The Cost of Conflict and benefit of collaboration

Most people don't understand a collaboration model. They think that negotiation means that you make people do things by threatening to walk out, having other alternatives or otherwise pressuring them. While this can work for the short term, it causes resentment and retaliation and does not get the other side to give you its best ideas.

Even those people who think one should focus on people's "interests" and "rationality" miss the point: the world is emotional and irrational, especially in negotiations important to people. To deal with an emotional person one needs to value their emotions and talk them gradually off the ledge, not show them how your spreadsheets align.

There have been so many missed opportunities: in Libya, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, with Israel/Palestine, with children, even in buying or selling homes, where one party wanted to talk but the other would not.

Firstly, the road from perdition begins, simply, with an attitude. The other side is not necessarily the enemy, even if they work for a competitor and even if others from their group might be the enemy.

Just because they were born Muslim doesn't mean they like Al Qaeda. Just because they are female doesn't mean they want children.

Using "averages" to judge people is unfair. How would you like to be judged based on an average?

Second, to get more one has to find out the other party's perceptions, ask questions, make a connection. People who make human connections with others are six times more likely to persuade others to do what they want.

Third, studies show that differences add value: they provide the basis for more creativity. Work groups with perceptual differences create three times as much value as consensus groups.

So, instead of debating over differences to see who's right, lawmakers and executives alike should be trying to see how they can create better ideas from those differences. For example, trading things that the parties each value unequally.

Fourth, threatening, insulting people and walking out just gets them angry and less interested in a deal. It might feel good, but in terms of meeting goals, it just doesn't work.

Fifth, emotion takes focus off goals and greatly reduces the chance of deals. If you are emotional, get someone else to negotiate, take a break or don't take it personally. If they are emotional, value their emotions to calm them down.

Sixth, start with the easy things on which there is agreement, even the date of the next meeting. It will bind parties together more.

Seventh, progress incrementally, small steps at a time, particularly when there are big disagreements. Parties get nervous making big steps in a risky world.

You don't have to trust everyone from the outset, but where there is conflict, simply acknowledge there isn't much trust and try to get commitments from each other in the absence of trust.

Build trust slowly through personal contact and you don't have to disclose your bottom line; simply say that it makes you uncomfortable. To be collaborative, you don't have to be fully disclosing. But you do need to say what's going on and actually try to form an agreement, piece by piece.

People don't expect you to disclose everything. But they do expect you to be direct, honest and real. That's the essence of collaboration. So before we tear ourselves apart, maybe we can be civil and have a talk?

Read the fill article here: The Cost of Conflict | Psychology Today

Fujitsu Taking advantage of economic downturn

pa.press.net

Japanese firm Fujitsu is facing the threat of strikes over plans to close its main final salary pension scheme and impose a pay freeze.

The manufacturing workers' union Unite said, its members had indicated in a consultative ballot that they would be prepared to take industrial action.

The union could now move to a formal strike ballot after complaining that 4,000 workers in the firm's defined benefit pension plan were being hit by the plans.

Unite said if the proposal goes ahead, the company intends to dismiss employees after the end of the consultation period in September, and offer them employment on new contracts which are unchanged, except in relation to pensions.

The union estimates that the proposed pension scheme change would reduce the total pay package of each employee by at least 15%, and is the latest in a series of "attacks" on employee conditions at the company, including a pay freeze.

Last week Fujitsu announced proposals for 1,200 redundancies in the UK, amounting to 10% of its UK workforce.

Unite's national officer Peter Skyte said: "Fujitsu Services is not struggling or failing. It is a highly profitable and successful company but one which is seeking to take economic advantage of the recession to attack jobs, pay, pensions and conditions.

"Our members are insisting that the company should pay fairly and provide decent pensions for all its employees. Following the announcement of 1,200 redundancies, they are now calling for the issue of job cuts to be included in any ballot for formal industrial action.

"We are calling on the company to meet us to resolve these issues and avoid the risk of damaging industrial action."

Fujitsu employs around 12,500 people in the UK, with main sites at Bracknell, Stevenage, Manchester, Crewe, Belfast, Staines, Basingstoke, Wakefield, Sheffield, Solihull, Slough, Lewes, Warrington, Cardiff, Bristol, Newcastle and London.

Influencing Authority; Its Not on Any Org Chart

NO one likes power grabbers, but there’s nothing inherently obnoxious about building and applying true authority to help your company or organisation achieve its goals.

Good employees with good ideas almost always face antagonism from entrenched interests. In these cases, one needs power to prevail in the inevitable politically charged battle.

Unfortunately, formal structured authority (clearly drawn up or laid out in organisational charts) doesn’t always work with peers or superiors, and it can generate stiff resistance and resentment. When used raw, nakedly or illegitimately, it will appear as 'coercion'.

Informal Power
Sometimes, informal power can be much more effective, and it doesn’t have to follow a hierarchy. Such influence can be exercised, say, by an executive assistant who controls a manager’s calendar, or by a midlevel manager who trumpets her team’s outstanding sales record but leaves out its soaring costs when seeking a budget increase.

Power and Influence, learn to identify all sources of informal and influencing power

The simplest to spot is the power of personal characteristics, which is more than just charisma. Just as some individuals appreciate certain traits, like kindness or empathy, organisations also value personality types.

The old school
An old school manager can be a genuine, square shouldered, company person in how they appear. They are never too slick and often look slightly over-used, not to mention, worn out. They can handle high-pressure situations, calmly, stoic and with a dry sense of humour. They have a personality that harmonises well with the organisation.

All this brings about a sense of deference from senior managers and an apparent uncanny ability to ensure that his ideas are listened to and will be sustained. Possibly all this will be justified by the feeling that he is just making 'good sense' but it is based more on his organisational credibility. Something akin to 'street cred'.

Negative power
Unfortunately, this kind of power is often most obvious in the negative. We all know about hard-driving managers, everywhere who have a real talent or 'knack' for generating cultural friction. Some will even confirm that this is a deliberate tactic, their management style.

Obstructive
This type of manager can be competitive when the company was trying to become more collaborative, more results focussed when the company is building good process, more interested in individual accountability (Blame!) than in fostering a culture of respect and dignity. This is very much the 'bull in a china shop' management style, which went out of use decades ago, it violates everything the organisation is trying to achieve, and it will lose you that next promotion. Even if, on merit points alone, you probably deserve.

Resources
Another source of power that transcends the traditional hierarchy is control over or ring fencing, resources. This exists when someone has the discretion to withhold an important resource, whether this is something tangible, like a signature on an expense form, or intangible, like access to a senior executive or knowledge on how to best use a piece of software. Executive assistants, benefits managers and other intermediaries, can have immense powers of resource control.

Decisions
An equally effectual power base involves control of a different kind, over the premises of a decision. Just because you don’t have the power to make a decision doesn’t mean you can’t influence or steer its outcome. A smart employee knows how to order, stress and withhold information when making a presentation. Some manipulative meeting organisers, will place controversial issues at the end of a long meeting, when everyone is too exhausted to put up a fight and site this as getting a 'tactical' advantage.

Raven and French
In 1959, two social psychologists Bertram Raven and John French laid out an authoritative taxonomy of power in society, which remains the basis of the field today. They discovered that attempts to influence others work best when perceived as legitimate. One source of legitimacy is reciprocity, the nagging sense of obligation felt when someone does you a favour. How often have you heard 'You owe me one!'.

Alliance
This “favour” mentality is the root of another informal base of power: alliance. Whether between reciprecating peers or between mentor and mentee, alliances involve an exchange of support or resources that can be cached, owed and redeemed at a later date. Effective power brokers build extensive alliances all around an organisation, so they can request and withdraw support, as and when required or build a quantum reputation for being able to do so.

Reputation
A reputation for power is another potent base. Everyone loves a good-natured boss, but a boss incapable of exercising authority, is ineffective and just wide open to abuse and domination. Instead, it is prudent to exercise your capable power, early and clearly.

Confirmation Bias
Psychologists use the term “confirmation bias,” it is the tendency to interpret actions in light of one’s original impressions or experiences. Confirmation bias can also explain the “golden child” phenomenon: when an employee enjoys years of success based on an initial positive impression. It can also be readily transferred or transmitted down through an organisation but if lost, it is almost impossible to regain, inside the same organisation.

Influencing
Many business schools offer excellent courses on mastering the essential techniques of informal influence. This is very rightly based on the criteria that intelligence, dilligence and hard work doesn’t guarantee any kind of success in business.

Unfortunately, many people who have spent years in a politically charged work setting very quickly come to learn how to acquire, apply and counter informal power. It is a self fulfilling philosophy because if you don't learn this lesson early on, you are not going to last long and you will definitely not be promoted, allegedly.

Risk Management; A mind set

To those who have not yet discovered it, security and risk management is a mind-set. When you go into a shop or restaurant, you may automatically check out the security and note where the exits are. If so, you will also check as to how secure the financial transactions are. How does the waitress handle the credit cards? How far the credit card machine is to staff and other customers. You will have noted the location of the security cameras, the lack of a security station or the location and the number of bouncers.

As a security and risk specialist, you will always be thinking about and assessing the security scenarios but not to exploit or take advantage of it but to be aware. You cannot switch it off, its the way you are. It is the same for members of the emergency services, never really off duty.

Security Compliance

If you have to consider a risk management approach to security compliance, as part of your many regulatory obligations, the best way to approach compliance is through risk. It is ineffective to focus on the bare minimum, just ensuring you are simply compliant. Threats and vulnerabilities are forever mutating, growing and changing. The bare minimum is not enough. This is the first principle of IT security and of risk-based IT management.

When looking at new applications, components, systems or architectures, check out the risks to your business and the risk to your core information. Those are the important things to note. You are concerned if it meets a line item associated with HIPAA and SOX.

Pattern recognition

The 'always on' risk management mind-set is always looking for patterns, checking out ways of doing rather than items on a regulatory checklist. You will look closely for items that pose a threat to your core assets, those that you are responsible for and have dedicated your reputation to protecting.

When somebody comes to you with a potential security problem, even if you know nothing about the particular system or application, you can assess it by the application of the risk framework and therefore formulate a validate set of pertinent and probing questions.

Secure games

Most security and risk managers live and breathe in a security mind-set, whether they are hardcore techies or recruits from the business side. The methodology they follow day by day at work is the methodology they live by, outside of work. Even at conferences, when they unwind afterwards with a soft drink, they invariably play a Where’s Waldo? version of security gaffes, competing to see who can spot the most security lapses. It can appear very weird and a little black, if you are outside the circle.

Nailed by the business

The mind-set can have its limitations and can be self-perpetuating. There is an old adage that says 'If you are a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.' Indeed, when taken by surprise, the average security and risk manager is typically out manouvered by something that happens on the business side.

Good grief! Have they learned nothing? You can’t believe that the business would make such a decision. Just because you have a structured, risk averse and secure mind-set, you forget that 'normal' people don’t always think that way.

Damage control

What happens next is up to you. If the security has been jeopordised or the risks are too high then it is your task to get it back into line and put the geni back in the bottle. The fact is clear, you are dealing with consequences. The business has taken a chosen path and you have to control the damage, mitigate against it or make it right. After all, isn't that your job as security and risk 'support' person? In reality, you are seen by the business (suits) as being in the same category as the IT help desk and that is all you are.

Although it is accepted that the security and risk manager serves and protects the
organisation and its profits, until it can be unequivacally determined how you can directly make money and grow the profits for the organisation, you will always be considered as merely a supporting act. So, let's make up and get on with it! The show must go on!