Your job also involves demonstrating your reliability and ability to manage people fairly. Naturally, your relationship with one member of your team will stand as an example for other members about how they can expect to be managed by you. Be a model of high performance so that you can fairly ask the same of those you manage.

People need to trust the competence of those leading them in order to feel engaged and satisfied with their work. In fact, a recent study claims that the competence of the ‘boss’ is the single most important factor in workers’ job satisfaction and wellbeing.6 Demonstrating competence, therefore, helps build the positive work climate that serves as the supporting context for effective and sustainable relationship-building.

Your attitude to self-improvement is also important. Seeking feedback, recognising your need to improve and taking action to improve is important to demonstrate that high performance is as important for yourself as it is for everyone.

Learning activity: Competence and trust

List three of your workplace tasks that allow others to assess how well you complete those tasks. If you are not a manager, for the purpose of this activity, imagine that you are.

For those tasks you self-asses as having lower competence in, what are you going to do to address the skill gap? Will you try mentoring, coaching, training, networking, another solution?

Tasks or managerial skills

Self-assess: highly competent/ intermediate/ require improvement

6 B. Artz, A. Goodall and A. Oswald, 2014, ‘Boss competence and worker well-being’, IZA discussion paper series, IZA DP No. 8559, IZA, viewed February 2015, <http://ftp.iza.org/dp8559.pdf>.



Use effective interpersonal communication

To build relationships, you will need to understand and use effective communication. You will need to understand verbal and non-verbal forms of communication and understand the impact of cultural and linguistic diversity. You will also need to understand and use styles of interpersonal communication to interact with others to support diversity, ensure acceptance, and build effective work relationships to achieve organisational and personal goals.

Verbal communication Communicating always has potential for creating misunderstandings. We continually, and unintentionally, distort, delete, mishear and misunderstand what other people say to us.

Miscommunication, in particular, our inability to understand others may be influenced by:

• Our values – We reject what offends our values rather than listen for the message.

• Our mood – We misunderstand or ignore much of the communication when we are in a bad mood. We are concentrating on ourselves, we mishear or misunderstand verbal, non-verbal or emotional cues because we are not listening.

• Our experience and upbringing – We filter out what (we think) we have heard a thousand times before. We also make unconscious judgements based on how we were brought up.

• Our personality – We may be distracted or confused as a result of interacting with a different personality type.

Listening to others takes skill, patience, willingness and empathy. Consider the illustration below, showing how a verbal message is encoded in language by the speaker and decoded (through a filter of personal mood, personality, upbringing and values) by the listener.

When dealing with people at work, you will need to make sure that you are aware of possible misunderstandings. To avoid potential of misunderstanding ensure that you take advantage of feedback channel to work through misunderstandings and differences. Listen carefully and ask questions to ensure your understanding is correct. Likewise, you should be aware of ways the other person may misunderstand you.



Non-verbal communication Thankfully, we are much better at picking up on non-verbal communication than verbal communication. With minor allowances for cultural differences, we know what the look on someone’s face tells us almost intuitively; we have been building this interpretive skill over a lifetime. Similarly:

• we know what different tones and pace of voice mean

• we know when someone is angry without them having to say so

• we know when they are nervous or afraid.

We interpret communications in roughly the following proportions:

• 7% by the words used,

• 38% by voice quality, and

• 55% by the non-verbal communication.7

There are six basic types of non-verbal communication:

• Kinesics – Body motions, posture, degree of tension and relaxation, synchronising.

• Gesture – Deliberate movement: some gestures have intuitively obvious meanings (e.g. three fingers for the number 3); some gesturing may be less intuitive or culturally relative, such as the hitchhiker’s thumb, or a finger in front of the lips meaning ‘be quiet’.

• Facial expressions – These carry most of our non-verbal meanings. Expressions for happiness, sadness, distress, fear, anger and surprise are similar across cultures.

• Touch – Critical for human relationship-building. May be used for control, for teaching, for showing affection.

• Display – Presentation of self (clothing, decoration of space).

• Spatial relations or proxemics – the distance between individuals. Friends are more comfortable standing close to each other than strangers, usually women are more comfortable standing closer together than men, and people in some countries, for example the USA, are more comfortable standing closer together than, say, those from Australia or the UK. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall described four zones of social distance and interpretations that might operate within a Western workplace8:

7 A. Mehrabian, 1981, Silent messages: implicit communication of emotions and attitudes, Wadsworth, California.

8 Adapted from: K. Cherry, 2014, ‘Understanding body language’, About education, viewed February 2015, <http://psychology.about.com/od/nonverbalcommunication/ss/understanding-body-language_8.htm#step-heading>.



Distance Meaning

0 to 46 cm • intimacy.

46 to 122 cm • friendship • collegiality.

122 to 370 cm • being an acquaintance.

370 to 760+ cm • in meetings or public speaking contexts, power, formality.

Note that the zones may not be universally applicable. Different cultures have different standards for proxemics, and comfort with distances varies from person-to-person.

Learning activity: Non-verbal communication

Consider what these might represent in a workplace considering a positive interpretation and a negative interpretation:

Communication element Positive meaning Negative meaning

Your boss touches you on the shoulder

A colleague speaks very loudly

A co-worker stands very close to you

A participant in training slouches in their chair while maintaining eye contact with you



A red sign

Cultural and linguistic diversity With respect to intercultural understanding, People from different cultures show significant differences in communication. Such differences may be sources of misunderstanding or unfairness. Differences may be classed as linguistic and verbal or non-verbal.

Linguistic or verbal differences Linguistic and verbal differences go beyond differences between the language being spoken. Even within the same language, accent and word use can vary greatly between regions. Both domestic and international organisations and teams may need to overcome language barriers in order to communicate on work tasks and collaborate effectively.

Within language classifications themselves, dialects, idioms, word choice, accent, pronunciation, spelling and rhythm are sources of potential misunderstanding, conflict and even unfairness. For example, American, UK, Australian, Singaporean, Indian and South African English differ significantly. Such differences, moreover, may pose more difficulty for team members who speak English as a second language, potentially serving as a source of unfairness or unequal access to information and to forming business relationships.

Concepts and practices that underpin culture and cultural expression within language, may differ. Some things are that are acceptable to do or discuss in one culture are less common or unacceptable in others. Cultural assumptions – regarding taboos or shared experiences and knowledge – permeate the use of language. For example, cultures may find it more or less acceptable to talk about personal issues, feelings or other subjects not strictly related to work. Other cultures may consider personal stories central to forging business relationships. Without understanding the cultural assumptions that underlie language, relying on the actual words spoken, even if you understand the language in question, can be fraught with potential for miscommunication.



Non-verbal differences In addition to linguistic and verbal differences, non-verbal differences complicate intercultural communication further. Consider the following potential issues:

• Voice intonation and emotional expression – Cultural expressions of emotions are not as universal as they may seem. Culture influences, for example, how emotions are displayed and what causes different people to experience emotions. You can’t assume that a loud voice, for instance, means excitement or anger.

• Gestures – Unlike facial expressions, gestures vary between cultures. Some examples of the way gestures can be understood differently in different scenarios include:

○ Thumbs-up means everything from well done to a rude gesture depending where you are from.

○ Looking into a person’s eyes can be associated with engagement and honesty in some cultures but rudeness in others.

• Proximity – how different cultures interpret the appropriate distance between speakers and what different distances can mean.

As a manager, it may be impossible to eliminate sources of cultural miscommunications. You will, however, need to do your best to avoid misunderstandings by:

• learning as much as you can about the cultures of the people you are attempting to form business relationships with

• appreciating the potential for misunderstanding that exists

• applying and promoting the values of fairness and diversity through modelling cultural sensitivity

• collaborating on ground rules for intercultural communication

• communicating relevant policies and processes

• implementing policy fairly and consistently to manage disputes and misunderstandings.

Learning activity: Cultural differences in non-verbal communication

Search online or read the following article to answer the questions below:

• Cotton, G., 2013, ‘Gestures to avoid in cross-cultural business: in other words, “keep your fingers to yourself!”’, Huffington post, viewed February 2015, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gayle-cotton/cross-cultural-gestures_b_3437653.html>.




• What are the various meanings of:

○ The ‘V’ sign?

○ The ‘OK’ sign?

○ The ‘thumbs up’ sign?

• What advice would you give to people with regard to using gestures in intercultural communications?

Leadership and personality styles Finally, personality and communication styles will make up a big part of the way you will interpret verbal and non-verbal information. Personality affects the way we interpret the intended meanings, emotional states, and motivations of others. Let’s review some well-known models of personality types and interpersonal styles and their applications to relationship-building.

Personality and leadership styles Three well-known models of personality types and leadership styles are Myers-Briggs, Big-5, and DISC.



Myers-Briggs The model contains 16 personality types based on whether a person:

• is introverted or extroverted; defined as gaining energy from oneself or from others respectively

• prefers to focus on basic sensory information or intuit, interpret and add meaning

• predominantly thinks or feels when making decisions

• tends to judge or perceives ambiguities, grey areas and reserves judgement.

For example, one personality type is ISTJ (an Introverted, Sensory, Thinking and Judging person)

Big-5 The Big-5 personality types are characterised by one of five characteristic states:

1. Openness to experience.

2. Conscientiousness.

3. Extraversion.

4. Agreeableness.

5. Neuroticism, or the tendency to experience negative emotions more than others.

DISC DISC is a personal assessment model that characterises people at work as perceiving the world predominantly in one of four ways:

• Dominance (D) – Sees themselves as more powerful than the environment and the environment as unfavourable.

• Inducement (I) – Sees themselves as more powerful than the environment and the environment as favourable.

• Submission (S) – Sees themselves as less powerful than the environment and the environment as unfavourable.

• Compliance (C) – Sees themselves as less powerful than the environment and the environment as favourable.

Personality types or styles will certainly impact how you interpret the words or behaviours of others. To take a Myers-Briggs example, silence from an introvert may mean nothing at all, while silence from an extrovert may indicate sadness or extreme withdrawal.

Similarly, in the case of the Big-5 model, an expression of negativity from someone you know to be generally agreeable could indicate a serious problem; whereas with a neurotic type, you may simply need to manage his or her negativity to avoid too much impact on work or the team.



In the case of DISC, for example, an expression of compliance from a dominant type could indicate unhappiness, passive aggression, or dishonesty.

As with all interpretations of verbal and non-verbal communication, you will need to exercise a great deal of common sense, personal knowledge and good judgement. Use personality types and styles as a useful guide.

Interpersonal communication styles In addition to the personality and leadership styles discussed above, you will need to consider interpersonal communication styles. To manage your communication, you will need to understand your usual or default communication style, and work to expand your interpersonal range to be able to match your style more appropriately to the needs of others and the requirements of the particular circumstances.

There are four interpersonal styles. These are usually presented in a matrix containing the dimensions of assertiveness and responsiveness:

Amiable More likely to ask questions; converses at a slower pace; prioritises relationships.

Expressive More likely to tell others information; converses at a faster pace; prioritises relationships.

Analytical More likely to ask questions to find out information; converses at a slower pace; prioritises tasks.

Driver More likely make demands; converses at a faster pace; prioritises tasks.

In applying interpersonal styles to your work in building and maintaining effective work relationships and in developing others to build their skills, you will need to learn to be flexible and accommodate the styles of others. While you may not be able to completely change your approach, you may be able to adapt to the needs of others by recognising their motivations, asking less expressive types to explain their positions, and asking questions to confirm understanding.



Note that interpersonal communication styles may have important application for intercultural and intergenerational communication and skills-building among team members. It is important to recognise that some cultures show preferences for certain styles of communication. In one study of mixed workplace groups, driving styles generally characterised American leaders and team members, while Asian leaders and team members generally favoured more collaborative and relationship-focused styles. In addition, as some styles are characterised by rapid speech patterns, you may need to act to ensure language issues do not further complicate communication and relationship-building efforts.9 In accommodating mixed international teams, you may need to either adopt a more amiable or analytical style yourself, or spend more time ensuring each person’s needs clarified and met.

When communicating with and developing the communication the skills of ‘millennials’ (those born between 1980 and 2000), consider that millennials tend to be less open to being criticised and being told what to do and may require more positive feedback. Spend more time allowing novice communicators to learn the importance of communication styles and of ‘flexing’ to accommodate others within their own social context and networking activities. Remember to provide regular and timely feedback, especially regarding successes.10

Learning activity: Interpersonal communication styles

Watch the YouTube video ‘Tracom’s social style model HD version’ <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRBx8IkV-kQ>.

Answer the following questions: • What are the four interpersonal styles?

9 J. Aritz and R. Walker, 2014, ‘Leadership styles in multicultural groups: Americans and East Asians working together’, International journal of business communication, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 72–92.

10 J. Hartman, and J. McCambridge, 2011, ‘Optimising millennials communication styles’, Business communication quarterly, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 22–43.



• What are the ‘growth actions’ for each style?

• What is your style?

• What ‘growth actions’ could you take in order to be able to be more responsive to the communication styles of others?

• What applications can you imagine for your own place of work with respect to intercultural and intergenerational communication?



Use the internet to do some research on interpersonal communication. Use search terms such as ‘interpersonal styles’, ‘personality types’ or ‘leadership styles’. Answer the following questions:

• Are there other models?

• Which do you prefer or find easier to apply to your own workplace circumstances?

Use networks to solve problems and grow

As a manager and leader, building and maintaining networks and relationships with a wide range of internal and external contacts is crucial to the success in your role. Having a wide range of good working relationships will enable you to solve work problems to complete tasks, develop yourself and build your team.

Networks for problem-solving and completing work tasks Some people are natural networkers. In the book, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, they are described as connectors. Connectors may not know how to do something, but they always seem to know someone who can.

The key characteristics managers require to complete work responsibilities or to resolve a problem are:

• competence, including their own positive behaviours and attitudes, skills and knowledge

• authority, including financial authority and ability to influence.

If managers do not have the competence and the authority to resolve a problem then they must rely on their network of frontline employees, managers, technical experts, suppliers, customers and consultants to help them resolve the problem or complete work tasks.

The type of network that is required to help resolve problems depends on the level of competence and authority the frontline manager has with regard to the problem and its possible solutions.



This table sets out the best way for managers to approach networking based on their levels of authority and competence.

Low authority and low competence

The frontline manager should seek to build a network of people who can coach and train them to build their competence before seeking authority.

Low authority and high competence

The frontline manager should seek to build a network of senior managers who they can influence through their expertise or who can advise them on how to build a business case to solve their problem to get the appropriate authority to proceed.

High authority and low competence

The frontline manager should build a network of experts, often within their own team. It is not unusual for a frontline manager hired directly from university to find themselves in a position of knowing less about the job than their subordinates.

High authority and high competence

The frontline manager should build a network of mentors who can challenge their analysis and conclusions. In addition, if the frontline manager fits this quadrant with a wide range of problems, a career mentoring network is useful.



Learning activity: Network analysis

Think of four different types of problems you have had, are having, or there is a risk of having that you cannot resolve on your own. Analyse your level of competence and authority to resolve each problem alone.

Determine what kind of network you need to build. Determine who in your existing network fits the requirement and identify gaps. If you know of a person who can fill the gap write down their name and commit yourself to add them to your network.

If you cannot think of a person, write down how you will find a suitable person to join your network.

Problem Competence Authority Network member

(current or planned) High Low High Low

Networking opportunities and tools There are a number of opportunities and tools available for internal and external networking and for improving the capabilities and influence of your team.

With regard to internal networks, consider participation in:

• cross-functional teams as part of special project work or continuous process improvement

• regular meetings, committee membership, forums, and other features of workplace consultative structures

• online workplace social networks and messaging systems such as Slack and email chat functions

• internal ‘communities of practice’, or informal networks of practitioners within your organisation, of varying levels of skills and expertise, who can be called upon directly for advice or to participate in collaborative problem-solving.



Valuable networks can be built outside of your organisation. For example, through:

• professional associations and external communities of practice

• online professional social networking sites such as LinkedIn.

Learning activity: Online forums and blogs

Search the internet for online forums or blogs for your industry. Join the forum or blog and rate the forum or blog using the criteria in this table.

Forum/ blog name

Popularity (H,M,L)

Quality (H, M, L)

Association with known

experts? (Y/N)

Relevance to me and my team?

(H,M,L)

Worth joining?

(Y/N)

Conduct ongoing planning for self and others You will need to plan ongoing networking activities for yourself and others as part of getting the work done and professional development. Consider both internal and external networking options. As part of systematic and ongoing planning and scheduling, develop work plans and professional development plans with specific networking tasks, dates and accountabilities.



Learning activity: Plan networking activities for yourself and others

Consider your own work as manager of a team: • What are the networking needs of at least two members of your team for

personal development and completing work tasks? Identify competence and authority gaps.

• What are the networking options to close the gap?

Develop work plans for each employee including a range of networking activities.

Now develop a professional development plan for yourself. Include at least two internal and external networking activities and timelines for completion.

Networking tips The quality of your networking is not always about how many people are in your network. You need to focus your attention on developing a range of people who can share their expertise and build good relationships throughout your network. When developing your networks consider the following tips.

• Be clear about the objective of networking so that you do not waste time building networks for the sake of building networks.

• Choose your channels to be the most productive in building a relationship, e.g. in person, online, or by email.

• Network into all areas and levels of your organisation. Leaders and managers need as many networks as there are contexts in which the day-to-day problems arise.

• Give information freely. When you give information to others, others will more readily share information with you. Giving information freely develops trust, which is the foundation of an effective network.



• Ask questions to show interest. Asking questions, particularly open questions, and actively listening to the replies builds trust through the demonstration of interest.

• Do favours when you can. As with giving information freely, doing favours for others will result in them being willing to do favours for you.

• Keep in touch and contribute regularly. Tapping a network only when something is needed is a sure way to quickly diminish the value of the network, and your personal standing within it.

Section summary

Section 2 covered the skills and knowledge required to develop and implement policies for promoting diversity and business ethics, model professional behaviours, and adjust interpersonal communication styles to meet the needs of others. This section also covered planning and participation in networks to build internal and external relationships and achieve individual professional, team and organisational objectives.

Further reading


• Cotton, G., 2013, ‘Gestures to avoid in cross-cultural business: in other words, “Keep your fingers to yourself!”’, Huffington post, available online at: <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gayle-cotton/cross-cultural-gestures_b_3437653.html>.


• Hill, R. and Mind Tools Team, 2014, ‘Building good work relationships: making work enjoyable and productive’, Mind tools, viewed February 2015, <http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/good-relationships.htm>.

• Hofstede, G., 2014, ‘Countries comparison tool’, The Hofstede Centre, viewed February 2015, <http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html>

• McCrindle Research, 2012, ‘Generations defined’, McCrindle Research, viewed February 2015, <http://mccrindle.com.au/resources/Generations-Defined-Sociologically.pdf>.

• McCrindle Research, 2012, Generations defined report, available online, McCrindle Research, viewed February 2015, <http://mccrindle.com.au/resources/ whitepapers/McCrindle-Research_ABC-01_Generations-Defined_Mark-McCrindle.pdf>.

• Reyes, S., 2014, ‘Understanding communication styles in the workplace’, TribeHR, viewed February 2015, <http://tribehr.com/blog/understanding-communication-styles-in-the-workplace>.



Section checklist


establish and/or implement policies to ensure that the organisation’s cultural diversity and ethical values are adhered to

gain and maintain the trust and confidence of colleagues and external contacts through professional conduct

adjust your interpersonal communication styles to meet the organisation’s cultural diversity and ethical environment and guide and support

use networks to build workplace relationships providing identifiable outcomes for the team and the organisation

conduct ongoing planning to ensure that effective internal and external workplace relationships are developed and maintained


Section 3 – Manage Difficulties in Work Relationships Student Workbook

Section 3 – Manage Difficulties in Work Relationships

The focus of this section is on managing difficulties in work relationships such as grievances, disagreements and other forms of workplace conflict. Section 3 outlines strategies for managing conflict in accordance with relevant policies and procedures, providing guidance to colleagues, and effective planning for addressing and resolving conflicts.

Scenario: Managing relationships at Max Lionel Realty

Practising the people-focused leadership values of Max Lionel contributes to an overall climate of trust, cooperation, and collaboration.

Inevitably, however, difficulties such as strained work relationships, grievances and conflict will arise. These occurrences may threaten team cohesion and lead to poor morale and work performance if left unresolved. Fortunately, Max Lionel Realty has adopted a strong policy framework for resolving conflict in accordance with its core values and external legislative requirements.

Leaders are expected to follow policy to plan and take steps to resolve conflict, act as role models for others, and, when appropriate, to provide guidance, in the form of coaching or mediation, to others as they work to resolve conflict.


In order to manage difficulties in workplace relationships to achieve positive outcomes, you must be able to:

develop and implement strategies to ensure that difficulties in workplace relationships are identified and resolved

establish processes and systems to ensure that conflict is identified and managed constructively in accordance with the organisation’s policies and procedures

provide guidance, counselling and support to assist co-workers in resolving their work difficulties

develop and implement an action plan to address any identified difficulties.

Implement strategies to resolve workplace conflict

To be an effective leader, you will need to develop and implement strategies to identify and resolve difficulties. Let’s look at some generic approaches, and explore several implications and applications of these strategies in more detail.


Student Workbook Section 3 – Manage Difficulties in Work Relationships

Ten strategies Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith identify ten strategies for conflict resolution within organisations:

1. Understand the culture and dynamics of conflict – Reflect on the nature of organisational conflicts and their roots in the organisational culture.

2. Listen empathetically and responsively – Understand and respond humanely and sensitively to people and their points of view.

3. Search beneath the surface for hidden meanings – Look further and deeper than apparent problems to, for example, hurt feelings, disempowerment, or history of conflict that may actually lie at the heart of the conflict.

4. Acknowledge and reframe emotions – Try to look at and encourage others to look at conflicts from different perspectives.

5. Separate what matters from what gets in the way – Focus on objectives and shared goals rather than on positions. When at an impasse, try breaking big problems down into smaller chunks. Work on small problems to generate momentum. Save remaining problems for later.

6. Solve problems paradoxically and creatively – Use a variety of tools and approaches to generate options for solving problems.

7. Explore resistance and negotiate collaboratively – Ask questions and find out the logic behind peoples’ resistance. Negotiate on the basis of shared values and interests as opposed to stated positions and aim for mutual wins.

8. Learn from difficult behaviours – Look at disputes and conflicts as welcome information about problems and as opportunities to improve systemic processes and personal management skills.

9. Mediate and design systems for prevention – Work to design processes to address root issues and address conflict before it happens; mediate problems to build strong team relationships and highlight shared interests.

10. Lead and coach for transformation – Help people to transcend their limitations and achieve personal and professional growth.11

Throughout this section, we will explore several of these strategies and their practical interpretations and applications. We will explore several approaches below, including identifying types and levels of organisational conflict, listening responsively through active listening, reframing emotions through the use of emotional intelligence skills, using tools to solve problems creatively, and collaborative negotiation. Later in the section, we will explore designing systems, mediation and leading and coaching. In this way, each of the ten strategies listed above will be covered in more depth.

11 Adapted from: K. Cloke and J. Goldsmith, 2011, Resolving conflicts at work: ten strategies for everyone on the job, 3rd edn, Jossey-Bass.



Identify the type and level of conflict To manage workplace difficulties and conflicts to achieve positive outcomes, you will first need to identify and classify the conflict. Note that the conflict may have deeper roots in the organisational culture. This may affect the level of conflict in addition to other characteristics. Let’s look at topics that are likely to cause conflict in the workplace and then examine some approaches to different types of workplace conflict.

Hot and cool topics Hot topics are areas that are most likely to generate conflict, where cool topics are unlikely to generate conflict. Researchers Amy Edmondson and Diana Smith contrast hot and cool topics within the workplace.

Cool topics Hot topics

Information/data Accessible, objective, able to be tested against varying interpretations

Controversial, inaccessible, subjective, hard to test

Level of certainty High Moderate to low

Stakes Low to moderate High

Goals Generally shared Differ based on deeply help beliefs, values, positions and interests

Discussion Reasonable, based on facts Emotional; lack of agreement on the fact and on the relative importance of the facts when agreed, veiled personal attacks common

To deal with hot topics effectively, Edmondson and Smith advocate a three-step approach. First, manage yourself and emotional responses to issues. You should reflect on your spontaneous reactions and explore other points of view. Second, manage conversations through exploring beliefs and emotional reactions, and examining the logic behind other people’s views. Finally, manage relationships through building trust.12

Let’s turn to some approaches to different types of workplace conflict.

12 Adapted from: A. Edmondson and D. Smith, 2006, ‘Too hot to handle: how to manage relationship conflict’, California management review, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 6–30.



Conflicts about data

Causes Management

Data conflicts are caused by:

• lack of information

• misinformation

• differing views on what’s relevant

• different interpretations of data

• different assessment procedures.

To manage data conflicts:

• reach agreement on what data is important

• agree on a process to collect data

• develop common criteria to assess data

• use third-party experts to get an outside opinion or break deadlock.

Conflicts about interests

Causes Management

Interest conflicts are caused by:

• perceived or actual competitive positions/interests

• unfair procedures

• psychological interest, or confusion between people’s positions and interests

To manage interest conflicts:

• focus on interests, not positions

• look for objective criteria

• look for solutions that meet needs of all parties

• search for ways to expand options/resources

• propose trade-offs

Conflicts about values

Causes Management

Value conflicts are caused by:

• different criteria for evaluating ideas or behaviour

• mutually exclusive intrinsically valuable goals

• different ways of life, ideology and religion.

To manage value conflicts:

• avoid defining problem in terms of values that are in conflict

• allow parties to agree and disagree

• create a sphere of influence in which one set of values dominates

• search for overarching goal that all parties agree to.



Conflicts about organisational and team structures

Causes Management

Structural conflicts are caused by:

• destructive patterns of behaviour or interaction

• unequal control, ownership or distribution of resources

• unequal power and authority

• geographical, physical or environmental factors that hinder cooperation

• time constraints.

To manage structural conflicts:

• clearly define and change roles

• replace destructive behaviour patterns

• reallocate ownership or control of resources

• establish fair and mutually acceptable decision-making process

• change negotiations from positional to interest-based bargaining

• change physical and environmental relations.

Conflicts about relationships

Causes Management

Relationship conflicts are caused by:

• strong emotions

• misperceptions/stereotypes

• poor communication

• miscommunication

• repetitive negative behaviour.

To manage relationship conflicts:

• control negative expressions through procedures and ground rules

• promote processes that legitimise feelings

• clarify perceptions – build positive perceptions

• improve quality and quantity of communication

• block negative repetitive behaviour by changing structure

• encourage positive problem-solving attitudes.

Each type of conflict will need to be handled in slightly different ways. In addition, it will be useful to determine the level of conflict, to better determine the type and intensity of interventions to make.



Levels of conflict In addition to type, problems may be described according to level. Consider the following diagram:

If left unresolved, problems often, but not always, progress through the stages, from recognition through to the level of (apparent) intractability, requiring outside help or mediation to resolve. Note, however, that problems may be avoided for long periods, but remain latent and the cause of chronic low-level conflict. In other words, the level of the problem and the attention it generates doesn’t necessarily indicate the seriousness of the problem. Chronic, low-level problems can easily cause other problems directly, contribute to a climate of conflict, sap morale and reduce productivity.

Determining the level of conflict can be important for identifying the level of response or resources that may be needed to resolve the issue. For example, a dispute that has degenerated to the point of apparent intractability or open conflict will probably require extensive reflection, mediation or coaching to arrive a point where the conflict’s history and root causes can be understood and the interested parties brought to the table. Note that how conflicts progress in an organisation can indicate structural, systematic and organisational roots of conflict that may need to be addressed in order to truly resolve conflicts. For example, organisational culture itself may encourage problem avoidance; alternatively, it may reward completive behaviours that escalate conflict unnecessarily.

Level 5 – Intractability

Level 4 – Open conflict

Level 3 – Contest

Level 2 – Disagreement

Level 1 – Recognition of a problem

Level 0 – Avoidance



Learning activity: Understand the culture and dynamics of conflict

Reflect on your workplace or a workplace you are familiar with and answer the following questions:

• What are three hot topics?

• What type of conflict have these hot topics caused or contributed to?

• What was the level of the conflict?

• How was the conflict addressed:

○ What processes were used?



○ What solutions were identified?

• What role did organisational culture play in the conflict?

Listen responsively A second strategy for addressing conflict is listening responsively to the people involved. As a tool, active listening may be key to understanding and accommodating the points of view of others. Active listening comprises four processes. The four processes are:

1. Asking questions.

2. Paraphrasing.

3. Using verbal prompts.

4. Demonstrating commitment.

Active listening is a skill that requires practice and will develop over time if you work at it. Let’s look at how you should use active listening to resolve conflict.

Asking questions Try to engage with the person you are listening to by asking questions. Ask ‘open’ questions, for example: ‘What are your ideas or feelings about the conflict?’ to encourage expansiveness. You could also try to restrict the range of possible answers to eliminate ambiguity by asking closed questions, such as: ‘do these results make you angry?’ Show interest in what they are saying and try to build rapport. Seek clarification of any issues to find out what the root problem is. Be empathetic, not too aggressive.

Paraphrasing From time to time, summarise or recap what the person has said to you. This serves two purposes: (1) to confirm to yourself that you understand what has been said and the emotional context, and (2) to let the other person know that you have been listening – that they are important to you.



Using verbal prompts

There are five basic categories of phrases that encourage people to talk:

• Encouraging: ‘Can you tell me more?’

• Clarifying: ‘When did this happen?’

• Restating (paraphrasing): ‘So you would like to move rooms if we cannot fix the air-conditioning by 3 o’clock, is that right?’

• Summarising: Briefly state the main points expressed by the other person.

• Validating: ‘I appreciate your willingness to resolve this matter.’

Demonstrating commitment

Demonstrating commitment to the communication process serves two purposes – to show the person you are listening to that they have your full attention, and also to model management commitment to the process of resolving differences.

Active listening is key to understanding conflicts between individuals and within teams. Team problem-solving hinges on gathering the maximum amount of information to examine the problem or issue.

Sometimes, as a manager facilitating conflict resolution, you will need to draw out key emotional and technical information from individuals in order to make the information explicit for the team to discuss and process. You don’t want to omit key information simply because the person who holds that information is shy, introverted, or otherwise reluctant to share with the team.

Learning activity: Active listening – YouTube video

Watch this video on YouTube to learn titled ‘Active Listening’ from Professor Jeffrey Berman at Salem State University:

• ‘Active Listening’, YouTube, viewed February 2015, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AxNI3PhvBo>.


• What is the difference between hearing and listening?



• Why does the mind wander during listening?

• How can this problem be overcome?

• How can you prevent your biases from interfering with your understanding?

Reframe emotions: Use emotional intelligence A third strategy for resolving conflict is to reframe emotions through the use of emotional intelligence. Early emotional intelligence theorists Peter Salovey and John Mayer defined emotional intelligence as ‘the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions’.13 Effective leaders are those leaders that are able to identify and harness emotional intelligence to: better understand themselves and others; make better, more inclusive decisions; build and maintain strong relationships; and resolve conflict.

The process of the exercise of emotional intelligence in a social interaction at work unfolds as:

1. Identifying – Leaders reflect on their own emotions and identify how they truly feel about a given situation or the person they are interacting with.

2. Managing – Leaders manage their own emotions so that they are able to control their behaviour in ways that add positively to relationship building or at least do not interfere or undermine it.

13 P. Salovey and J. Mayer, 1990, Emotional intelligence. Baywood Publishing, Connecticut, p. 189.



3. Understanding – Leaders interpret their own feelings and those of others and blend them into a coherent and richer whole. The result is a more elaborate and realistic mental model or understanding of a social situation than would be possible without taking into account emotional information from various sources.14

Emotional intelligence allows you to recognise and reframe emotions that arise during conflict. Instead of allowing your team the unproductive luxury of to continuing to attack others and their positions, encourage them to describe their emotions and the emotions of others. Doing so allows people to separate their emotions from interests and work to find common ground with others. For example, you may ask people to refrain from making ‘You do X’ statements or accusations and encourage them to reframe them as ‘I …’ statements such as ‘I feel X, when you do Y’.

The overall result is a more positive interpersonal relationship, which can lead to more success with individual, team and organisational outcomes.

Learning activity: Emotional intelligence

Daniel Goleman is one of the leading proponents of emotional intelligence for business leaders and mangers. Read the following article:

• Goleman, D., 2004, ‘What makes a leader?’, Harvard business review, vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 82–91, available online, viewed February 2015, <https://hbr.org/2004/01/what-makes-a-leader/ar/1>.

Answer the following questions: • What are the five key leadership traits?

• How could you use them to resolve conflict?

14 Adapted from: J. Ingram and J. Cangemi, 2012, ‘Emotions, emotional intelligence and leadership: a brief, pragmatic perspective’, Education, vol. 132, no. 4, p. 775.



Using tools to identify creative solutions Another useful strategy for resolving conflict is the use of tools to identify creative options for breaking impasses. Well-known techniques for generating ideas include brainstorming, and variants of brainstorming such as affinity diagrams. Two widely employed tools discussed below, include Betari’s Box and Johari Window techniques.

Betari‘s Box Betari’s Box is a model of conflict escalation that can help leaders identify the causes of conflict that are rooted in mutually antagonising attitudes and behaviours. Attitudes and behaviours in interpersonal conflicts may reinforce themselves in a vicious cycle of conflict in which an issue may become harder to manage the longer it is left unresolved. Let’s look at an example conflict:

Example: Sam at Max Lionel Realty

Sam is planning a team-building exercise for his team of three agents dedicated to servicing the needs of property investors. This will involve small work teams competing against each other in a game of paintball in order to achieve a coherent sense of purpose and mutual respect.

Sam is driven and he needs the team behind him. Gerry is on Sam’s team. He is generally quiet and shy. He hates team games as they drain him of energy. He resents being asked to participate in paintball and takes every opportunity to undermine and trivialise Sam’s team-building efforts. Sam reacts to Gerry by feeling hurt and publically rebukes Gerry for insubordination and negative team behaviour. Gerry in turn is embarrassed and complains to the HR Business Partner about workplace bullying.

Breaking the cycle of conflict requires:

1. Recognition of the cycle.

2. Action to break the cycle and move towards resolution.

Let’s look at the cycle:

My Attitude

My Behaviour

Your Attitude

Your Behaviour



To use the Betari Box, first, recognise the hallmarks of the cycle in the current dispute. Do attitudes lead blindly to behaviours, which, in turn, trigger retaliatory attitudes and behaviours? Second, reflect or encourage participants to reflect on their own attitudes and behaviours:

• What choice do they have in how they display their emotions through attitude?

• What choice do they have in relation to their behaviours? Is it true that their attitude is completely determined by what the other person does and that their behaviour is likewise predetermined? What are the other options?

Reflect on other people’s behaviours and their point of view. Finally, where possible, own up to your own part in the dispute. Make the first move to reduce the level of conflict by apologising for your part.

In reaching a resolution, it is important to separate what matters from what gets in the way. In some conflicts, the historical action which may have triggered the escalation of the issue may be hard to identify or agree on. Try focusing on shared goals and separating out and depersonalising the attitudes and behaviours. It is important to recognise that attitudes and behaviours are choices; making different choices does not require compromising core values or changing who we are. This recognition is the first step towards breaking the cycle and achieving reconciliation. As a manager and leader, you will need to help people to realise that their snap judgements may be based on how they feel people ‘should’ behave. This attitude may be based on family upbringing or a range of assumptions that are different for everyone. Help people see, to the extent possible, that how they think people should act, or how they should respond, doesn’t really matter in comparison with the shared goals and how people agree from now on to act in full recognition of each other’s’ needs and predispositions.

Learning activity: Betari Box and the cycle of conflict

Watch the following YouTube video:

• ‘Lauren Mackler at Harvard Business School - Managing Conflict’, YouTube, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZOVWzKzpNg>.

Answer the following questions: • What is a reality check?

• How could you use the Betari Box to facilitate reality checks for people involved in a dispute?



• Describe a past or current dispute that fits the model of the Betari’s Box. How could you help resolve the dispute using some of the tips described in the video to complement your use of the Betari’s Box?

Johari Window Trust is built when we know what to expect from one another. High levels of trust are built when we know that we share common experiences and hence are likely to have common values. The Johari Window model (the word ‘Johari’ comes from Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham who developed the model) is a useful model for thinking about how to build trust within your team, promote understanding, and prepare the ground for identifying creative solutions to issues – and in particular those that have their roots in personal or cultural misunderstandings.

There are two key ideas behind the tool:

1. That individuals can build trust between each other by disclosing information about themselves.

2. That they can learn about themselves with the help of feedback from others.15

By explaining the idea of the Johari Window to your team, you can help team members understand the value of self-disclosure, and gently encourage people to give and accept feedback.

Done with a degree of sensitivity, you can help people build more trusting relationships with one another and work more effectively as a team.

The Johari Window model consists of a foursquare grid as seen below. Each quadrant represents information – feelings, motivation – about the person, that is known or not known by themselves or other people.

15 J. Luft and H. Ingham, 1955, ‘The Johari window, a graphic model of interpersonal awareness’, Proceedings of the western training laboratory in group development, UCLA, Los Angeles.



Known to self Not known to self

Know

n to

oth

ers

Open Blind spot

Not

kno

wn

to o

ther

s

Hidden Unknown

Johari Window

The four quadrants are:

• Open area – What is known by the person about himself/herself and is also known by others.

• Blind area, or ‘blind spot’ – What is unknown by the person about himself/herself but which others know. This can be simple information, or can involve deep issues. For example, feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness which are not directly accepted by an individual, and yet can be seen by others.

• Hidden area – What the person knows about himself/herself that others do not.

• Unknown area – What is unknown by the person about himself/herself and is also unknown by others. This may include unknown leadership ability through to unknown negative reactions when placed under stress.

The process of enlarging the open quadrant vertically is called self-disclosure, a give and take process between the person and the people he/she interacts with. As information is shared, the boundary with the hidden quadrant moves downwards. As other people reciprocate, trust tends to build between the team.



The Johari Window technique can be easily applied to building teams. Established team members have larger open areas than new team members. New team members start with smaller open areas because there is little shared knowledge about the new team member. Actively listening to feedback from other group members expands the size of the open area horizontally into the blind space. Team members should strive to assist others in expanding their open area by offering constructive feedback. The size of the open area expands vertically downwards into the hidden area when the new member discloses information, feelings, etc. about himself/herself to the team.

Team members can help a person expand their open area into the hidden area by asking them about himself/herself. Opening people’s blind spots and helping them to understand themselves better, including hidden abilities and weakness, improves their ability to perform within the team. Leaders and managers play a key role here, facilitating feedback and disclosure among group members, and by providing constructive feedback to individuals about their own blind areas.

By using the Johari Window approach, leaders and managers can help prevent interpersonal issues from escalating and provide a basis for exploring ever expanding open areas for sources of inspiration for creative solutions when problems do occur.

Learning activity: Johari Window

Search the internet for a Johari Window questionnaire. You will find a range of questionnaires which will give you feedback on the shape of your Johari Window.

Use a questionnaire you have found to answer the following: • Where do you fall within the quadrants?

• What does this result indicate about your ability to explore interpersonal team issues effectively?

• What steps could you take to improve your skills?



• What other tools and techniques could you use as a manager to identify creative solutions to team problems, for example:

○ Brainstorming?

○ Affinity diagrams?

○ Force-field analysis?

• How could you use these to improve your effectiveness as a leader?

Negotiation In many cases, when working through a conflict, you may need to advocate for a particular position. If you don’t have the exclusive decision-making power, you will need to engage in some form of negotiation. Even if you do have decision-making power, it is best to try to bring people along with you rather than force a decision unilaterally.

In cases where you must advocate for an important change, there is likely to be some resistance with one or more stakeholders in that decision. Some people fear change and will openly resist it.

Some of the signs of resistance you may observe are:

• confusion

• immediate or in-your-face criticism

• denial

• malicious compliance

• sabotage

• easy agreement

• deflection (change the subject)

• silence.



You can address these behaviours in a number of different ways. The Thomas-Kilmann conflict modes describes five modes of handling conflict and negotiating outcomes. These modes of conflict handling are defined by the degree of assertiveness and cooperation involved. The five modes of conflict are competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating and avoiding. Consider the following figure.

Competing Competing is an assertive approach that involves defending and maintaining your position without cooperating with the other individual or group you are disagreeing with. Competing is not good for developing a positive culture or strong relationships because it is essentially a win–lose situation. When competing, you may have to use your power, position or strong arguments to ‘win’ your case.

Collaborating Collaborating is assertive yet cooperative. It allows both parties to be satisfied with the outcome of the disagreement but can require a high investment of time and energy to come to the solution.

Compromising Compromising involves being moderately assertive and moderately cooperative. Compromising differs to collaboration in that it involves a partial loss on both sides. Compromising may be used when a quick solution is required and where the source of the conflict (such as the process or system being discussed) allows for a flexible solution.

Accommodating Avoiding

Asse

rtive

ness

Level of cooperation

Competing Collaborating

Compromising



Accommodating The accommodating approach is the opposite of the competing approach; highly cooperative without being assertive. Taking the accommodating approach involves yielding to the individual or group you are disagreeing with.

Avoiding An avoiding approach does not directly address the disagreement. It is a non-cooperative approach but differs from competing in that it does not involve any level of confrontation. Avoiding can include postponing the issue, or addressing the issue in a different context (not with the individual or group that is disagreeing with it).

In general, the most effective approach to negotiating conflict is collaboration. This approach allows you to keep other stakeholders’ interests in mind (after all, their views and cooperation may be crucial to implementation), while being a forceful advocate for what you see as the best approach to improving processes.

Learning activity: Negotiation

Identify two or three workplace disputes you have been involved in or have closely observed and answer the following questions:

• How would you classify the negotiation approaches taken by you and others in the Thomas-Kilmann conflict modes model?

• Was a settlement or outcome reached?

• What was the long-term effect of the outcome?



• How could a more collaborative approach have been taken?

Establish systems for managing conflict

You will need to ensure you establish a systematic approach for managing conflict within your team and within the organisation more generally. Such systems may involve policies and procedures, but also more informal processes – Sometimes the skilful, consistent, open and wise way you implement a policy makes all the difference.

Policies and procedures Recall from section 1 that policy frameworks are designed to align with organisational values and goals. Such values and goals are set out in policy statements. Processes, procedures and work instructions are then developed to ensure the implementation of the relevant policies.

What makes policies and procedures part of a systematic approach to managing conflict is not so much the consistency of approach they promote, but the fact that they are open and responsive to changing circumstances and critical feedback. To the extent that policies and procedures draw from the experiences of front-line, customer facing staff as well as the aims of top management, they exhibit traits of the learning organisation as described by Peter Senge and others. The learning organisation, as described in Section 1, is open to the maximum range of information in order to learn more effective responses to internal and external conditions and become better at what it does. This includes becoming more competitive and better able to attract and retain talented employees.

As a general rule, systems and policies that promote collaboration, delegation and less hierarchical decision-making result in more sustainable solutions. The policy development process should reflect this principle. When developing policies and procedures, it is important for to have input from top management and front-line employees on sources of conflict and potential solutions:

• What are the problems that take the most time to resolve?

• What are the most important issues to staff?

• What approaches to resolving conflict are currently working or not working?

Once you have consulted appropriately and gained approval and explicit management support for policy, it is important to communicate the policy effectively throughout the organisation. You may also need to determine skills and knowledge gaps with respect to implementing policy and procedures and arrange appropriate training.



It is important to keep in mind that once policies and procedures have been developed and communicated you will need to ensure information about evaluating the success of policy solutions (such as employee feedback) is regularly collected, analysed and acted upon to achieve organisational goals.

Implementation and personal application To support official policies and procedures, you will need to ensure effective take up throughout the organisation. As a leader, you are a representative of the organisation’s values, and it is your role to act as a model of competence and judgement.

Where organisational policies include statements of support from management, it is important that these statements are followed-up with action. If policies and procedures lack real management support, even well-meaning policies will not be implemented or will be inconsistently applied. Hypocrisy and inconsistency between the words and actions of management is easy to spot, and employees and line managers will learn through informal means how things are really done. This means:

• that language is sometimes used to paper over issues: there is tacit avoidance of uncomfortable problems

• that constructive behaviours are undervalued by management or other employees; such behaviours may be misunderstood as weakness

• that overly competitive and destructive behaviours can actually get you recognition and rewards.

As manager, you will need to embody the stated values of the organisation. Where you spot conflict between management actions and policy, you will need to act ethically, sensitively drawing attention to the conflict as the first step to resolving it. The alternative would mean to engage in the kind of behaviours that undermine otherwise good policy solutions and your moral authority as leader.

As a manager, you will need to work to exemplify positive responses to organisational and team conflict. Researcher Paul Ludwick outlines several approaches managers may take to systematically and sustainably deal with conflict. Ludwick presents the manager’s role as one of facilitating relationship-building processes and delegating the process of making detailed decisions to the team and individuals. To deal with conflict, managers should:16

• model behaviour that demonstrates valuing other people’s points of view

• talk frequently about the organisation’s values, particularly valuing diversity

• involve everyone in discussions about process problems

• in problem-solving meetings, keep problems objective and separate personal issues from objectives

• push the idea that the solutions involve team efforts

• include tolerance of others’ viewpoints in performance evaluations.

16 Adapted from: P. Ludwick, 2006, ‘Manage the relationships, the team will manage the work’, Journal of housing and community development, vol. 63, no. 3, pp. 38–41.



In this way, you will work to implement policy in a way that contributes to a positive work culture, and your reputation as an effective leader.

Learning activity: Taking a systematic approach to organisational conflict

Review policies and procedures for managing conflict in your organisation or one you are familiar with and answer the following questions:

• How would you improve the policy development process in order to make it more responsive and democratic?

• How would you communicate polies to ensure their take-up and ensure that they are open to change and improvement as required? What strategies or media would you deploy?

• How would you improve the policies or procedures?



• How would you act to ensure the effective implementation of policy?

• What sorts of systematic actions could you take as manager to ensure your team can manage conflicts more effectively?

Provide guidance and support to co-workers

According to Daniel Goleman, a key component of leadership is expressed in the care of and development of others, including peers. You will need to take a proactive approach to helping others to maintain and relationships and resolve difficulties. Some useful approaches include coaching and mediation.

Conflict resolution coaching Coaching is a collaborative process in which a coach works closely with an individual to improve performance where required. The process involves: identifying gaps between agreed performance goals and current performance; discussing various options for achieving potential; and helping to plan concrete actions aimed at achieving agreed performance objectives. Note that ‘performance’ can be interpreted narrowly against KPIs (key performance indicators), for instance, but also as ‘personal effectiveness’– as a leader, relationship-builder and problem solver.

Personal and professional goals vary and there may be a number of performance issues you may need to address through coaching. With respect to conflict resolution coaching, for example, you may need to coach your team or individual members to build the skills necessary to reach resolution in specific instances; you may also need to help other managers build the skills necessary to act as conflict resolution coaches themselves, for their team.

Note that sometimes a coach is an external, professional coach, a specialist practitioner or even an organisational psychologist. Increasingly, however, internal supervisors or managers, with no specialist coaching expertise, are called upon to fulfil a coaching role with respect to their team members or peers.



Assess yourself as coach According to researchers Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith, there are eight steps that you need to take to be a competent dispute resolution coach17:

1. Conduct ruthless self-assessment – How good are you at resolving your own conflicts? What are your skills? How emotionally intelligent are you? What are the skills gaps you need to close?

2. Negotiate values-based transformational coaching relationship – Consider asking the person you are coaching to complete a coaching contract to underscore their commitment to the process. See Appendix 5 for a sample coaching contract.

3. Create a constructive coaching environment – Set the scene by focusing on the potential of people to build their skills and grow as people and professionals.

4. Design transformational coaching strategies – Beyond focusing on discrete skills, work on transforming the attitudes and behaviours of people, changing work environments and cultures to reduce the likelihood of further conflicts.

5. Balance positivity with critical insight – Be positive and constructive; focus on what can be done and individuals’ potential for growth; however, be honest. Where people lack skills or insight into their behaviours and the behaviours of others, you must be prepared to let them know.

6. Provide direct feedback – Don’t be afraid to confront people with their unhelpful behaviours and tell them pointedly what to do to turn the situation around.

7. Plan and commit to action – Ensure you document agreement and create plans and schedules to enable effective implementation of commitments.

8. Move towards closure – To end the coaching relationship, once the person you are coaching is ready to move on into the next phase of their development as a leader, or the team conflict is at an end, make the ending explicit. Signal the end of the relationship, or of the conflict by acknowledging successes and building confidence for the future. This is an opportunity, as a coach to embed the process of organisational learning.

If you want to be an effective conflict resolution coach, the first step is making an honest evaluation of your skills.

Learning activity: Coaching self-assessment

Reflect on the coaching skills you possess and skills gaps you can identify: • How good are you at reading the workplace situation or context of disputes? How

good are you at identifying potential root causes of chronic conflict in workplace practices or cultures?




• How good are you at reading the emotional context and processing emotional information?

• How good are you at the technical skills of coaching: Listening to others, asking questions, using tools and techniques to generate creative options or solutions?

• Are you a good communicator?

• Can you build trust?

● Can you model conflict resolution behaviours?

• Do you plan effective actions and then follow through?



• How will you address skills gaps?

Coaching models for individuals Coaching models are useful for helping you to plan effective coaching sessions for individuals. Perhaps the most well-known model is the GROW model. Another approach may be adapted from Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee’s Intentional Change model.

GROW stands for Goal, Reality, Options, Will. The GROW model is often used in the context of performance management to coach underperforming employees, but may easily be adapted to apply more generally to developing individuals’ potential for managing disputes.

Goal As questions and collaborate on identifying performance goals.

Reality Identify skills gaps and required changes in attitude

Options Brainstorm options for addressing the gaps

Will Secure commitment from the individual to take require steps: agree on ways to measure success at some future date.

The Intentional Change model, on the other hand, was developed as a framework for executive self-development. It shares many points in common with the GROW model. What mainly distinguishes it from that model is its focus on development in high-performing individuals as opposed to people who may need more direction or are otherwise lower performers. The model is also more explicitly tied to the skills associated with high levels of emotional intelligence and conflict resolution skills.

Identify the ideal self First, help the individual identify the kind of leader, relationship builder and conflict resolver, they want to become; rather than let other people define this. Ensure the individual has a real sense of what is important to them.



Identify the real self Second, help the individual see themselves as others see them. SWOT analysis and 360° evaluations are useful tools. Help the individual gain a realistic view of their strengths and weaknesses to overcome false positivism; help the individual to see the value in vulnerability and overcoming natural defensiveness built up to protect the self from attack or criticism.

Develop a learning agenda

Third, help the individual develop a personal learning program to develop the skills necessary to realise their ideal self. Focus on the process of life-long learning to nurture positive, optimistic, self-belief; rather than taking a narrow, outcomes-based view. In the intentional change model, performance improvement may be the eventual goal, but, the model is directed towards those with the basic technical skills already: those who need to take the next step in mastering leadership.

Encourage experimentation with new habits

Fourth, beyond, or perhaps as a part of, authentic and practical training, encourage the individual to embed new personal skills in workplace practice to build internal and external relationships and take systematic actions to reduce conflict within their teams. Instinctive reactions to emotional situations, for example, cannot usually be overcome through academic study; you need to overlay the old habits with new ones by constant repetition.

Encourage the development and maintenance of relationships

Finally, It’s important to ensure the coaching process goes beyond a mere coaching exercise or stops at the development of a few isolated skills. To really help the development of relationship-building skills encourage the individual to develop authentic relationships. Our ideal selves, our view of ourselves, our habits with people, our current identities and social status, and our emotional intelligence skills all interact and develop on a social plane – in the context of real relationships.18

18 Adapted from: A. McKee, F. Tilin, and D. Mason, 2009, ‘Coaching from the inside: building and internal group of emotionally intelligent coaches’, International coaching psychology review, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 59–70.



Note: It is important to point out that each coaching phase, in either the GROW model or the Intentional Change model, should not really be seen as a step you need to pass through before doing the next. Phases may unfold sequentially, but may equally proceed backwards, occur cyclically, simultaneously and out of sequence. As a coach, you may need to identify and help the individual recognise each phase as such, but be prepared to let the process unfold naturally.

Learning activity: Coaching conflict-resolution skills

Identify a colleague or employee you think would benefit from coaching in order to develop conflict resolution skills.

Consider the following questions:

• Do they show the capacity to develop in their careers or advance with more technical or social skills?

• Would they thrive in the work environment with such skills and be able to deploy them to further individual and team success?

• Do they show the basic capacity for collaboration and self-reflection to allow coaching to take hold and work?

• Do they have a willingness to learn and develop?

• Would the individual respond better to a focus on short-term performance goals or longer term, more open-ended, self-development?



• Is the individual more or less self-directed?

• Is the individual, at this stage, a potential star performer who needs to develop a few emotional intelligence skills, such as self-awareness and self-regulation to help them manage relationships and conflict better?

• Is the individual ready for the next step in their development as a leader?

• Using the questions listed above as a guide, what is the most appropriate coaching model to use and plan a coaching session with the individual?

Plan a coaching session with the individual using an appropriate model.

Team coaching Dispute resolution coaching techniques and models can be easily adapted to team environments. Often the individuals themselves involved in a dispute may not be as important to resolving disputes as the dynamic or history of chronic conflict that exists within the team.

In team coaching, the process of identifying goals, generating solutions and committing to action remains the same as in individual coaching. The main difference is that team coaching requires the coach to facilitate group interaction and communication, employing a high degree of interpersonal skills to ensure successful sessions.



You will need to consider the following tips when preparing for team coaching:19

• Understand team dynamics – Team members will have different personalities and dispositions that may affect their behaviour within the coaching session and in their work interactions with colleagues.

• Establish ground rules and behavioural expectations for coaching or continuous improvement sessions – This is especially important to establish the mutual respect and trust required to modify unhealthy team dynamics and prepare the ground for resolution.

• Understand what motivates your team – If you want to improve relationships and team performance you need to align rewards and recognition processes with the desired team behaviours and outcomes. For example, if your performance-based pay is not linked to participation in networks and positive team-building behaviour, it may not be reasonable to expect it.

• Be flexible – As with individuals not all teams are alike. Be prepared to switch tools or change approaches when required.

Mediation In addition to coaching, you may provide to others through mediating disputes or arranging for external mediation. When directly intervening in disputes, you must seek agreement on your participation from the parties involved. You may be seen (whether it is accurate or not) as being more partial to one side of the conflict and your involvement may be a barrier to resolution. In this case, it will be better to seek an external mediator.

Where you do become involved in mediation, you may choose to meet with parties and individuals separately and together, as required, using individual and team coaching models and dispute resolution strategies discussed earlier in this section.

Learning activity: Investigate mediation services

Investigate the following workplace dispute services:

• WorkResolve, viewed February 2015, <http://www.workresolve.com.au/>.

• Australian Mediation Association, viewed February 2015, <http://www.ama.asn.au/>.

• Fair Work Ombudsman, viewed February 2015, <http://www.fairwork.gov.au/>.

19Adapted from: E. Eyre and Mind Tools Team, 2014, ‘Coaching for team performance: improving productivity by improving relationships’, Mind tools, viewed February 2015, <http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/ newTMM_66.htm>.




• What dispute resolution services are available at each site?

• How could you use the services to help resolve a dispute in your workplace?

Plan actions to address conflict

To ensure that conflict is addressed, as a leader, you will need to plan and implement concrete actions to resolve difficulties. Depending on the nature of the conflict and your role, your plan may take a variety of forms. You will need to consult with others responsible for implementing the plan to ensure their agreement and support.

Plans to resolve conflict Plans may take a number of forms. For example, in the role of manager or coach, you may develop or collaborate on developing action plans and schedules to resolve conflicts with individuals or within teams. You may also address chronic, organisation-wide conflicts. Activities may include one-on-one meetings, team sessions, mediation, coaching sessions, team-building sessions, relevant communications, policy development, training, and follow-up activities. Alternatively, if the focus is on individual development, and not necessarily on addressing urgent conflicts, plans may be developed in the context of work planning, and activities may be included in personal development plans such as coaching, training and networking activities.



Example conflict: Max Lionel Realty: Sam and Gerry

It is the first week of July. Sam has come to you for advice on a conflict. He has been accused of bullying a team member, Gerry.

Sam explains that the issue began with his planning a great team-building exercise for his team of agents. He had planned a paintball game, for a bit of stress-free fun as well as to build up a competitive spirit in the team. Sam can’t understand the resistance to the team building by Gerry and the weak attitude of some members of his team when all he wants to do is drive his team to success.

Sam suspects he needs to do better as a manager. He just doesn’t know how.

Consider the following action plan as a way of managing this conflict.



Goals:

1. Negotiate a solution to the immediate conflict.

2. Build Sam’s skills as an effective manager and leader.

3. Embed team collaborative processes to build team understanding and reduce potential for future conflict.

Action/activity Timeframe Person/s responsible

Reason for action Resources, if required

Coaching Session

2nd week of July Sam Identify development goals for Sam.

Identify options for Sam to try to close skills gaps.

None

Mediation 3rd week of July HR business partner, Sam, Gerry

Session to bring Sam and Gerry together to understand each other’s points of view and reach agreement on a way forward; avoid escalation.

HR office

Team-building

1st week of August Sam, his team Collaborate with team to identify team needs, goals and ways for team to perform in ways that reduce the potential for conflict.

Training room to be booked

Follow-up

1st week of November HR business partner

3-month employee feedback on manager performance and team cohesion; 360° evaluation.

TBC with HR, other stakeholders



Planning tips Here are a few guidelines for successful action planning:

• Identify a clear goal or clear goals.

• Break down all the steps needed to achieve the goals.

• Assign priority and order of activities.

• Identify a time frame and milestones.

• Identify responsible people and collaborate with them to ensure their capability to carry out plans.

• Identify and communicate with stakeholders and affected people as required:

○ people who are accountable

○ people who need to be consulted

○ people who need to be informed.

• Arrange training or coaching if required.

• Acquire and gain approval for resources.

Remember to follow organisational processes such as resource procurement and gaining approvals.

Learning activity: Action planning to address conflict

You are a manager within your organisation.

• Identify a workplace conflict.

• Identify individuals and teams in need of direst help.

• Identify stakeholders in the conflict.

Using the example action plan provided for reference (page 94), develop an action plan for addressing the conflict.

Section summary

Section 3 covered the skills and knowledge required to identify and resolve difficulties in the workplace, follow relevant policies and procedures, provide guidance and support to others, and plan and schedule activities to address and resolve conflicts.



Further reading



• Heathfield, S. M., 2014, ‘How to hold a difficult conversation: providing responsible feedback is difficult’, About money, viewed February 2014, <http://humanresources.about.com/od/ interpersonalcommunicatio1/qt/feedback_com6.htm>.

• Morgan, M., 2014, ‘How do you escape from a Betari’s Box?’, Success for managers, viewed February 2015, <http://www.successformanagers.co.uk/2014/11/06/escape-betaris-box-success-managers-tip-90/>.

Section checklist


develop and implement strategies to ensure that difficulties in workplace relationships are identified and resolved

establish processes and systems to ensure that conflict is identified and managed constructively in accordance with the organisation’s policies and procedures

provide guidance, counselling and support to assist co-workers in resolving their work difficulties

develop and implement an action plan to address any identified difficulties.


Student Workbook Glossary

Glossary Term Definition

360° evaluation A performance evaluation method involving the gathering of feedback from all internal and external stakeholders in a manager’s or employee’s performance.

Coaching A managerial performance improvement practice whereby a worker is monitored and supported in all aspects of their role.

Coaching is most effective in response to a performance issue.

Competency/ competencies

A competency is the ability to perform a job role or function to a desired standard or level of proficiency. A job role or function may require the demonstration of a range of competencies. Competencies can include demonstration of knowledge, skills and behaviour.

Continuous improvement

Continuous improvement is a systematic approach to making things better. It involves making constant, small changes that improve a task, process or system. One of the most common continuous improvement models is the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle.

Emotional intelligence

The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.20

Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO)

Fair Work Ombudsman. The FWO works with employers, employees and the community to:

• provide advice and assistance on workplace rights and responsibilities

• mediate disputes

• seek voluntary compliance

• investigate complaints

• conducts workplace audits

• litigate breaches of workplace laws.

Grievance procedure

Sets out the steps involved to resolve a conflict when it arises or is made known. Also known as: grievance resolution procedure, dispute resolution procedure, and conflict management procedure.

20 P. Salovey and J. Mayer, 1990, Emotional intelligence, Baywood Publishing, Connecticut.


Glossary Student Workbook

Term Definition

Industrial relations (IR)

Industrial relations. IR is the relationship between employers and employees in which each seeks to achieve their respective goals; also the formal policy and legal frameworks governing the relationship in the workplace. Also known as: workplace relations and employee relations.

Interpersonal communication styles

A characteristic or preferred way of communication for an individual. Communicators may be characterised as amiable, expressive, analytical, or drivers along dimensions of responsiveness and assertiveness.

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Performance measures that focus on achieving results that are seen as critical to the success of the organisation.

Knowledge management

The process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge. Can be subdivided into hard (explicit) and soft (implicit and tacit) forms. Also known as information management.

Legislation A law or body of laws which has been enacted by parliament.

OHS/WHS Occupational health and safety/work health and safety. The process of maintaining a safe workplace. Also refers to laws outlining the responsibility of employers and employees to maintain a safe place of work.

Personal development plan (PDP)

A plan outlining development goals and skills. PDPs usually contain action plans to achieve development goals.

Performance management

A management system to boost employee performance and the productivity of the organisation.

Representative (rep) A worker or employee representative in matters such as enterprise bargaining or in the implementation of policies for work conditions or safety. Representatives include unions, lawyers, consultants, health and safety representatives (HSRs).


Student Workbook Glossary

Term Definition

Socialising strategy The concept of ‘socialising strategy’ is relatively new in the business world. It takes communicating your message to a higher level; having your message heard is not enough. Socialising your strategy ‘is about the social impact and the conversation within groups, and amongst people, about the strategy … it has a life of its own. Individuals are owning a part of it, talking to each other about it and adopting and adapting what it means for them. Socialising strategy also suggests that it becomes part of the social fabric.’21

Stakeholders All people who have an interest in a task or system you are completing or modifying. These may include customers, partners, employees, shareholders, owners, government, and regulators.

SWOT analysis SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A team SWOT analysis can result in a greater understanding of your team’s competitive advantage and disadvantage. Information gathered from an individual team member’s SWOT analysis may feed into their PDP.

Targets Performance goals directly related to KPIs.

Workplace bargaining

Also known as enterprise bargaining or collective bargaining.

21 Adapted from: P. Jones, 2010, ‘Socialising strategy (or socializing strategy)’, Communicating strategy, viewed February 2015, <http://www.communicating-strategy.com/?p=47>.


Appendices Student Workbook

Appendices

Appendix 1: Max Lionel Realty simulated business

From Max Lionel Realty business plan

About Max Lionel Realty Max Lionel Realty was founded in 2008 by property developer Max Lionel. The company currently employs approximately 100 people, 80 of whom are licensed real estate agents. Through its client agents, the organisation manages property sales and rentals (both residential and commercial) on behalf of a range of clients. The organisation also separately engages in investment activities, such as property and land development. Max Lionel Realty has been a member of the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) since 2008 and proudly follows the REIV Code of Conduct.

Mission

• To achieve the highest returns for our clients and to deliver a client experience that is second to none in the industry.

Vision

• To establish, within five years, the MLR brand – the highest ethical standards with best-in-breed performance for clients.

Values

• integrity

• client-focus

• active encouragement of excellence, innovation and continuous improvement

• teamwork

• recognition of the diversity and expertise of MLR employees and agents.

Strategic directions

• engaging with customers and clients

• building goodwill and reputation for integrity

• supporting innovative thinking, management and leadership skills

• creating a high-performing, highly profitable organisation.


Student Workbook Appendices

Max Lionel Realty organisational chart

Max Lionel Realty management responsibilities

Max Lionel, CEO Max is responsible for working with the Board of Directors to oversee the business, set overall strategic directions, manage risk, and authorise large financial transactions.

Riz Mehra, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Riz is responsible for preparing quarterly financial statements and overall budgeting. Riz is also responsible for overseeing budgets for cost centres and individual projects. At the completion of financial quarters and at the end of projects, Riz is responsible for viewing budget variation reports and incorporating information into financial statements and financial projections.

Kim Sweeney, Operations General Manager Kim is responsible for the day-to-day running of the company. Kim oversees the coordination, as well as the structural separation, of the Residential, Commercial, and Investments centres. Kim is responsible for sponsoring projects which affect operations of the organisation as a whole. Kim works with the Human Resources Manager to coordinate systems and projects in order to achieve company-wide synergy.

Les Goodale, Human Resources Manager Les is responsible for the productive capacity and welfare of people at MLR. With the Operations General Manager, Les works to coordinate projects and management systems such as performance management, recruitment, and induction. Les and Kim will need to ensure aspects of the recently launched WHS management system, such as risk assessment, management, consulting, reporting and continuous improvement, are coordinated with all subsequent activities.

Board of Directors and

CEOMax Lionel

Chief Financial Officer

Riz Mehra

Operations General Manager

Kim Sweeney

Human Resources Manager

Les Goodale

Manager Residential Realty

(Sales and Rentals)Sam Lee

Manager Commercial

Realty (Sales and Rentals)

Pat Mifsud

Manager Investments

Peter Mitchell



Sam Lee, Manager Residential Realty Sam is responsible for the management of all aspects of residential realty. Sam manages the activities of residential agents.

Pat Mifsud, Manager Commercial Realty Pat is responsible for the management of all aspects of commercial realty. Pat manages the activities of commercial agents.

Peter Mitchell, Manager Investments Peter is responsible for the management of all aspects of investment realty. Peter manages the activities of investment agents. Peter works with the Operations General Manager to ensure separation of investment from obligations to residential and commercial clients.



Max Lionel Realty Anti-discrimination Policy

Purpose The purpose of this policy is to ensure transactions with clients, tenants and other employees is handled fairly and transparently and in accordance with organisational and legal requirements. Under state legislation, characteristics that must not result in discrimination include:

• age

• breastfeeding

• carer status

• disability

• employment activity

• gender identity

• industrial activity

• lawful sexual activity

• marital status

• parental status

• physical features

• political activity/belief

• pregnancy

• race

• religious activity/belief

• sex

• sexual orientation

• personal association with someone having any of these characteristics.

Scope The scope of this policy covers all employees and contractors of Max Lionel Realty (MLR).

Resources Specific procedures for the implementation of this policy are available below and on the company intranet.

Responsibility Responsibility for the implementation of this policy rests with all employees, contractors and management of Max Lionel Realty.

Relevant legislation, etc.

• Privacy Act 1988 (Cwlth)

• Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic)

• Age Discrimination Act 2004

• Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986

• Disability Discrimination Act 1992

• Racial Discrimination Act 1975

• Sex Discrimination Act 1984

• Estate Agents Act 1980 (Vic)

Updated/ authorised

10/2014 – Riz Mehra, CFO



Max Lionel Realty WHS policy Max Lionel Realty recognises its responsibility to provide a healthy and safe working environment for employees, contractors, clients and visitors. Max Lionel Realty is committed to the continued wellbeing of its employees and to ensuring that all employees are safe from injury and health risks while undertaking work-related duties, including home-based work.

Purpose The purpose of this policy is to ensure the acquisition of resources is carried out consistently, fairly and transparently and in accordance with organisational requirements.

In order to ensure a healthy and safe working environment, Max Lionel Realty will (in accordance with the WHS management system):

• undertake risk assessments and implement procedures to adequately manage any risks in the working environment

• provide written procedures and instructions for safe working practices

• ensure compliance with all relevant legislation

• maintain safe systems of work, including the work premises and environment

• provide appropriate support, instruction, training and supervision to employees to ensure safe working practices.

Scope The scope of this policy covers employees and contractors of Max Lionel Realty (MLR).

Resources Specific procedures for the implementation of this policy are available below and on the company intranet.

Responsibility Max Lionel Realty management and employees are ultimately responsible for ensuring that safe systems of work are established, implemented and maintained.

Management is responsible for:

• the effective implementation and regular review of WHS procedures

• consultation with employees regarding health and safety issues and changes to legislation and/or working practices that may affect the health, safety or welfare of employees

• providing and maintaining a safe system of working practices



• providing support, training, and supervision to employees to ensure safe and healthy workplace practices are carried out, including relevant first aid training where appropriate

• the provision of adequate resources for employees to meet the WHS commitment, including an up-to-date first aid kit.

Individual employees are responsible for:

• following all WHS policies and procedures

• ensuring they report all potential and actual risks to partners or managers/supervisors

• taking care to protect their own health and safety and that of their colleagues at work

• ensuring their own or others’ health and safety is not adversely affected by the consumption of drugs or alcohol

• encouraging others to follow healthy and safe working practices in the workplace.

Policy implementation and review

This policy has been established and implemented through the human resource functions of the organisation and will be reviewed regularly in consultation with MLR management and employees to ensure compliance with legislation, industry standards and organisational changes.

Relevant legislation, etc.

• Privacy Act 1988 (Cwlth)

• Estate Agents Act 1980 (Vic)

• Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic)

• Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic)

• Dangerous Goods Act 1985 (Vic)

• AS/NZS 4804:2001 Occupational health and safety management systems – General guidelines on principles, systems and supporting techniques

Updated/ authorised

10/2014 – Riz Mehra, CFO



Appendix 2: Communication plan template

Title:

Date:

Project team:

Situational Analysis: SWOT

Strengths

List the organisation’s communication strengths

Weaknesses

List the organisation’s communication weaknesses

Opportunities

List the organisation’s communication opportunities

Strengths

List the organisation’s communication threats

Objectives

List the relevant objectives, including relevant organisation-wide objectives and specific objectives for communication and consultation

Goals and targets

List the organisation’s communication-specific goals and quantitative targets



Audience analysis

Internal audience characteristics

List the organisation’s internal audience and stakeholder characteristics

External audience characteristics

List the organisation’s external audience and stakeholder characteristics

Key messages

Outline key messages tailored to each audience

Strategies and tactics

Outline strategies and tactics associated with the communication plan, including rationale behind media channels selected



Action plan

Action/activity Timeframe Person/s responsible Resources, if required



Budget

List the costs associated with implementing the communication plan

Evaluation

Outline monitoring activities to determine the success of the communication plan against original objectives

Approvals



Appendix 3: Grievance policy and procedure

Grievance and dispute management policy Max Lionel Realty supports the right of every employee to lodge a grievance with their manager if they believe a decision, behaviour or action affecting their employment is unfair.

The purpose of this policy is to ensure the fair resolution of disputes and promote and maintain strong, collaborative working relationships within the organisation.

This policy covers all officers, managers, employees and contractors of Max Lionel Realty.

Responsibility for implementing this policy rests with the management team and HR business partners.

Max Lionel Realty and Max Lionel Realty employees should follow the principle that disputes should be addressed at the lowest possible level and should not be escalated either within Max Lionel Realty or to outside bodies until all reasonable avenues for resolution have been explored.

Relevant legislation may include, but is not limited to:

• anti-discrimination legislation

• Fair Work Act 2009

• Privacy Act 1988.

Grievance/dispute resolution procedure This procedure is applicable to all grievances or disputes, for example, involving health and safety, anti-discrimination, or industrial relations matters, such as disputes over pay or conditions.

If you have a grievance or wish to lodge a complaint:

1. Arrange to meet with your direct supervisor to discuss the grievance.

a. Your manager or HR representative will record details on a standard Record of Complaint, a copy of which is to be stored on the organisation’s HRMS. Your manager or HR representative will provide you with or ensure access to this procedure.

2. Failing resolution at this stage:

a. Your direct supervisor will escalate the matter to more senior management.

b. If your supervisor fails to do this, escalate the matter to more senior management.



3. Failing resolution at this stage:

a. Max Lionel Realty will refer the matter to an independent mediator for assistance in resolving the dispute.

b. If you are not satisfied, you may contact the relevant regulator for mediation, for example:

i. State/territory health and safety regulator

ii. Human Rights Commissioner

iii. Fair Work Ombudsman.



Record of complaint template

Name: Employee number:

Department: Phone number/s:

Date of report: Time:

This is to record that you inquired about the following matter/s:

Issue date/s: Time/s:

Stakeholders involved:

Witnesses:

Where did it happen:

Nature of complaint:

I, _____________________________________ <insert name> have been given a copy of the grievance procedure Yes No

Sign: Date:

HR or management representative to complete

Investigation of the issues: Investigation by Date

Action taken/recommended:

Stakeholders informed of situation:

Name: Name:

HR name: Position: Signature:

Case file updated: Date:



Appendix 4: Managing people; be insistent, persistent and consistent

Article by Kevin Dwyer22

Managing the performance of people is not as difficult as many people think. I find so many people do it poorly not because it is difficult, but because they do not have the right attitude.

People performance management takes technique and attitude.

The technique side of people performance management is well written about, but I repeat it here for completion.

The first technique is to set standards of performance. These are the standards below which each individual in similar roles will not fall. These standards are the bottom boundary below which no one will be allowed to consistently fall without counselling.

Standards of performance will include such things as personal and team safety, financial probity and work attendance. Standards of performance must include measures which can be related directly to both the individual's work role and the organisation's goal.

A minimum standard of performance must be set for parameters such as project completion, level of sales, costs or level of quality. To not set standards for these kinds of parameters is to suggest that people do not have any responsibility other than to turn up to work and not hurt themselves or others or steal money.

The second technique is related. It is to set targets for individuals. Targets are agreed for the same set or a subset of the parameters for which standards have been set.

Targets are set based on the actual or expected competence of the individual. For example, a sales trainee would not be expected to achieve the same level of sales as an experienced sales person. However, they will be expected to sell. If they can't they should consider another profession.

The third technique is giving feedback and coaching people to improve performance. There are many ‘models’ for giving feedback and coaching that one can review on the internet, however, they have common themes.

Feedback must be as immediate to the time when standards were breached or targets not reached. It must be specific and target the behaviour, not the person and must be communicated in the language of the receiver of the feedback.

Coaching is similarly well covered by models and approaches ranging from in-depth understanding of people’s minds to simple explain-demonstrate-practice-correct models.

22 K. Dwyer, 2007, ‘Managing people techniques; being insistent, persistent and consistent’, Change factory, reviewed February 2015, <http://www.changefactory.com.au/our-thinking/articles/managing-people-techniques-being-insistent-persistent-and-consistent>.



Common themes for a coach are to ask questions and use different styles for different levels of confidence and experience and be clear about the deficiency. Also to use independent data or to challenge the individual to frankly assess their own performance compared with what they would like it to be.

Additionally, coaches must get commitment from the individual about what they are prepared to change, what support they need to make the change and a timeline for changing behaviour.

Many people struggle with learning and practicing feedback and coaching techniques when they start as leaders of people. Many people never ever learn it and some people become very adept at it. However, technique is not enough.

Leading people to perform at a level which will allow the organisation to reach its goal requires leaders to have the right attitude. They must, when managing people's performance, be insistent, persistent and consistent.

Leaders must insist on minimum standards of performance. By insisting on minimum standards, the boundaries of what is acceptable and unacceptable are clearly marked. If the leader is insistent then most people will self-regulate their behaviour. The standards to be insistent about must include business performance indicators and not just safety and security, for example.

Leaders must be persistent. If the leader is insistent only when things go wrong or when the spotlight is upon them in some other way, then people will realise that there are no actual standards of performance. They will not self-regulate beyond their own beliefs of right and wrong. Groups like this tend to become unmanageable or leaders will bemoan how the ‘culture’ of the organisation prevents goals being reached.

Leaders must set targets which will stretch people (but not break them) and follow up with feedback and coaching when targets are not reached or standards are breached.

Leaders must be consistent. Just because a person who breaches a standard of performance or does not reach a target is a perennially good performer is no reason for the leader not to be consistent in their approach to managing people performance.

Alternatively, when a perennially poor performer changes behaviour and strives to meet targets and ensures standards are not breached, it is not a reason for wild celebration or indifference. It is time to apply the same rewards a leader would when any person behaved that way.

People performance management is as much about the leader's attitude as it is about the employee's. Leaders who are not insistent, persistent and consistent will reap mixed performance from their staff, at best.



Appendix 5: Coaching contract23

Goals

State your goals for the coaching process

Conflicts

Describe the conflicts you wish to address through coaching

Results

What specific workplace results do you wish to achieve?

Challenges

List challenges or barriers that you need to overcome to resolve conflicts

Talents and skills

List your special talents and attributes for problem-solving and dispute resolution




Support networks

List people or networks who can support you in your personal growth and to manage disputes in collaboration with others

Timeline

Actions Dates Goals/Objectives/milestones

Signatures and date
