Lecture 16 Skills Development for Activists

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Lecture 16 Skills Development for Activists

• Challenges of Sustainable Development in Poland

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Overview

• Basic Skills
• Knowing Your Values
• Moderating Meetings
• Leadership
• Conflict Resolution
• Negotiation
• Mediation
• Arbitration
• Litigation

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Your SD Values - 2004

• Honesty (Truth)
• Humility (Repeat often I know that I know
  nothing!)
• Respect
• Transparency and Openness Self-improvement
  (Increase awareness)
• Responsibility
• Cooperation (willingness to cooperate)
• Equity
• Justice and Fairness
• Compassion
• Wisdom
• Creativity
• Empathy
• Optimism
• Love
• Faith
• Modesty (less consumption)
• Always look on the bright side of life (whistle,
  whistle, whistle!)

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Your SD Values - 2005

• Openness
• Transparency
• Continuous Improvement
• Elegance
• Natural
• Intelligent
• Equality
• Respect
• Subsidiarity
• Harmony
• Passion
• Meaningful Work

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Effective Meetings

• Determine if it is necessary
• Determine who needs to attend
• Prepare for the meeting
• Appoint facilitator
• List the objectives / purpose
• Create an agenda circulate to attendees for
  input
• Provide pertinent materials in advance
• Make it convenient time (start and finish),
  location
• Stick to the agenda
• Encourage participation
• Develop Action Items What, Who, When
• Keep minutes
• After the meeting
• Distribute the minutes
• Follow-up on action items

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Typical Problems

• Start late
• Late notice
• Wrong people present
• Last to long
• Get off track
• Informal and unrelated side bar conversations

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A Leadership Story

• A group of workers and their leaders are set a
  task of clearing a road through a dense jungle on
  a remote island to get to the coast where an
  estuary provides a perfect site for a port.
• The leaders organise the labor into efficient
  units and monitor the distribution and use of
  capital assets progress is excellent. The
  leaders continue to monitor and evaluate progress
  making adjustments along the way to ensure the
  progress is maintained and efficiency increased
  wherever possible.
• Then, one day amidst all the hustle and bustle
  and activity, one person climbs up a nearby tree.
  The person surveys the scene from the top of the
  tree.

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Leadership StoryThe End

• And shouts down to the assembled group
  belowWrong Way
• Management is doing things right, leadership is
  doing the right things
• (Warren Bennis and Peter Drucker)

• (Story adapted from Stephen Covey (2004) The
  Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Simon
  Schuster).

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Leadership
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Types of Leadership Style
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Change Leadership
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Theories of Leadership
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Factors Affecting Style
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Conflict Resolution
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What is Conflict?

• A process which involves opposing forces and
  differing objectives
• Conflict exists whenever incompatible activities
  occur.
• Conflicts may originate from a number of
  different sources, including
• Differences in information, beliefs, values,
  interests, or desires.
• A scarcity of some resource.
• Rivalries in which one person or group competes
  with another.
• Conflicts are often hard to keep under control
  once they have begun.
• There is a definite trend toward escalation and
  polarization.
• Once conflict escalates to a point at which it is
  no longer under control, it almost always yields
  negative results

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What kinds of conflicts have you experienced in
student groups that you belong to?

• Unmotivated members
• Unreliable members
• Unable to set goals
• Unable to follow through on goals

• Monopolizers
• Over-functioning members
• Power hungry members
• Argumentative members

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How do you know when conflict is occurring?

• What behaviors, emotions, and thinking do you see
  in yourself and other people?
• How do you feel about the behaviors, emotions,
  and thinking that go on with you and others?
• What feels helpful, right, and appropriate?
• What feels unhelpful, destructive, and
  inappropriate?

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Activity What is your conflict resolution style?

• Which of the following statements best describes
  how you handle conflicts?

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1. I dont like conflicts, and I try to avoid
them.
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2. To me, conflicts are challenging. Theyre
like contests or competitions opportunities for
me to come up with solutions.
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I try to see conflicts from both sides. What do I
need? What does the other person need? What are
the issues involved?
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4. When faced with a conflict or even a
potential conflict, I tend to back down or give
in, rather than cause problems.
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5. I want to resolve the conflict as quickly as
possible, I give up something I want or need
and I expect the other person to do the same.
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Ways of Dealing with Conflict

• Avoidance
• Does not deal with issues at hand
• Lose-lose strategy
• Accommodation
• Agreement through yielding or conforming to the
  positions of others
• Lose-win strategy

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Ways of Dealing with Conflict

• Compromise
• Involves a search for a solution which is
  mutually acceptable
• Lose-lose strategy
• Competition
• Offensive aggressive approach
• Win-lose/lose-win strategy
• Collaboration
• Total-membership approach, generates creative
  solution
• Win-win strategy

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Resolving the Conflict by Principled Negotiation

• Separate the people from the problem.
• Focus on interests, not positions.
• Invent options for mutual gain.
• Seek objective criteria

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Toward Conflict Management

• Conflict resolution seems to improve as we engage
  in certain behaviors.
• Set the stage for dialogue.
• Disengage your flight-fight response.
• State clearly and without anger, your needs and
  self-interests, and listen carefully to those
  expressed by others.
• Look below the surface of what is being said.
• Separate the person from the problem.

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Toward Conflict Management

• Conflict resolution . . . (continued)
• Brainstorm all potential solutions to your
  conflict.
• Discuss collaboratively rather than aggressively.
• Use informal problem solving, mediation, and
  other conflict resolution techniques.
• Let go of your judgments about the others and
  focus instead on improving your own skills at
  handling their difficult behaviors.

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Toward Conflict Management

• Conflict resolution . . . (continued)
• Dont surrender just so the conflict will go
  away.
• Recognize the larger organizational and social
  issues that express themselves through conflict.
• Search for completion.
• Modify the agreement if necessary.

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Toward Conflict ManagementPractical Tips

• Walker and Harris (1995) offer the following
  practical tips for implementing the 9,9 style.
  Encouraging behavior occurs when a team member
• 1. Avoids feelings or perceptions that imply the
  other person is wrong or needs to change.
• 2. Communicates a desire to work together to
  explore a problem or seek a solution.
• 3. Exhibits behavior that is spontaneous and
  destruction-free.

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Toward Conflict ManagementPractical Tips

• Walker and Harris . . . (continued)
• 4. Identifies with another team members
  problems, shares feelings, and accepts the team
  members reaction.
• 5. Treats other team members with respect and
  trust.
• 6. Investigates issues rather than taking sides
  on them.

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The Systems Approach

• Conflict may have some desirable consequences for
  the group.
• Conflict that gets out of control may be
  destructive.
• We would expect more conflict-producing behaviors
  from those high in aggression, dominance, and the
  need for autonomy.
• Perhaps one of the most important factors related
  to conflict is the style of leadership and the
  resulting group norms regarding conflict.