While solving conflicts in the work place may be a challenging feat, during the PAF weekly meeting on Wednesday, April 8th current fellows learned that solving conflict creatively is an ideal way to ensure all party’s perspectives are valued, and common ground is found to reach a satisfactory resolution. As part of the professional development training session, fellows were guided by PAF alumna Titi (Williams-Davies) Harley, who discussed her own experiences dealing with conflict in professional settings.
Current fellows Kelly Bartz and Lauren Shenfeld facilitated the discussion of the two professional development competencies addressed during this session, conflict management and creativity. Both competencies were a logical pair among the twelve identified by the fellows and PAF Professional Development Advisor Sara Melita at the beginning of the academic year. After being given a scenario of conflict in a hypothetical organization, the fellows were charged to resolve the conflict using a “reframing matrix” that forced those solving the problem to consider at least four perspectives, outlined by the matrix creators, Mind Tools, a professional development website:
- Product perspective: Is there something wrong with the product or service? Is it priced correctly? How well does it serve the market? Is it reliable?
- Planning perspective: Are our business plans, marketing plans, or strategy at fault? Could we improve these?
- Potential perspective: How would we increase sales? If we were to seriously increase our targets or our production volumes, what would happen with this problem?
- People perspective: What are the people impacts and people implications of the problem? What do people involved with the problem think? Why are customers not using or buying the product?
Through this exercise, and after hearing from Titi, PAFs recognized the value of resolving conflict in a creatively among each other, in their placements, and into their future careers.