Today I'm going to talk about something I picked up from Steven Covey's seminar in Shanghai a couple of years ago.
Conflict Resolution using the Indian Talking Stick
Actual Stephen Covey seminar:
The concept of the Talking Stick is that no one is supposed to speak expect the person holding the stick. Also the person can talk until he feels that his message is being understood by all parties. Then the stick is passed on to the next person so and so forth.
The method is really effective as it allows both sides of the story to be heard by all parties involved so they can understand why the other person is acting the way he/she is. Sometimes, it might seem that they are doing it to spite you but in truth, they're just trying to resolve a situation the way they know how.
They may be in need of help
A few years back I worked with a lateral sales manager who is managing a different product but some of our clients overlap.
She would do stuff like bribing my sale staff so that they would help her sell her product and all sorts of underhanded multi-deal package in order to get her sales moving. Naturally, I was pissed when I found out eventually what she did.
Fortunately, I just attended the seminar and learnt about the talking stick. So I sat her down and had a heart to heart chat with her regarding what she has been doing.
Turns out, she was never properly trained before being put into her position. She couldn't cope with the stress that was put on her and she was desperate to get her team's numbers up. So she resorted to using everything she knows in an attempt to help boost her sales.
So what we ended up getting the top management to give all the sales managers a proper sales management training which actually helped foster some sort of team work between the different product teams.
Tip of the day:
People do things the best way they know how. It pays to find out why instead of criticizing what they did.
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