Canadian HR Strategy

15 Skills training can change your future. Start today at EssentialSkillsDay.ca With skills training, you can acquire the tools needed to succeed, like numeracy. When employees know how to analyze data and calculate the bigger picture, you can move forward together. Benefits of Skills Training #5: Think in numbers. Grow in numbers. #LearnForward fli The Advancing Workplace Learning joint project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's Adult Learning, Literacy and Essential Skills Program (ALLESP). isn't going to add fuel to the fire. And they don't want to… be standing out on a limb by themselves, so they will scribble notes to the person sitting beside them — almost like el- ementary school — they'll just sit and stare at the floor, they'll mutter under their breath, or there's just dead silence until they get into a place where they feel they can speak, and then (they) let it fly." constructive conflict It's important that teams like these learn how to have constructive conflict, said Otto. "Constructive conflict is really what you want because that shows that your people are engaged — it shows that they care about what's happening in their workplace, and the work that they do for the organization in the sense that they care to speak up about it, and constructive conflict (is) being allowed," she said. "It's about encouraging that communi- cation, that dialogue, so that we're able to be successful." It can be especially tricky to get the bobblehead team to engage in constructive conflict because those feelings of dissent or dissatisfaction may not even be there in the first place, said Davey. ere are a number of different strategies to address this, especially if your team leader is onboard. "One of the options is really to invest in improved decision-making. So a real problem on a bobblehead team is you tend to make decisions based on insufficient or biased information. So if your team leader is on board, getting a more formal decision- making approach where you walk through what other criteria you're going to use mak- ing this decision, and where are you going to get the information and evidence that you base this decision on… how are you going to introduce more diversity of thought into the decision-making process? So if you have your team leader onboard, you can fix a pro- cess that's really at the root of the problems on a bobblehead team," she said. "e other thing if your team leader is onboard is you can actually bring people in from the outside. So you can get subject matter experts, you can bring in a customer to talk to the team; bring in somebody who specializes in risk; bring in somebody from one of your specialized services firms — an accountant, a consultant, a lawyer — to stir the pot a little bit." Another solution is to mitigate the fear of conflict team members may have, she said. "Bobblehead teams are usually that way because they're conflict-avoidant. Every- one's very nice and nobody wants to rock the boat. So part of what you can do with your teammates is to learn how to have conflict in a very friendly, nice way. So en- couraging diversity of thought, so when someone says something that's kind of dif- ferent, respond by saying 'Wow, I hadn't thought about it that way,' or 'at's really interesting, I didn't know that.' And little things that begin to reinforce ideas that are different instead of ideas that are the same. "You can also respond to disagreements with openness. So 'Wow, how are we go- ing to respond to that new information?' or 'How's that going to impact what we're talking about?' It is conflict — it is taking a dissenting point of view. But when you do it that way, when you are open about it, when you use questions, it's not going to feel like conflict." "part of what you can do with your teammates is to learn how to have conflict in a... friendly, nice way."

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