ETL504 Module 4

Communication and Resolving Conflict

You have developed a new digital literacy program that you believe needs to be used across the school. How will you communicate this program to your staff?

I am the ‘sender’, the information I will need to send is about the new digital literacy program that has been developed. The means of communicating this program will be two fold; verbally in a face-to-face meeting and in written form for the staff to take away with them. The written document would be encoded in a way that suggests it is a professional document about what the program is, why it is important and how it will be implemented. An executive summary is provided at the front of the document for quicker communication. When delivering the message it is important to remove noise and distractions from the surroundings as much as possible. While discussing it with teachers I would use open body language to invite them into the conversation and use language that is clearly understood by those in the room, but not too casual as to seem unprepared or uninterested. The sender needs to make eye contact with the receivers to show respect and gain feedback on reception. It is the role of the receiver to interpret the message both the oral and supporting written documentation. The way I can determine my message has been understood is by looking at body cues, such as nodding and by asking questions. Open ended questions would better demonstrate the receivers understanding.

Resolving Conflict

While reading the points given by Levine – believing in abundance and with some creativity we can do anything - I reflected on a video I had recently watched. You may find this humorous too.

Beinerts, L. (2014, March 23). The Expert (short Comedy Sketch) retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

Levine, S. (2009). Getting to resolution turning conflict into collaboration. (2nd ed.) San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Like most couples my husband and I have the odd argument. I used to find it frustrating when we would have arguments, because I thought my husband was such a good communicator and made logical arguments and I could not clearly express how I was feeling and why I felt that way. I would be more frustrated with how I was arguing than what the argument was about. We learnt a bit about communicating and negotiating in our pre-marriage counselling course (LifeWorks). A simple assertiveness activity to use when in communicating was suggested:

I feel…When you…Because… And what I would prefer is…

Another activity to try was the ‘ten steps for resolving conflict’:

1. Set a time and place for discussion
2. Define the problem- be specific
3. List the ways you each contribute to the problem
4. List past attempts to resolve the issue that were not successful
5. Brainstorm – list 10 possible solutions to the problem, to not judge or criticize them at this point
6. Discuss and evaluate each of these solutions
7. Agree on one solution to try
8. Agree how you will each work towards this solution
9. Setup another meeting to discuss your progress
10. Reward each other for progress

While the above ten steps have been written for couples I think they could work in a workplace setting too.

It is often harder to negotiate or persuade when you cannot share all the information you have. My husband is a lawyer and one of the problems he faces is confidentiality. He may gain certain information from one client that would be useful or beneficial to a second client but he can’t share that because of confidentiality issues. I think this is sometimes an issue in schools because certain pieces of information are not shared for privacy reasons, it leaves teachers in the dark. At one school I worked at we had a scary situation on a camp where a student became extremely violent towards other students and teachers, police ended up taking the child away. When all the staff were getting debriefed back at school we found that this student had a history of violence and was being handled by an external agency. They didn’t feel we needed to know this information. A lot of teachers were mad, frustrated and hurt that they did not know this. I think there is more chance of problems when there is not proper communication in schools.

My survey result: Competing. You tend to express above average assertiveness and below average cooperation. Some of your associates may think of you as a shark because you like to have things your way. What answering questionnaires tell me the most about myself is I am indecisive with how I view myself. I thinking internally I am a competitive person but externally I am more compromising and collaborative.