Category Archives: Conflict Management

FLOWER POWER: BEE-ING A LEADER

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Think of yourself as a bee pollinating flowers every morning when you make your Friendly Five rounds. That’s the way Walt Disney characterized his leadership style.

Disney compared himself to a bumble bee “going from one area in the studio to another to stimulate everybody.”

Pollinating the blossoming of others is an instructive metaphor for the essence of a loving leader.

No wonder the most effective leaders schedule no formal meetings for at least the first hour “in the office.”

(This is an excerpt of a newly relaunched book titled
LOVING Like a Leader now available on Amazon.com

That’s why the most effective leaders invest in the Friendly Five every day Continue reading →

Let Cooler Heads Prevail

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to cool off when tempers get hot. Reading time: 2:14

You trade insults with a rival in the heat of battle. You’re mad as hell. And then all’s well.

Fiction, you say? Not to the most effective leaders who may lose their tempers at times but never lose their thermostats. They can lower the temperature before they explode in a blaze of MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY.

Consider President Harry S. Truman and union leader Al Whitney during the 1946 Congressional campaign. They traded barbs. Their blistering vocal bombs fueled lots of hurt feelings and negative press attention.

Two months later they found themselves face-to-face in a scheduled meeting at The White House. The union boss was clearly nervous. After all, he had derided the President of the United States as “nothing but a ribbon clerk” during the heated congressional campaign.

Historians tell us when the two met, Truman greeted the union leader warmly. “It’s good to see you, Al. You look wonderful.” And the President established his leadership and set the tone for the rest of the meeting. “Let’s not waste time discussing the past,” Truman posited. “Let’s just agree we both received bad advice.” Continue reading →

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Schtick

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you reprimand others more productively Reading time: 2:32.

Speak softly and carry a bit Schtick.cigar That’s what the most effective leaders do in reprimanding performance: they argue without being argumentative. They speak with a well-thought out Schtick -a process or routine — as the dictionary defines “Schtick.”

And with their well-honed Schtick, leaders learn to dictate without dictating; rule without ruling, boss without bossing and gain more of a command without commanding. Consider these three examples of the leader’s schtick in reprimanding others.

The Smoking Reprimand Schtick

Four veteran supervisors in your manufacturing plant are taking their smoke breaks in the entrance to the building in violation of the company policy.

Over the next two weeks, you notice more employees and those same supervisors in that plant taking their smoke breaks in the same entry way — at least 100 feet from the designated smoking area.

Continue reading →

Conflict Management: Disagree Agreeably

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you face an adversarial audience. Reading time: 2:46

It’s scary. You step up to the podium and all you hear are boos. All you see are sneers. And all you feel is tension.

You wonder if you just stepped on a guillotine. After all, this audience can’t stand to look at you much less listen to you.

That’s when the most effective leaders demonstrate how to disagree agreeably.

Mark Antony, literature’s conflict management poster boy, provides a template for taming a hostile audience in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

The backstory: Antony is mourning the death of his friend Julius Caesar. But the public is celebrating the death of what they perceived was an overly ambitions ruler. Antony addresses the public at the burial of Julius Caesar. In Act III Scene 2, Antony sizes up the crowd and finds a way to side with them right from the start:

‘Friends, Romans, countrymen,
lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar,
not to praise him. The evil that men do
lives after them. The good is oft interred
with their bones. So let it be with Caesar.’’

Antony skillfully disagrees so agreeably that he finds common ground. He’s one of them. Continue reading →

Give “Bad” Employees The VIP Treatment

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help keep talented employees engaged . Reading time: 6:37.

The retail clerk energetically raced into work and eagerly awaited taking charge of his cash register.

He couldn’t wait to start serving his customers with a personal banter that turned the tedious jobs of both the shopper and the cashier into something more fun. He was good at what he did and everyone around him – his bosses, his peers, and his customers—knew it.

Business was slow on this early Sunday morning. His cash register would remain silent—at least for now. His magic wand – the scanning device—would not dazzle anyone right now.

With no customers in sight, he began sweeping and cleaning his cashier’s station. But there wasn’t any magic in that and he got bored. He needed something to do. His boss noticed.

The boss asked his star performer to abandon his cashier role and serve as a greeter at the main entrance. There were still no customers to greet but at least he would have a chance to interact with everyone who came into the store. And maybe create some magic.

Continue reading →