How to Deal With Confrontation

This isn’t new news, but most people struggle with confrontation. If that’s you, it probably boils down to your very human need to be ‘liked’ by everyone.

Naturally, you want to feel a sense of belonging and when people challenge you and your opinion, or outright disagree with you it can shake that up.

Suddenly you are unsure if this person is accepting, or rejecting you. Suddenly you are not sure if you belong in their little circle or not. Suddenly you feel alone and at sea.

There are a multitude of tactics you can adopt in such circumstances and I’d like to touch on one today.

Let’s start by asking 2 questions:

What is your default position as soon as you are faced with confrontation?

What role do your ‘persecutors’ believe you play?

Thomas Kilmann produced an interesting set of options that you might like to consider (TKI Model) above. Here are the options:

Option 1: Do you back down immediately and effectively run away from the problem?
Option 2: Do you accommodate their wishes and berate yourself for ‘being so soft’?
Option 3: Do you spontaneously challenge them back and go round in circles as you butt egos?
Option 4: Do you look for ways in which you could work together to find a solution?

Consider options 1 and 2 above.

If your ‘persecutor’ has come to think of you as someone who will either run away or back down, s/he will smell blood immediately and go in for the kill. As soon as you compromise, you haven’t got a chance.

If you go with option 3, you’ll be butting heads all day.

Which leaves option 4 as the strongest (and only) path to take. And there are plenty of ways in which you can collaborate.

I don’t want to get into those strategies here – that’s for another time. But what I do want you to consider is which of these default positions you naturally choose when faced with confrontation.

And secondly (and perhaps more importantly) which is the position your ‘persecutors’ believe you will take.

You don’t want to be known as a ‘push over’.

You don’t want to be known as a ‘doormat’.

You don’t want to be known either as a ‘hot head’ who will only ever push back when challenged.

What do you think?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Rebecca



The Greatest Myth: To Be 'Resilient', You Must Be 'Unbreakable'

I work a lot in the corporate world and often find that many corporate cultures operate in a dramatically different ways to the rest of the world.

Someone, somewhere along the line introduced this concept that to be 'resilient' at work, you must be some sort of superhero: unbreakable, unbendable and therefore wholly reliable.

Not only is this totally unrealistic, it creates greater problems than it solves.

Resilience differs from person to person and from organisation to organisation. People working in emergency care for example are under very different pressures to people working in a travel booking office for example: their needs for 'resilience' therefore differ enormously.

But whatever your culture, resilience has nothing to do with being superhuman.

Resilience is wholly about three things:

1. Adaptability.
2. Flexibility.
3. Resourcefulness.

The more flexible and adaptable you are to circumstances that come your way the more open minded you will be when solving problems. You will become creative rather than stressed. You will seek solutions and opportunities wherever you can. You will summon new resources because you will be looking for them.

So the next time this word, 'resilience' gets bandied around the office in a rather unrealistic, unimaginative way... get creative. And see what happens.

What are your thoughts about 'resilience'? How do you view it? Is it a 'corporate' word gone mad? How does resilience show up in your personal lives?

Love to hear your thoughts!
Rebecca

Rebecca Wells is a Career and Executive Coach with a specialism in Personal Branding for Corporate Women. She believes that women are phenomenal and add long lasting commercial value to business and yet often struggle to understand their value or believe deeply in their abilities to succeed. Her coaching programs are designed for talented and savvy professional women who simply need that extra push to achieve their greatest fulfillment and success.




 

My Top 5 Ideas to Help You Get Ahead, Even If Promotions Are Currently Scarce

Flatter structures these days, combined with the fact that many companies are tightening their purse strings can sometimes lead to a reduced number of 'vertical promotions' being available.

But know this: if you're currently working for a company that's put a hold on promotions, it won't last forever.

It can certainly be frustrating, even demoralising, if new job titles or promotions are scarce. But remember, if they're scarce for you they're also scarce for your peers (who also happen to be your competition).

And when faced with this kind of stalemate, you've got to use the time wisely so that when those promotions are back on the table, you're ready to come in hard with plenty of evidence to support your negotiations.

So what can you do if you aren't getting the promotional opportunities you want at the moment?

Simple: you look for other opportunities.

And there are plenty of ways in which you can get that step ahead of your competition without actually being promoted.

Here are my top five ideas to get you cookin':

1. Lateral up skill
If you can't go up the ladder just yet, think about how you could 'go across'.

By putting yourself forwards for a move into another area within the business, you will not only expand your current skill set, but you will also extend your network; build credibility with other decision makers; add value to your CV; extend your knowledge; and gain new experience. What's to lose?

2. Innovate
If you're feeling stuck and a little bored even, look for creative ways you could innovate. For example, either examine how current processes are delivered and improve them or develop entirely new processes.

Think about where you can add value. Look for bottlenecks, or problems, and solve them. And remember to keep a note of your wins - they will become excellent bargaining tools when promotions are available again.

3. Project work
Look for, or create, short term projects to keep you motivated and interested in your work. Think about ways to add value or solve problems. And look for proactive ways in which you could add value to the business.

4. Train others
Add value to those around you - and therefore to your organisation - by offering to train or coach other people.

This sort of initiative will be welcomed as it keeps training costs low. Training other people and seeing them grow will be a hugely gratifying experience for you and will also build your skill set.

Think too about how such an initiative would be perceived by key decision makers. What leverage might it give you in your next performance review?

5. Train yourself
Whilst you're waiting for promotions to come back on the table, use this time wisely: upskill and develop yourself wherever possible.

Find out what training budget has been allocated to you - you might be surprised to find it is a nice juicy sum! If there isn't a big budget, consider what you might be prepared to invest yourself in your own professional development.

Your greatest asset is what's between your ears after all. And knowledge is forever.

What are your top tips?
How do you add value to yourself and to your company during tough times?

I'd love to hear from you!
Rebecca

* To learn other tips, strategies and ideas like these, to help you build a powerful Personal Brand and advance your career, you'll love to receive 'PRESENCE', my fortnightly ezine. You'll also receive a copy of my special report, 'The Top 5 Mistakes Women Make On Their CVs'. YES! Subscribe me now! 

Rebecca Wells is a Career and Executive Coach with a specialism in Personal Branding for Corporate Women. She believes that women are phenomenal and add long lasting commercial value to business and yet often struggle to understand their value or believe deeply in their abilities to succeed. Her coaching programs are designed for talented and savvy professional women who simply need that extra push to achieve their greatest fulfillment and success. 

5 Tips to Maintain Credibility When Under Fire

Your Personal Brand is one thing. Your Personal Brand under fire is another.

The true test of your Personal Brand comes when you're faced with a crisis:

• Perhaps you have been challenged on a report you have written
• Maybe someone has questionned your leadership technique
• Or someone seems to be trampling your values

Whatever the crisis, it's important to check in with yourself to decide how you want to respond.

And that's the important thing, to check in with yourself first.

All too often, people respond in an empassioned knee jerk way: do first, think later (or not at all).

To maintain your credibility it's vital that you think first and then respond.

Even if you're under pressure to make a decision... you just have to think very, very quickly.

Here are 5 steps to get you focused:

Think

1. What are the absolute facts here?
2. What assumptions am I making?

Respond

3. Ask your counterpart for specifics: you don't want to react to a generalised statement.

So, for example: if the challenge you were faced with ran something like this:

"I think this report you've written is littered with errors."

Instead of assuming he means the entire piece is littered with errors, ask for some more information:

"Ok, to be clear, can you point out exactly what the errors are?"

4. Now, based on his reply, reassess the facts and ask yourself if your counterpart is justified in his claim?

5a. If so, offer to correct the error quickly - speed is important; you don't want an issue lingering on.

5b. If no, push back assertively!

When have you felt challenged and how did you respond? Did you think and then do? What were the outcomes?

- Rebecca