September 09 – Article #1

DON’T PRESS “SEND”

We live in a world of Blackberries, Facebook and Twitter. Face-to-face conversations have been replaced with Texting. Instead of colleagues in the next cubicle, we have Virtual Teams.

Now we can be in constant contact with family, friends, co-workers and customers. If we send a text message we get an instant response. What happens to you when you get a message that you don’t like?

Perhaps you’ve sent a carefully thought out message to your business partner only to get a cryptic reply. Or when you read between the lines of a co-workers’ wordy message, you feel certain there is hidden a personal insult. What if you needed to get some information quickly for client but you still haven’t heard back yet from your boss.

When we’re frustrated, it’s very easy to lose our cool. In the heat of the moment, it’s too easy to send back a quick reply. An angry response just adds fuel to the fire.

Take the example of a client who got caught up in a series of angry emails with members of her Virtual Team. As project manager, she depended on e-mail to communicate regularly with colleagues across Canada she had never met. Feeling pressured, and under attack, she had got into the habit of firing off quick replies that only made things worse.

Don’t press “SEND”, was the first important tip she learned.

Through coaching she became more aware of how she typically dealt with confict -- both on and off the job. And she learned new ways to handle frustrating e-mails, telephone conversations and face-to-face meetings using these 4 Key Critical Skills:

Stay Calm
Be Considerate
Be Clear
Be Collaborative

Want some more ideas? See 20 TIPS FOR MANAGING CONFLICT