CONFLICT OF MANAGEMENT TRAINING (IN-HOUSE)

DATE
TIME
PLACE

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ORGANIZER

CONSULTANT
PARTICIPANT

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21st 23rd AUGUST 2016 (3 Days)

9.00 am - 4.00 pm
BILIK PERSIDANGAN, DEPARTMENT OF MUSEUM
MALAYSIA
TRAINING UNIT, DEPARTMENT OF MUSEUM
MALAYSIA
SAFE SKILL ACADEMY (OUTSOURCE)
DEPARTMENT OF MUSEUM MALAYSIA OFFICERS
(GRED S27 S41)

INTRODUCTION
Some conflicts are good as they result in thinking outside the box and taking performance to
higher levels. Others can be counterproductive, resulting in diminished morale and
productivity at the workplace. Most undesired conflicts arise because employees do not see
eye-to-eye on issues related to work and sometimes over personal matters.

The new professional mantra at the workplace celebrates and most importantly, makes use of
individual personality differences, as these differences are important to foster creative
thinking. Such thinking is needed to sustain a business in a dynamic environment pummelled
by

recession,

high

turnovers

and

rapidly

changing

nature

of

competition.

These very individual differences, however, will likely lead to conflicts when individuals
with contrasting and even subtle differences in aspects of their personalities clash within
workplace contexts.

Workplace friction is not limited to the odd balls that have significant interpersonal issues
with most team members. Employees in todays workplaces need to understand not only their
teams better but also themselves, in order to fully comprehend the personal underpinnings to
workplace conflicts with peers and repartees, and ways to overcome these conflicts.

Take the example of an employee who habitually applies a logical and rational way of
decision-making. Contrast this person with a peer who is concerned about others well-being
and adopts a compassionate approach to decision-making. Its easy to understand potential
situations of conflict when these two individuals come in contact in shared decision-making
situations.

Clearly, an insight into such differences in approaching workplace requirements such as

decision-making and team work will enable the management to better resolve conflicts and
more importantly, prevent conflicts by helping employees understand their own and the
idiosyncratic behaviours of their colleagues.

While broad personality types such as extraversion or introversion are easy to identify and
relate to, individual differences in personality in many situations do not manifest themselves
as different personality types but as subtle differences between people of the same type. Such
differences are harder to spot but nevertheless, influence peoples interpersonal relations at
the workplace, including their ability to manage and resolve conflicts.

Current personality assessments may focus on identifying broad personality types without
digging deeper into facet level interpretations of individual differences. Perhaps, whats
required are assessments that will offer this deeper insight into why individuals behave the
way they do, and at a level that is more personal and meaningful for the employee. The
learning that takes place from this information will also facilitate better communication
among employees, eventually resulting in more functional teams.

Although conflict management is an important application of workplace personality

assessment, the benefits of such an assessment go well beyond smoothing out bumps in dayto-day operations. Strategic thinking required from the organisations leadership depends,
eventually, on the kind of person entrusted with this job in the organisation.

A leader needs to direct her energies in the right direction, process information optimally,
take decisions that make the best business sense, deal with the workplace environment and
most importantly react to stress in a manner that creates harmony in her surroundings.
Therefore, assessing personality for leadership coaching becomes relevant for HR that will
spend a considerable amount of time and people resources to identify the right kind of
leadership for its organisations.

Perhaps at no period in the history of the workplace than today, are managers and HR
professionals looking at factors way beyond skill sets and compensation, to gauge what
impacts high performance.

Personality and the resultant behaviour have always impacted how people view their work,
peers and their short and long-term goals in organisations. It is today, in the context of the
twenty first century workforce, that personality is rightfully gaining its seat as worthy of
objective and accurate assessment at the workplace and worth its weight in gold. Indeed
understanding personality is golden.

So, this conflict management training can benefit almost every individual both at home and
on the job. Anyone who works with others is very likely to be a party to some disagreements

on occasion. Depending upon the seriousness of the situation, having thorough conflict
resolution training can make the difference between losing your job and impressing your
superiors.

BENEFITS OF TRAINING
Conflict is a natural occurrence, particularly in the workplace when multiple employees work
together. The varying backgrounds and opinions of employees often lead to different
conclusions or ideas on how to handle work projects. While some people choose to avoid
conflict, others employ conflict management skills to resolve the situation. Training
employees and yourself on conflict management provides beneficial skills for the workplace.

Stronger Relationships
Poorly managed conflict often causes friction between the involved employees, possibly
damaging the working relationship. By learning how to resolve conflicts in a professional,
respectful manner, the employees involved are often able to strengthen their relationships.
The skills enable staff members to work well together because the parties involved know how
to navigate the disagreement. Instead of fighting, insulting or ignoring one another, the
colleagues learn how to better collaborate, which can help build their relationships.

Problem Solving
Conflict resolution skills enable employees to resolve their own problems quickly and
effectively. This allows the flow of activity to continue in the workplace without extended
disruptions due to conflict that goes unresolved. Employees who know how to handle conflict
are also less likely to run to the manager to solve every disagreement that arises related to
work. All employees, including the manager, are able to work more.

Reduced Tension
Conflict can cause tension between employees if they don't know how to handle the situation.
A disagreement that stays unresolved causes that tension to build and often spreads to other
employees who weren't originally involved. If both parties feel they are right and refuse to
listen to one another, they may pit themselves against one another, dragging in other
employees to choose sides. Tension due to unresolved conflict lowers morale in the
workplace and can stall the work flow. By training your employees how to handle conflict on
their own, the overall tension decreases for a better working environment.

Increased Understanding
Conflict resolution skills allow people to move beyond their own emotions and opinions to
make objective decisions. By teaching these skills in the workplace, you encourage a deeper
understanding of situations that arise and the other people in the office. Employees learn how
their colleagues feel and think, as well as how to interact with them. The parties involved also
take a more thorough look at the situation and consider other possible solutions. This can lead
to learning on the specific work topic.

COURSE AIM
The aim of conflict management course is to introduce practical conflict resolution
techniques and strategies that managers and team leaders can effectively utilise when
managing conflict in the workplace. It should build on previous training, skills and
knowledge of effective performance management.

COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this one-day training course, the participants will have:

1. Defined confrontation and their role in managing conflict in the workplace to ensure
they maximise individual and team performance
2. Identified their preferred style/s in influencing others and managing conflict and the
additional strategies that they need to use to successfully resolve the conflict situation
3. Demonstrated their skills in resolving conflict and confrontation
4. Have identified a plan to apply and enhance their communication skills in the
workplace to address existing conflicts

DETAILED PROGRAMME
1st day
9.15 am

- Registration and coffee

Everyone needs to collect a name badge or sticker and a pack of information about the day.
Pack needs to include:
Agenda for participants
Worksheet
Evaluation sheet
(Have pens set out on the tables- tables set for 4-6 people depending on numbers- need 3
groups or multiples of 3 if possible)

10.00 am

- PowerPoint- Introductory slides

1. Course title
2. Mission statement
3. Comments re: conflict in centres from Chief Director JMM
4. Objectives of the training

11.00 am

- What do you need to know?

1.

Ask participants to tell you what they would like to get out of todays session and
what they would like covered. Write their ideas on a flip chart and explain that you
will have an opportunity to review this at the end of the session. Anything not covered
can then be followed up by the trainer and information sent on to participants.

.
12.30 pm

- Break (Lunch)

2.30 pm

- Ice-breaker

1.

Ask participants to work in pairs and discuss with their partner the following:
Think of a time when you experienced conflict that you are happy to share with
people.
Discuss this with the person sitting next to you who will then feed this back to the rest
of the group. Consider how the incident made you feel

2.

Ask them to swap after about 2-3 mins (you will need to remind them when to swap)
and to keep the story brief. Ask participants not to discuss incidents that might stir up
difficult feelings for them that would upset the start of their day!

3.

After about 15 minutes, ask each participant to introduce their partner and very briefly
relate their partners story and the feelings involved.

3.30 pm

- PowerPoint

1. Definition and purpose of conflict

2. Why does it occur?
3. Positive reasons for conflict
4. Negative reasons for conflict

5. What will happen without resolution?

6. win/win, win/lose and lose/lose.
2nd day
9.00 am

- Conflict in the Contact Centre

Exercise - Ask participants to work in small groups (multiples of 3 groups) and give one third
of the groups worksheets. Ask them to complete the sheets filling in how conflict may be
created or made worse by the actions of the focus group on the worksheets.
Allow 30 minutes and then ask for feedback to the whole group.

9.30 am

- PowerPoint - Recognising different emotional states

1. Aggression
2. Anxiety
3. Depression
4. Frustration
5. Disapproval
6. Feeling threatened
Exercise- hand out laminated pictures amongst small groups and ask participants to identify
the different emotions involved.

11.40 am

- How we react to conflict

Exercise- Active listening skills

Ask participants to work in pairs. Hand out role cards A and B to each pair. One half of the
pair will talk for about 2-3 minutes about how difficult the journey was to the training session
and the other person will not listen properly. You do not need to explain this- let the
participants read what is on the role cards without discussing what they have to do. After 2-3

minutes ask them to swap around for another couple of minutes. Then ask for feedback from
the group about how it felt not to be listened to, and the b group about how easy or difficult it
may have felt not to listen.
Explain that good, active listening is really important when someone is very upset or angry- it
is essential not to get things wrong or look as though you are not interested.

12.30 pm

-Break (Lunch)

2.30 pm

- Exercise- Personal space

Ask participants to stand up and working with someone they havent worked with, find some
space and face each other. Then ask them to move towards each other as close as they can,
until one of them feels uncomfortable.
Discuss how this made people feel and talk about the intimate, personal and public zone.

3.30 pm - Using I statements

Explain the importance of not using confrontational language when dealing with people who
are angry or upset, e.g you shouldnt shout at me would be better put as I dont like it
when you shout at me
Exercise - Handout 3 statements to each group (or fewer if you have lots of groups) and ask
the participants to re-word the statements to make them less confrontational.

3rd day
9.00 am

- Barriers to effective communication

Using a flip chart, ask participants to list what they see as barriers to effective communication
in the contact situation.

10.00 am

- Dealing with conflict

General discussion with whole group about what steps we should take in a contact centre to
deal with conflict- write this on a flip chart as a plan.
11.00 am

- Exercise: Case studies

Read out 3 case studies and ask participants to say how they would deal with the situationsWhat would you do? What would you say?

12.30 pm

- Break (Lunch)

2.30 pm

- De-briefing

General discussion of the importance of de-briefing - how should this be done and when?
What about following an issue up?

3.30 pm

- Checking out understanding

Look again at the flip chart list from the start of the session - have the items that participants
listed been covered? Are there any questions?

4.00 pm

- Close session

Ask participants to complete evaluation sheets from their packs and give out handouts. Hand
out certificates and collect evaluation sheets.

RESOURCES
This module is based on a PowerPoint presentation, but could be developed as an OHP
Presentation or the slides transferred to flip chart or handouts. The ice-breaker will need to
be presented carefully- if participants discuss something that stirs up very angry feelings, you

may have to help them deal with those before moving on. It is best to suggest that something
manageable is discussed. It is usually a good idea to randomly assign participants to groups
as they arrive. This can be done by using different coloured dots, for example, on their name
badges. It would not matter for this programme, however, if people worked with someone
they already know.
The paper resources required for this module are as follows:
A copy of the Agenda for Participants (1 copy per person)
Name badges and/or stickers
Pens
PowerPoint presentation or whatever form you are using
Flip chart and pens
Trainers Notes Support Sheets
Worksheets
Laminated pictures of different emotions
Role cards a and b for active listening exercise
Statement cards for Using I statements exercise
Case studies
Evaluation sheets
Handouts about the presentation
Certificates
CONCLUSION
This training is designed to supplement formal conflict management training and assist
museum officer in implementing their new conflict resolution skills in the workplace. The
focus of training sessions is placed on learning why we make assumptions, how to broaden
our perspective on the situation, the possible conflict triggers and the hidden, underlying

causes and tensions. Developing coping mechanisms is explored, along with possible
resolution options, ways to move forward towards resolution and how to negotiate and abide
by agreements.