Strengthening the Health Manager Through Conflict Coaching

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Strengthening the Health Manager Through Conflict
Coaching

• Sue Rawlinson
• Coordinator,
• Internal Mediation Program, SESIAHS

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Authentic accountability, commitment and
community come from acts of consent, not acts of
mandate or direction.- Peter Block (2004)
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The Context -

• The Internal Mediation Program
•        Consultancy to management
•        Mediation
•        Group facilitation
•        Conflict coaching
•        Education and training
•        Policy development

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What is conflict coaching?

• A professional development opportunity
• Combines coaching with Alternative
• Dispute Resolution (ADR)
• Risk management approach to workplace conflict
•  

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What is involved? 

• Structured six-month process
• Confidential
• One and a half hours twice a month
• Sponsor
• Clear expectations
• Assessment session
• Coaching objectives with key performance
  indicators
• Coaching notes and homework

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What is the manager helped to develop?

• Skills include
• Development of self-reflective
• practices
• Awareness of own conflict handling style
• Understanding own strengths and weaknesses

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• Identification of unhelpful habits and triggers
• Identification of others conflict styles and
  needs
• Understanding of impact of conflict on self and
  team
• Negotiation and problem-solving skills
• Developing a range of options in resolving
  conflict
• Managing conflict in team meetings
• Having difficult conversations
•  

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Assessment Tools
Conflict Handling Styles Inventory
360 degree Feedback on Conflict Management
Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
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Conflict Handling Styles
high
ACCOMMODATION
COLLABORATION
Concern for others
COMPROMISE
AVOIDANCE
DOMINATING

low
high
Assertiveness
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360 Degree Feedback Profile

• Examples
• Unskilled
• Avoids conflict in situation and with people
• Gives in and says yes too soon
• Will let things fester rather than deal with them
  directly
• Skilled
• Reads situations quickly
• Good at focused listening
• Deals with conflict readily
• Overused skill
• May be seen as overly aggressive
• May get in the middle of everyone elses problems
• May be excessively competitive.

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Myers Briggs Type Inventory

• ISTJ culture Decisive and practical logical,
  analytical, thorough, detached and reasonable,
  cool and reserved. Daily activities are driven by
  structure, schedule and order.

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Indications and Contraindications

• Not counselling or therapy
• Not advocacy
• Openness to feedback
• Willingness to listen at a deep level
• Willingness to engage with individual differences
• Openness to alternative solutions
• Quality-added rather than remedial
• Cultural shift from blame to accountability
•  

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Medicine has prided itself on being
closely aligned with the scientific quest for the
truth and objective, evidence based
decision-making, and does not take easily to the
ambiguity and relativism negotiation
obligates.- Robert Benjamin, (2004)
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Program Evaluation

• What strengths did you recognize you had in
  dealing with conflict?
• The ability to reflect on ones own conflict
  management style and behaviours
• A commitment to improving my skills and
  knowledge in this area.
• Flexibility.

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What challenges did you experience in the
conflict coaching?

• Understanding how I worked and how my actions
  affect different personality types.
• Removing myself emotionally from the situation.
• When in the middle of conflict, difficulty
  separating the personal effect from the action
  needed.

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To what extent were your goalsachieved?

•   Able to improve my communication skills to
  facilitate a win/win outcome more often.
•   Gained more confidence, now less likely to
  avoid conflict.
•   Would have found it difficult to remain in my
  position if I had not been supported at this
  time.
•    Use skills gained in coaching in every
  interaction with the team.
•  

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• How have you transferred the skills from
  coaching to the workplace?
• Thinking more about how different personalities
  tick and working out the best approach rather
  than having a blanked rule for all.
• More confident in myself with dealing with these
  issues.

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• Dealt with a number of serious conflict issues.
• Coaching assisted to deal with issues prior to
  them becoming highly problematic.
• Improved ability to assess colleagues/clients/mana
  gers conflict management style and adjust my
  approach accordingly. 

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In Summary

• Conflict is the sound made by the cracks in a
  system, the voice of a new paradigm waiting to
  emerge.
• -Kenneth Cloke (2004)