Thoughts and Insights by Michael Gregory

How to Successfully Resolve Conflict between Staff Members Before It Blows Up

When key players at your firm with strong technical backgrounds or strong differing opinions do not get along well with one another this can have very serious consequences on the bottom line, morale, team building and employee satisfaction. If this is not addressed sooner rather than later, this can have a very negative impact on everyone involved. This article addresses how to address and overcome these concerns.

Avoid Conflict When Considering a New Job

In this article I address three things you might want to think about, seriously consider and then evaluate before you take a new job. Having mentored many considering career changes or new positions, I wanted to share some common themes for you to consider. These are your motivation, your values and your choices. Depending on your level of passion and what drives that passion as well as your underlying values and how much they drive your choices, this will determine whether or not you should take on that new opportunity.

Five Change Management Tools to Avoid Conflict

In this article I share an experience related to conflict resolution, change management, listening and long term improvement. If these are goals of yours, this article may provide you some tools to address these issues.

Are you a person that likes or avoids conflict at work?

Conflict at work is a given. Some people enjoy a good debate and discussion with colleagues while others would prefer not to have or be involved with this type of interaction and to avoid disagreements. No matter what these happen at work. So what should you do?

Multiparty Negotiations or Mediations: A look at coalitions, alliances and groups

Negotiations between two parties offer real challenges. When negotiating with multiple parties the complexities increase exponentially. Fault lines can also develop based on gender, race, age, religion, national origin, family status, educational level or other areas. How can these be addressed in a negotiation or mediation?

Negotiating Employee Satisfaction

When negotiating with employees it is important to understand the employee’s interest and concerns. All to often managers assume they know the employee’s needs and wants. The only way to find out is to promote dialogue to discover their interests to ensure you are addressing employee satisfaction appropriately in a negotiation.

What about Those That Threaten You during a Negotiation

In recent blogs I have addressed defensive rules in negotiations, and negotiating with those that don’t care.  This commentary addresses what you might want to consider with those that threaten you during a negotiation.   Threats can take many forms such as threatening to defame your reputation, going to court or walking out of the negotiation.  Regardless, when it happens your amygdala kicks in releasing chemicals and hormones that make you feel like you should fight, flight or freeze.  You only have about 6 to 10 seconds to catch yourself and not let the amygdala hijack your emotions.  This article offers ideas on what you may want to do.

Emotional Intelligence and Negotiations

There has been a lot written about emotional intelligence, how to improve it, and why having a stronger emotional intelligence may help in business. However, the implications to negotiations indicate more emotionally intelligent parties may also have greater empathy and be willing to lower their expectations at the negotiating table. So what should you do?

Do Personality and Individual Differences Matter in Negotiations?

Do you believe it is possible to improve intelligence or negotiating skills? If you do or you don’t both matter relative to your mindset. This helps to determine whether you view these items as fixed or capable of growth. This article takes a look at this question, and then explores the impact of self-interest and selfishness, as well as creativity and sensitivity in negotiations.

How to Negotiate with Negotiators That Don’t Care

Not all negotiators believe in fair play and some actually negotiate in “bad faith”. You may be left with the perspective that the other side knows what they are doing is wrong, immoral and not appropriate, but so what? They really don’t seem to care. This can be very frustrating. The question is why and is there anything you can do about it?