Category Archives: management advice

guest blogger, management advice, Motivation, Negotiation, Observations

Dealing With Conflicts within the Workplace

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It would be great to think that you would always have a harmonious relationship with your work colleagues, but the reality is that relationships can sometimes run into trouble. This probably shouldn’t come as a great surprise, given the circumstances involved.

Unless you happen to be in a very lucky situation, it’s probable that you didn’t actually get to choose your work colleagues. It’s rather more likely that you were forced together and that there was an expectation that you would be productive.

New members of staff

When interviewers are looking at hiring new members of staff, they will frequently consider the work experience of an individual and will be looking to assess their abilities. It’s often more difficult, however, to identify whether someone will really fit in.

In part, that’s because each business will have its own ethos and working environment. It’s not correct to assume that it will be easy for everyone to adapt to the unique demands that are associated with a situation.

But conflicts don’t only occur when someone new joins the organization. In fact, it’s often the case that a level of stress, created by the pressures of working life, can cause a conflict to emerge. When we are under pressure, we may act in haste. We may so, or do, things that we later come to regret.

walking out

Remaining calm

Although it’s clear that the priority should be to keep calm and to avoid encountering such issues, it’s also true to say that it’s incredibly hard to avoid problems. What is critical is that you have a response that you can rely on.

In general terms, your aim should be to remain professional at all times. Although the issue that you have with another individual may make life uncomfortable and you may feel that the other person is acting unreasonably, it’s vitally important that you should avoid responding in a similar manner. That’s only likely to make things worse and it probably won’t be very positive to your career prospects.

Instead, you need to think about how you can handle the situation. It may be that a frank discussion with the other individual is all that’s required, but that may not be appropriate. You’ll need to judge whether that’s likely to make things better, or whether it may simply inflame the situation. You very clearly don’t want to make things worse.

A more realistic approach may involve reporting the situation to a senior manager. In this case, you need to be careful that you provide all of the facts and that you take a fully objective approach. It can be tempting to paint a picture of the behaviour of the other person that is intended to show them in a bad light. It’s usually best to avoid such a temptation.

Instead, explain the problems that you are having and how they are having an impact on the smooth operation of the business. This should ensure that your manager views the situation with the sort of importance that it clearly deserves.

About the author

Keith Barrett writes about workplace mediation and dealing with difficult situations. He believes that most issues can be resolved in a manner that is appropriate for all concerned.

Careers Advice, guest blogger, Happy work environment, management advice, Project management career progression

Five Things To Do Before You Ask For A Raise

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Salary negotiations are tricky. And this is especially the case when you have been with the same employer for a number of years. You are likely to have grown somewhat comfortable, happy even. What if they say no? Do you have to quit?

The longer you work somewhere, the more personal the threat of rejection is too. After all, your employers are likely to know you pretty well. Are you really not worth more money?

Unfortunately however, those who don’t ask, rarely receive. If you want a raise, you’re therefore going to have to man up and ask for one. Before you charge into your bosses office however, make sure that you first do the following five things.

Make Your Value Known

Were you caught sleeping at your desk last week or did you just land a major client? Your answer to this question should determine whether or not now is the right time to ask for a raise.

Clever employees only ask for a raise when they are at their most valuable. They wait until their purpose is clear. They wait until their absence would appear to be a major loss for their employer. What have you done recently to deserve a raise?

Write Down a Number

Do you know how much you are worth? Before even thinking about asking for a raise, you need to understand what a reasonable raise would be. Ask for too much and you can expect an immediate refusal. Ask for too little and you’re a chump.

Use one of the many salary calculators available online. Factor in your qualifications and experience and determine what people like you are making nationwide. Ask your co workers what they make, while being tactful, of course. If you’ve got a friend in human resources, call him.

Once you’ve established what you’re worth, ask for ten percent more. It pays to be strategic when it comes to salary negotiations. You also might just get it.

See Your Boss Smile

Your boss might act like a robot but he’s a human just like you. He probably doesn’t like Mondays and some day’s he probably has a hangover. Timing is therefore something that you want to have on your side.

You shouldn’t use this as an excuse to procrastinate for weeks at a time, but you also shouldn’t approach him when he’s screaming.

Ask Yourself What You Want

You want money. We all want money. But sometimes employers don’t want to give it away. They will therefore come up with other possible incentives. These can include a company car, better health insurance, more time off, a nicer chair.

If all you want is money, stand your ground. But it is worth noting that the more flexible you are in terms of what you want, the more likely you are to get it. And who wouldn’t want a month off?

Practice Your Rejection Speech

Finally, the biggest mistake that you can make when it comes to salary negotiation is to raise your voice. If your request for more money is turned down, a smile might be difficult, but it’s necessary.

Salary negotiation is not a one time question and answer session, it’s an ongoing process. If you are turned down today, there is no law that says you can’t ask again next month. In fact, your boss is likely to expect it.

Provided you are graceful in defeat and you don’t take insult in rejection, you can ask for a raise as many times as you like. Provided you are worth it, you will eventually get it. But if you start screaming, it’s game over. And you just lost.

Ed Smith is a well-known job consultant based in London who shares the details for those seeking  internal communication jobs  through his informative blogs.

Careers Advice, management advice, Project Management, Project Management Communications, Team building

Imagine there’s no email – communications planning

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Back in the day before technology such as email, social networking and forums had been thoroughly adopted we were resigned to actually speaking to each other – either face to face or via telephone. I wonder if we compared success rates for project delivery to today if achievement was higher? Probably not, however I bet communications were deemed as much stronger. I am a huge fan of modern technology and it’s benefits for easy access and recorded communications however as we become busier and lazier – it is all too easy to fire off a few emails and update online activity boards without actually discussing any changes or actions required by the project team. How many times have you seen your name entered next to a piece of information or been put on copy of an email and thought; “what does that actually mean?” Our ability to interpret information varies from person to person and so a great deal of important instruction / information can also get lost in translation.

As a project manager the minimum you should be doing is making sure you speak to people, understand their workloads other commitments and ensure everyone is clear on what is required. I am not a fan of unnecessary meetings either, meetings are required but only last week I was talking with a PM from the investment management sector who was complaining that they have meetings about having meetings – this is of course a step too far.

Work out a communications plan – make sure you list everyone involved on the project with the most heavily involved at the top working down to less active members of the team. Placing priority on the more heavily involved and working out a mutually convenient way to communicate such as weekly calls / coffee and teleconferences for groups to join in is a good start. Don’t be a stranger to the team and if possible, do pop over for a coffee and chat to see where they are at with their workstream. By effectively communicating at the start of the project and building relationships – you can convince the team of your intentions to keep in touch and that you are not micro managing, explaining the need to have a transparent view of where everyone is at will help you all work together more effectively. In my first PM role I reported to a programme director who said to me, “If you tell me when things aren’t going to plan, I will have your corner. If you cover up and drop me in it then you are on your own.” You can’t say fairer than that! Encourage your team to communicate – but you can only do this if you are openly and regularly communicating yourself.

Careers Advice, management advice, News, Project Management, Project Management Communications

Communication and interpretation

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Communication is the most important element to success in both personal and work environments – yet it tends to take a back seat, why is this? In relationships often when they break down it is because we don’t talk to each other, only when we hitting breaking point do we sit down and start to share our thoughts. Having managed multiple concurrent projects across a number of globally based manufacturing sites I learnt early on that open communication had to be enforced to ensure successful delivery and effective contingency planning. Interpretation can be a big player here – in my situation there were the language and cultural barriers, asking for a status update from Germany often yielded responses of “we have not set up the tooling up until now”. This would indicate that they have just set up the tooling – actually this means that they haven’t set it up at this point, a language translation which could be catastrophic to a project if you were to action the next stage of the project when the site was not ready. However I have come across similar issues within the UK and with the USA, to overcome these I learnt fast what the technical teams were actually trying to communicate and made sure every teleconference and meeting was followed up with clear email communication which required a sign off from each individual and also designed a software package which required sign off at each stage from heads of the manufacturing sites before the next stage could be released.

How many times have you called and emailed someone for an update on something only for no reply to be made? How many times have you “parked” an email as you do not have any news? Often the reason for not replying is that you want to be able to give good news and demonstrate your effectiveness but in fact you are doing the opposite to this. One thing which has become ingrained in my working process is to make sure I respond to all calls and emails, even if I have no news yet. By simply responding and stating that you haven’t forgotten and that you are chasing it up – you can ensure you are gaining trust and alleviating any frustrations at the other end. It’s not very time consuming and will help build a strong relationship with others as you are not deemed as ignoring them.