When employees are happier, businesses do better. From retention to innovation, customer service to costly mistakes, improved employee morale means an improved bottom line. Better morale also means fewer instances of workplace conflict which can slow down productivity, increase stress and tension, and lead to expensive distractions among employees. So if happy employees create better...
Summary of: Guthridge, M., & Giummarra, M. J. (2021). The taxonomy of empathy: A meta-definition and the nine dimensions of the empathic system. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00221678211018015 Background & Theory There is a lot of confusion surrounding the word empathy. The diverse many meanings of the word results in descriptions of a highly heterogeneous...
With growing stressors and ever evolving employee needs, it’s a challenging time to be a leader. And while it may be getting more and more challenging to manage, the expectations of leadership remain high. But with growing resources and tools to better manage stress, cultivate work/life balance, and address mental health needs, learning how to...
Summary Of: Başoğul, C., (2020). Conflict management and teamwork in workplace from the perspective of nurses. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 57(2). 610-619. https://doi.org/10.1111/ppc.12584 Background & Theory To improve the workplace atmosphere within patient care facilities, the conflict management between nurses was studied to better understand workplace disruptions. The different strategies that are used when conflicts occur...
Summary Of: Wieck, C., Kunzmann, U., & Scheibe, S. (2021). Empathy at work: The role of age and emotional job demands. Psychology and Aging, 36(1), 36–48. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000469 Background & Theory Empathy requires both cognitive facets (the ability to perceive others’ emotions accurately) and affective facets (the capacity to share others’ emotions and to feel sympathy)....
Have you ever been in a relationship that didn’t encounter at least the occasional misunderstanding? Misunderstandings can happen frequently in human interactions because each individual brings their own life context to the table, and when we hear things from other people, we filter them through the context we have. Our context is made up of...
While your job may not include any responsibilities around conflict or people-management, flexing your conflict resolution skills at work can benefit you in myriad ways. Some people have natural skills and competency around de-escalating tension, communicating fairly, and identifying solutions. If you see yourself in that description, you may want to consider putting those skills...
Summary of: Nunney, S. J., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2021). Improving the effectiveness of intergroup apologies: The role of apology content and moral emotions. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology. Advance online publication. Background & Theory: Past research has indicated that while apologies can be useful for interpersonal forgiveness, people are more skeptical...
This week’s conflict resolution tip is about getting out of autopilot when in conflict. When we get into conflict, we usually feel our needs are threatened in some way. In reaction to this perceived threat, our sympathetic nervous system activates, and we go into fight or flight mode. This makes us defensive and offensive towards...
This week’s conflict resolution tip is about the importance of acknowledging impact when in conflict. This is an incredibly important part of conflict resolution, especially when attempting to reconcile something that happened in the past. Often, when someone has an issue with something we have done, we like to immediately find solutions to resolve the...
