Conflict Resolution Strategies

Professionally, I am having some difficulty at work with a supervisor. To me it seems very childish because we are both professionals and we should be making more of an effort to conduct ourselves in a professional manner as heads of our child care facility. I find at times, I am being degraded by actions rather than words because I am given responsibilities that I feel should be completed by the supervisor. I have always had a feeling that I am not valued at all times and that I can be taken advantage of due to my ability to always want to please others. To me we always bump heads because she is aiming to show me up because I have worked with this staff for over ten years and she is new. I do not like that the staff knows when we are arguing because it is simply embarrassing and I wonder if the staff can see our conflicts, what about the parents and the children. This conflict honestly prohibits me from function properly sometimes because it is always on my mind during the day.

After learning about conflict resolution this week, I have come to realize that I need to step back a little and cool my head. When I am anger and I believe that I am right and I cannot see any other point of view. Reading about compassion and non-violent approaches to problem solving, I realized I can neutralize my conflict if I could implemented a few strategies:

1. Listen before commenting.
2. Learn to teach her with the same respect that I would want.
3. Control my anger in order to promote peaceful interaction.
4.  Learn to let things go and look towards the positive aspects.
5.  I also believe we should focus on the points where we are the strongest and most productive.
6.  Learn how to constructively critique the topics that are creating the problems instead of adding to it.

I also feel being respectful, reciprocal and responsive can help to resolve this conflict because it will allow me the opportunity to look beyond my feelings and consider the other side of the story. We have never sat down and discussed the beginning of this situation and I think we are both at fault. We are not being honest with each other; instead we are building more and more frustration on our lack of communication that already exists.  Many people have told me, that we need to look outside the box because we are limiting our disagreement based on our own perceptions of what we feel are right and wrong.

In confidence, I asked a fellow co-worker what she thought of the situation between me and my supervisor. She actually told me that we have a lot in common concerning work ethics and production. We shared the same strong skills and she does not understand why we are in conflict because we make a great team. She said it seems that we have strong feelings and maybe we both want the same power and she did tell me that my supervisor seems to be feel threaten by my relationship with the other colleagues.  My colleague told me I should try to talk about the situation as much as I can in order to find out all the facts. But she also recommended that I try to listen to what the other party has to say to make sure you know what you are arguing about. After hearing this information, I feel I need to take steps to resolve this conflict in order to promote peace and unity for us and the rest of the colleagues. We should set the correct examples for our workers in order to maintain a professional working atmosphere. 

Communicator? That's Me!

Communication, I have always believed it is my strong point. Everyone around me usually knows how I feel about everything because my facial expressions will let you know. I could never hide how I feel behind a smile and I could never allow others to think I understand when I don’t. I do acknowledge that I have learned to accept the things that I may not agree with, but I will still at times try to understand it again.

I offer myself as a good communicator because I feel I can express my needs and desires on a neutral level that does not imply selfishness. I have learned how to professional address my staff by creating communication boundaries that allows us all to speak while others listen. We all can effectively gathering our thoughts and we present our sides of the story without confrontation.

I have attended many workshops at the request of my teammates in order to help everyone improve their skills. I know it takes effective communication between a staff to create positive results and with hard work I always try to improve my skills.

I represent a team of men and women, who have to be role model for children, so I always ask for their input after team meeting and functions with parents. My team is good at constructively critiquing by offering suggests and letting me know how the audience took it. Gradually, I have learned to control facial expressions and body language in order to look more professional. My team gives me advice on how I can improve my communication. Overall, I know they feel I can communicate effectively but there is always room for improvement.

I am surprised that my team sees me as an effective communicator because it shows me they respect my judgments and know I have their best interest at heart. I do sometimes; have to insist on them to tell me how I have bought my point across to ensure I have not offend anyone.

After completing the assessment sheets, I noticed that I was good in all of them. My listening was the highest from my own self assessment and I surprised at how well I did with the other two individuals that evaluated me on my communication skills. I choose a co-worker that I have worked with for over ten years and my husband that I have been happily married to for four years. The results were overall really good, but like I always say there is always room for improvement. 

This week I have learned that we can all improve on our communication skills because every day is a new learning experience. I have also learned that not all communication ends in a solution, we all need to learn that communication is the exchange of information and not always an answer. Working on communication this week allows me to be more aware of the changes and improvement I can make in my professional and personal life. Improving my skills will continue to benefit myself and my team. Having a good working relationship helps to promote my people skills while ensuring positive production.

In my personal life, I have great communication with my husband because communication is the key to a success marriage. Having solid foundation and trust between each other allows us to take on each situation together even when we agree to disagree. As long as we respect each other and give each other the time to explain our feelings, we can work through anything. Communication is the path way to understanding.

Effective Communication Strategies

I am definitely guilty of communicating differently with many of my colleagues, family members and personal associates. During professional time, I have learned a lot about my colleagues and how they feel about certain aspects of life concerning race, religion, politics, sexual orientation and disabilities among children and staff. I do not discuss in details with others about topics that are very sacred to them or connected strongly with their family views. One thing I do stress is that these feeling do not affect their work because I will not tolerate that. We all have our religious beliefs and our political choices, but I also say we keep these parts of our lives to ourselves because in this program we teach our kids about the world and that includes every religion and holidays that we can.  I do often find myself avoiding conversations with certain individuals because I know we will continue to butt heads and that just leads to more miscommunication.  Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to allow people to speak their minds without passing judgment. Being a good listener can help me to become an effective communicator and allow others to feel comfortable with me.

            Concerning family members, we have spent our lives getting to know each other, and we know what topics to avoid. I have family members that follow different religious paths e.g. Muslim, Hindu, Christianity and Pentecostal. We all know who celebrates what holidays and we do our best to respect each other’s special time and we definitely restrain from making comments. Religion is a big topic in my family that we cannot agree on, so we “Agree to Disagree.” I know my communication varies depending on what role I am in because I try to learn and absorb information that is provide to me by the people that I interact with. I keep my relationship happy by respecting. My family and I have learned to share our joys and sorrows with each other and we have learned how to support each other in a productive manner. In my family sometimes staying quiet is the best advice you can give. We are very big and giving hugs and making each other laugh, and that usually removes the tension in the room.

In order to make my communication more effective, I try to maintain a professional manner by following three strategies:

1)      Learn to listen without talking.

2)      Do not offer my opinions or suggestions unless they are asked for.

3)      Remember respect and acceptance builds try relationship while ignorance creates more conflict.

Communication is important me because it a way that I get to know people and the way I get to express who I am to others. I always feel people tend to “Judge A Book by its Cover”. I want to change what people think of me when I express who I am underneath. 

Week 2 Blog Assignment Non-Verbal Observation

For this assignment I choose to record an episode of Elementary entitled "An Unnatural Arrangement". 

The show began with who I assume are the main characters involved in a somewhat observation conversation. They were staring into a jail call and then speaking on what they were seeing. followed by a crime that was accruing to a women. A man was sitting in a waiting position for a home owner to come home. The women was startled and frightened by the facial expressions she exhibit. It also seemed as they she did have want the gunman wanted. Throughout the show I was introduced to more characters who all seemed to be police officers. My conclusion of profession was they attire and their badges that they had on their waist. It also seemed the women were important to one of the officers by the way they embraced.

As I continued to watch the show, other characters were introduced in different scenes. The two main characteristics has sarcastic looks on their faces as I assume they were trying to solve the case. The lead male appeared goofy at times by his use of body language and extravagant facial gestures. The lead female seemed profession but also lead by her partner.

During many scenes the main character seems to be the center of the conversation. His mouth continues to control all aspects of the conversations. Any scene he is in is primarily controlled by him. The other characters do not seem bothered by that, instead they at certain points seem impressed as their faces light up when he has reveal something important to the case. They seem to be working together very week. I could see their relationship was understanding and very comical as well. To me it looked as if he was heavily relied on because he seems to have all the answers. He also behaves very cocky as well and his body language seems to sway with whatever he was talking about as if he was using sign language.

After watching this program with no sound I was able to understand a lot even though there was no sound. My assumptions were mostly correct because when I watched the program with sound I learned Sherlock was the main characters followed by Waston the next lead character. They do work together to help police solve crimes. I was also correct in label a deep connection with the victim in first scene because is the police captains wife.

If I was watching a show that I was more familiar with I think I would have been able to provide more depth understanding of relationship because I would have known more about the characters. I learned that non verbal communications skills are just as important as language. Body language and facial features and gestures can communicate exactly what you what to say.  Everyone's body is a tool that offers multiple ways to communicate and interact with others. This was an interesting assignment and I encourage my colleagues to try to observe situation without listen and see if they are able to understand what is being communicated. Communication is truly a complex state of learning and exploring for all.

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” Confucius