Tag: Conflict Management

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News You Can Use: 9/18/2019


Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

  • The Many Ways Planned Obsolescence Is Sabotaging How We Preserve Internet History

    But one issue keeps cropping up that I think is going to become even more prevalent in the years to come: Non-functional batteries.

    Battery technology and the circuitry that connects to it varies wildly, and it creates issues that prevent gadgets from living their best lives, in a huge part due to the slow decay of lithium-ion batteries.

    A prominent example of this, of course, are AirPods, highly attractive and functional tools that will slowly become less useful over time as their batteries go through hundreds of cycles and start to lose steam. But at the same time, AirPods are just an example of what is destined to happen to basically every set of Bluetooth headphones over time: The lithium-ion batteries driving them will slowly decay and turn a once-useful product into an object that must be continually replaced because a single part, the battery, cannot be replaced.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjwmqm/the-many-ways-planned-obsolescence-is-sabotaging-how-we-preserve-internet-history

  • India’s Restaurants Rebel Against Food Delivery Apps

    The frustration goes beyond India. As food ordering and delivery increasingly move online, restaurateurs and delivery workers around the world are questioning the small share of the pie they get from powerful gatekeepers like Zomato in India, Grubhub and DoorDash in the United States, and Deliveroo in Europe.

    The apps have made it easier for people to order takeout meals, and restaurants have gotten exposure to a larger audience of diners. But the platforms also charge hefty commissions on each order and can squeeze the profit margins of culinary establishments. In the United States, some restaurants have closed, unable to keep up with the cost of working with the delivery apps.

    The revolt in India underscores how tense the relationship between restaurants and the dining apps has become. On Thursday, restaurateurs spent all day meeting with top executives of Zomato and Swiggy, but failed to settle their differences.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/technology/india-restaurants-logout-delivery-zomato.html

  • How to vastly improve your problem-solving workshops

    Key Concept: Move from ideas to experimentation quickly
  • Out-of-Office Replies: Can a Strongly Worded One Set You Free?

    Some people threaten to delete all emails upon return. Many deflect with a joke, but taking creative liberties with an OOO only works if you’re high enough on the food chain in certain industries. “Stating you’ll respond ‘if you feel inspired’ will likely be poorly received at a law firm or by your boss if you’re entry-level,” said Ms. Licht. “It comes down to anticipating who’s receiving the message.”

    Others think that working a not-so-humble brag about, say, your “tightly scheduled tour of vineyards in Burgundy” into your OOO might convince people to leave you alone, or at least want to. For some recipients, however, “that’s just too much information,” said Ann Shoket, author of “The Big Life,” a self-help resource for professionals.

    If you can’t totally excise yourself from the grind, or can’t push your work off to a colleague, Ms. Johnson recommends selecting a window of availability each day to maintain some semblance of control over a vacation. Because let’s be real, we can never truly sign off(line) anymore.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/out-of-office-replies-can-a-strongly-worded-one-set-you-free-11567174442

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News You Can Use: 7/31/2019


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  • Our 6 Must Reads for Cutting Through Conflict and Tough Conversations

    When conflict arises in the workplace, people have two tendencies: Either they’ll hide from discomfort and hope the issue dissipate, or they’ll address the conflict head-on, often without filtering the words they use. Neither response is correct, nor constructive. Avoiding problems only allows them to fester and impact more people, while hasty, non-strategic communication can turn a small fire into a blaze.

    To help clients communicate through confrontations mindfully, Mehl recommends the A-E-I-O-U Model of Managing Conflict. It’s distinguished from other strategies by assuming that both sides of any argument mean well — basically, that there are positive reasons behind each person’s actions.

    Standing for Acknowledge, Express, Identify, Outcome, and Understanding, the A-E-I-O-U method can be used to resolve a variety of standoffs: employee-to-boss, peer-to-peer, co-founder to co-founder. It’s particularly useful for early startups, Mehl says, because everyone knows each other and is learning together. No matter how old your company is or how it’s structured, employees should always feel comfortable approaching managers and communicating on a level playing field.

    https://firstround.com/review/our-6-must-reads-for-cutting-through-conflict-and-tough-conversations/

  • Work at one of these 10 companies if you want a job you actually like

    Among the top 10 are:
    Adobe
    Facebook
    Southwest Airlines
    Live Nation
    Intuit
    Costco Wholesale
    Delta
    eBay
    Microsoft
    Johnson & Johnson

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90376970/work-at-one-of-these-10-companies-if-you-want-a-job-you-like
    Adobe…? That can’t be right.

  • Have you accidentally offended someone? Here’s advice for you and them
  • Everybody Hates the Key Card. Will Your Phone Replace It?

    The number of hotels in the United States that have digital keys available rose from 6 percent in 2016 to 17 percent last year, according to a survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Marriott International, Hilton, MGM Resorts and Disney hotels are among the brands offering loyalty members the option of using digital keys at some properties.

    Some, including Hilton and Marriott, only allow a single phone to receive a key during a stay, and other guests in the room receive card keys. Like the card keys, the digital keys can be used to access elevators, fitness centers, parking garages and other common areas. Some mobile keys require the user to touch a button on their phone screen to unlock the door, while others require that the phone be held up to the lock.

    Digital keys are hugely popular with travelers in some areas, like Silicon Valley, but overall, only about 10 percent of all hotel guests use them, Mr. Aznar estimated.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/travel/hotel-security-mobile-keys.html

  • In major switch, DoorDash announces that customers’ tips will now go to workers

    Just as things were calming down, a July 21 first-person New York Times article about working for various delivery services, including DoorDash, went viral. While the Times article didn’t break any news about the payment system, it thrust the issue back into the spotlight, prompting a new round of outrage.

    Xu had long defended the practice of using customer tips to pay drivers, with DoorDash chipping in only as a way of “making Dashers whole when a customer left no tip,” as he described it on Twitter. “But it’s clear from recent feedback that we didn’t strike the right balance,” he wrote.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90380942/in-major-switch-doordash-announces-that-customers-tips-will-now-go-to-workers

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News You Can Use: 4/24/2019

  • As China Hacked, U.S. Businesses Turned A Blind Eye

    In dozens of interviews with U.S. government and business representatives, officials involved in commerce with China said hacking and theft were an open secret for almost two decades, allowed to quietly continue because U.S. companies had too much money at stake to make waves.

    Wendy Cutler, who was a veteran negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, says it wasn’t just that U.S. businesses were hesitant to come forward in specific cases. She says businesses didn’t want the trade office to take “any strong action.”

    https://www.npr.org/2019/04/12/711779130/as-china-hacked-u-s-businesses-turned-a-blind-eye

  • Alibaba founder defends overtime work culture as ‘huge blessing’
    What is “996”?

    996 at a Chinese company means the workday starts at 9am, finishes at 9pm, with an extended 6 day week. The schedule is mandatory and there is no overtime pay or bonuses.

    Also:

    “I personally think that being able to work 996 is a huge blessing,” he said in remarks posted on the company’s WeChat account. “Many companies and many people don’t have the opportunity to work 996,” Ma said. “If you don’t work 996 when you are young, when can you ever work 996?”

    On Thursday, an opinion piece published in a state newspaper argued that 996 violated China’s Labor Law, which stipulates that average work hours cannot exceed 40 hours a week.

    “Creating a corporate culture of ‘encouraged overtime’ will not only not help a business’ core competitiveness, it might inhibit and damage a company’s ability to innovate,” the unnamed author wrote in the People’s Daily.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-tech-labour/alibaba-founder-defends-overtime-work-culture-as-huge-blessing-idUSKCN1RO1BC

  • China Is Scoring Its Citizens. And Evicting The Poorest.
  • A Microsoft exec shows how to handle an uproar at work without shutting it down

    There are several things worth highlighting in the executive’s response. First, she acknowledges that the other woman’s feelings of frustration and disappointment are valid, and promises to set aside time for a one-on-one to discuss the woman’s experience of being denied promotions. In this way, her email models the advice from Daena Giardella, a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, on how managers should handle sexual harassment claims. “Learn to take stories about sexual harassment in your organization seriously,” she wrote in a May 2018 piece for Quartz. “Be careful about snap assessments that a certain story or comment ‘is not a big deal,’ or not ‘worthy’ of being further investigated.”

    Second, the executive declares that while she doesn’t want anyone to feel that it’s impossible to advance in this particular area, she knows that Microsoft has more work to do. And while she highlights the career resources and training programs that are underway in an effort to improve advancement opportunities at the company, she does not suggest that they will offer a silver-bullet solution.

    https://qz.com/work/1590779/an-email-from-a-microsoft-executive-is-a-case-study-in-crisis-management/

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Posted on

News You Can Use: 10/17/2018

  • GE: The lessons of a corporate giant’s decline

    Ever since legendary GE chief Jack Welch retired in 2001, GE has been looking to find the right business mix to regain investor confidence, said Holman Jenkins at The Wall Street Journal. It’s been a “plodding, slow-motion hunt,” and GE’s mess of businesses — light bulbs, wind turbines, insurance, and more — means the company “is unlikely to register buried problems until they are well advanced.” And boy does GE have problems, said Jim Cramer at The Street. Immelt’s mistakes were so grave that GE needs “the financial equivalent of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” Its insurance division charged “a pittance” for long-term care policies. Immelt also doubled down on power plants when the sector was in decline. Same with oil and gas, when “oil ran to $100” a barrel and was bound to fall.

    https://theweek.com/articles/801447/ge-lessons-corporate-giants-decline

  • How to deal when your boss plays favorites

    One way to deal with this situation is to “deal with the little things instead of the big picture,” says Barbara Pachter, business etiquette expert and author of the book, The Communication Clinic: 99 Proven Cures for the Most Common Business Mistakes. So instead of focusing on the fact that your boss is playing favorites, turn your attention instead on what you want that you aren’t getting. If you want a special assignment, do your homework, go in, and ask for it.

    If there’s a career goal you’re trying to reach, tell your boss about it, and then ask advice on how you can get there. The most important thing is to be straightforward. Otherwise, it might not be that your boss is playing favorites, but rather they just don’t know what you want.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90245852/4-ways-to-deal-with-not-being-your-boss-favorite

  • Why we choke under pressure — and how to avoid it
  • This Is How You Lead a Virtual Team Without Coming Across Like a Looming Sci-Fi Overlord

    Lead with trust rather than fear. Micro-managers may feel a pang of discomfort from not being able to look over their remote team’s physical shoulders and may be tempted to resort to other forms of surveillance to keep them on track. This is both uncomfortable and demotivating for remote teams. The futuristic dictators portrayed in pop culture keep a close eye and ear on their subjects, ultimately disincentivizing communication as whole. Technology should be used to empower employees to communicate more effectively and efficiently, not to track or monitor performance. Trust is paramount.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/320995

  • Employee Perks Might Not Be As Effective As You Think They Are

    I believe the best way to create a sense of purpose in employees is to continually offer them opportunities to use their unique skills. And along these lines, a Namely survey confirmed that the most important factor leading to workplace satisfaction isn’t perks at all; it is a sense of purpose. In fact, 57 percent of employees surveyed desired “meaningful work” above all else. So, remind employees that you hired them for a reason: Their particular skill set fills an existing hole in your team. Then, get out of their way. Doing so will allow these new employees to bring their whole selves to work and will inspire their self-confidence more than programs or benefits ever could.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/321320

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