Kick Off 2024 With Strong Team Agreements

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Kick Off 2024 With Strong Team Agreements

As team lead, manager, or head of your organization, you want to ensure that your teams are cohesive, collaborative, high performing, and strong enough to weather any stormy seas of conflict, crisis, and disruptive behaviors.

This is the stuff of team agreements.

What I sometimes hear from folks is, "Sure, yeah, of course our teams have agreements. Everybody's on the same page." What turns out to be true is that their team agreements are unspoken, unwritten and un-negotiated—meaning, not designed in any thoughtful or clear manner that will set the team up for success.

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When you find yourself on the receiving end of conflict at work

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When you find yourself on the receiving end of conflict at work

In the heat of a tough conversation that hooks us (or the other guy) emotionally, those emotions can get the better of us. Our egos get slapped around, our precious values are attacked, even our personal safety can feel threatened. 

The truth is that conflict is natural. When two or more people, or groups of people, are not meeting each other’s needs, conflict can arise. When managed well, the conflict can become a productive, creative exchange that brings out something new, collaborative and wonderful—positive conflict.

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7 benefits to building conflict resilience into your org culture

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7 benefits to building conflict resilience into your org culture

Why build conflict resilience into your company’s culture?

  1. Fact: In any business environment, challenges and disagreements WILL happen. For a productive and happy workplace it’s crucial to have a plan in place to manage and de-escalate negative conflicts—with the intention to head them off before they begin. 

  2. The costs of conflict to your business are real and they are high. 

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Here’s a simple, powerful exercise to boost trust within your hybrid work team

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Here’s a simple, powerful exercise to boost trust within your hybrid work team

What factor in high-performing teams is even more important in a hybrid work environment than it ever was in the office setup? In one word, Trust.  

Here are just a few key reasons why:

Trust bridges the gap caused by people working from different locations and time zones. Separation can cause misunderstanding, wrong assumptions and, well, mistrust. When trust is embedded in the org culture, teams are more apt to believe in each other’s commitment, intentions, professionalism and work ethic. Trust engenders collaboration which is connected to strong performance.

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Ted Lasso's tips on handling tough conversations

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Ted Lasso's tips on handling tough conversations

In the heat of a tough conversation (or person) that hooks us emotionally, those emotions can get the better of us and our tender egos can feel slapped around. 

Tough conversations are inevitable in the workplace and particularly sticky when they involve a superior or, even stickier, a boss who’s chronically difficult. 

These are the very moments when you want to keep your emotions and ego in check if you have any hope of achieving the outcomes you’re looking for in the conversation. 

So, how do you do that? We look to America's favorite lovable leader, Ted Lasso, for advice…

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When to Get Help for Workplace Disputes or Conflict

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When to Get Help for Workplace Disputes or Conflict

An organization, no matter what size, can find itself facing a conflict so entrenched, so ugly, that a key person is paralyzing the productivity of an entire group, a department is chronically unable to come up with a new idea, or leadership is in such disarray that partners aren’t speaking to each other and some are ready to walk.

Underneath almost every negative conflict are interpersonal relationships that are rubbing each other the wrong way. When emotions run high (especially fueled by fear or anxiety) people can dig their heels into their position and block their ears to anyone who tries to reason logically with them.

Mediators are specially trained to work with teams in these situations. They understand relationship dynamics in play and how emotions can run amok.  

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Kick Off 2023 With Strong Team Agreements

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Kick Off 2023 With Strong Team Agreements

As team lead, manager, or head of your organization, you want to ensure that your teams are cohesive, collaborative, high performing, and strong enough to weather any stormy seas of conflict, crisis, and disruptive behaviors.

This is the stuff of team agreements.

What I sometimes hear from folks is, "Sure, yeah, of course our teams have agreements. Everybody's on the same page." What turns out to be true is that their team agreements are unspoken, unwritten and un-negotiated—meaning, not designed in any thoughtful or clear manner that will set the team up for success.

They are informal agreements that have become the rules of behavior over time and morphed into the organizational culture. They become "the way things are done around here."

For better or worse, they are binding on team members. They may not be spelled out in the policies and procedures manual (or even ethical or legal...), but it doesn't take long for new team members to figure out what is rewarded and what is punished. The so-called agreements continue as the norm, and nobody questions if they're good for the team, the workforce, or the organization.


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Emotional abuse at work: 8 warning signs that there’s a problem

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Emotional abuse at work: 8 warning signs that there’s a problem

“The accelerated pace of change in today’s workplace and in our overall society is one more factor impacting workplace mental health.” [Source: SHRM]

It’s no surprise that the most common workplace issues on almost every survey list are not about pay, promotion, or benefits. We see that interpersonal conflict, bullying and harassment, communication and relationship problems consistently top these lists.

Recent statistics show that [Source: 2021 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey]:

  • 30% of adults are bullied at work (compared to 19% in 2017)

  • 43.2% of remote workers are bullied

  • 65% of bullies are bosses; 4% have admitted their bullying which represents 6.6 million individuals

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Five Steps to Build Better Team Relationships

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Five Steps to Build Better Team Relationships

Building great companies takes building great teams. Building great teams takes...conflict.

Sound counterintuitive! Especially in an economy where going out on a limb imposes a lot more risks than usual, who would want to add conflict to the equation?

It’s natural to avoid conflict. It’s what separated life and death for early cavemen; we have evolved but with that same wiring embedded in our psyche: “Keep things safe'' and “Don’t rock the boat.” In today’s world, avoiding conflict actually becomes a detriment in building the relationships teams need in order to work together and get things done.

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How We’re Getting Hooked into Conflict at Work

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How We’re Getting Hooked into Conflict at Work

Have you ever said: “That person just presses my buttons”? If you’re human, then you’ve felt this at some time or another. You might recall a time when you reacted strongly to it emotionally, and the result was an escalation of the situation, maybe even a fight.

This can happen to the most enlightened, secure, experienced leader or manager. I have seen it often in my conflict engagement work with leaders and teams — and, I confess, I have hot buttons too!

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The Game-Changing Tool for Productive (and Pleasant) Work Conversations

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The Game-Changing Tool for Productive (and Pleasant) Work Conversations

What I know from my work as conflict advisor/mediator is that tough conversations are inevitable - in our work lives, community lives, and personal lives. And who in their right mind wants to have a difficult conversation?

Right - no one! So what we tend to do is avoid it, put if off for a day, a week, even a year. But does the issue go away? No, in fact, it festers and grows until it becomes something much more destructive and even dangerous. (That’s too often when we’re brought in to mediate a dispute or conflict that’s gotten out of control over months or even years.)

As an expert in conflict, I’m here to tell you conflict cannot be swept under the rug!

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Outside Help for an Inside Problem: What can mediation do for you?

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Outside Help for an Inside Problem: What can mediation do for you?

Have you ever witnessed something that had you wondering if you should call someone? Someone on the ground, a car accident, a kid by themselves— these situations leave most of us wondering if everything is alright, if help is already coming, if we need to do anything, or if the situation will resolve itself.

Deciding to bring in an outside mediator is kind of like that. Except you don’t watch a split-second event occur; instead, it unfolds over weeks or months, drip by drip, seeping into the environment and culture, until it almost becomes normalized.

But just because something is normal does not mean it’s okay.

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How to Have Difficult Conversations (When You Know You're Right): Part 1

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How to Have Difficult Conversations (When You Know You're Right): Part 1

“They may forget what you said—but they will never forget how you made them feel." Carl Buechner had the right idea in 1971, you’ve since heard variations: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it!

In the heat of a workplace disagreement or tough conversation (or person) that hooks us emotionally—these are the moments we need to remember these words most. But it’s exactly when we forget them. Our emotions get the better of us and we say things we don’t mean or, worse, that we regret later. The destruction that follows is swift and sometimes really difficult to repair.

Workplace relationships can be tricky, because while most people say “I truly want your honest feedback” they aren’t actually telling the truth. Even stickier is how we feel about telling someone higher up the command chain when they’re wrong.

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10 Quick Tips for Leading Team Conversations in Stressful Situations

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10 Quick Tips for Leading Team Conversations in Stressful Situations

Crisis situations can bring out the best — and the worst — in leaders, teams, employees, partners. We’re only human, and stressful situations cause humans to react emotionally, which tends to show up as anger, fear, aggression, anxiety, quick and poor decisions, and interpersonal conflict.

Let’s face it: If you have more than two people in a room tasked to accomplish something, you have the possibility of conflict — different ideas, personalities, “conflict hooks” all bouncing against each other. As common as it is in normal circumstances, conflict multiplies exponentially in unforeseen situations and crises.

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Time Capsules and Change

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Time Capsules and Change

Over the years, I have done my share of renovating houses or commercial buildings that I’ve owned. I developed the tradition of creating a time capsule and inserting it somewhere in the structure — behind a wall, under a floor — so that 100 years later somebody will uncover it. I love to imagine someone finding it and seeing a snapshot from the past tied to something dear to them, and me.

One renovation was a building built in the 1890s and needed a lot of work. The plan was to convert it to an office building to work in and lease out. Our hopes were super high and we were feeling really positive that we were onto something special with this new business concept, so the renovation was a labor of love (and a lot of our money).

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Four Reasons Why You Need to Train Your People in Conflict Management

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Four Reasons Why You Need to Train Your People in Conflict Management

[updated, April, 2018: 5 Reasons to Get Proactive on Conflict Management Training]

The benefits of skillfully managed conflict to an organization’s growth have never been more crucial than in today’s competitive, ever-changing global economy. Conversely, a dispute that is ignored or handled badly can quickly cause distraction, raise stress levels, create barriers to productivity, communications and innovation — and escalate to negative outcomes that cost an organization in measurable ways.

The literature supports conflict-competency benefits and training — but do you believe that there’s ROI on an organization’s investment in training and support for the purpose of developing conflict competency skills and systems before a dispute arises?

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3 Steps to Build Trust in Your Team

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3 Steps to Build Trust in Your Team

We explored in the article, "How Trust is Essential to a Productive Workplace," what can happen when trust is missing, and how trust is a cornerstone to employee engagement, productivity, and more. As Dr. David Ballard, the head of APA's Center for Organizational Excellence, says: “...Lack of trust should serve as a wake-up call for employers...Trust plays an important role in the workplace and affects employees’ well-being and job performance."

Building trust within your team is an ongoing process that grows over time, and it starts with you as the leader of your team, department, or organization.

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Reorganize Your Workforce For 2021: Three Positive Takeaways From The Pandemic

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Reorganize Your Workforce For 2021: Three Positive Takeaways From The Pandemic

[Reprinted from Forbes Coaches Council article by Mark Batson Baril, January 25, 2021]

The business response to the crises brought about by the pandemic has created deep changes and unexpected ripple effects throughout the world of teams. In my work as a conflict advisor, I’m seeing many companies struggle with the unintended consequences of shifting roles, relationships and expectations in their workforce.

The traveling sales team came back to the “office” and assignments got shuffled around. Employees working from home had to find new ways of communicating to get things done. Marketing and distribution pivots affected company teamwork on almost every level. Layoffs, furloughs, firings and staffing reassignments caused an undercurrent of uncertainty that hasn’t gone away and has raised questions: Who’s leaving? Who’s staying? How will positions shift? What’s my role now? Will we all still get along?

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How To Build Or Repair Trust In Your Team: The Trust Formula

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How To Build Or Repair Trust In Your Team: The Trust Formula

[Reprint from Forbes.com article by Forbes Coaches Council Member Mark Batson Baril, September 28 2020]

Over the years as an organizational ombuds, I have witnessed the dynamics of thousands of interpersonal relationships in teams. What key factor, particularly during any period of crisis, differentiates the high-performing, responsive team from the one that goes down in flames?

The factor that consistently rises to the top is trust. Mavenlink’s “Future of Work” survey highlights trust as “a pillar of strong work cultures.” More than half of respondents listed it as a top-three preference for “what enables a workplace culture that creates success.”

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14 Key Steps To Become A Better Team Player At Work

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14 Key Steps To Become A Better Team Player At Work

From Expert Panel, Forbes Coaches Council, Forbes.com, Dec 2, 2020

As a member of a team, you have a responsibility to help your co-workers, just as you’d expect them to offer assistance when you need it. However, when we’re all busy with our own responsibilities, we may not always be mindful of the challenges our colleagues are facing.

That’s why we asked the members of Forbes Coaches Council what professionals can do to create the most mutually supportive dynamic between themselves and their teammates. Below, they share 14 ways you can focus on becoming the best team player you can be to better support and collaborate with your colleagues.

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