October/November 2003 Issue Number 52

Is a monthly electronic newsletter which links current events and issues to the daily challenges faced by fire and emergency services managers. Current topics in the areas of leadership development, workplace diversity, change management, and conflict resolution will be discussed.

We hope that you find the information here useful and provocative.
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Women Chief Officers Conference November 6-9, 2003 Plantation, FL. Go to www.womenchiefofficers.org for more information.  

IAFF Human Relations Conference January 25-28, 2004, Santa Monica, CA. Linda Willing will be presenting a workshop at this conference. For more information, go to www.iaff.org.

Maryland Fire Rescue Staff and Command School March 17-24, 2004, Memphis, TN. Linda Willing will be teaching one segment of this seminar. See www.mfri.org for more information.  

Leadership Training Seminar , March 25-28, 2004, Miami, Florida. Go to www.wfsi.org for more information.  

When Silence Isn't Golden  

Open conflict in the workplace makes people feel uncomfortable and it distracts from productivity. Therefore, it must be best to suppress or ignore interpersonal conflict in the workplace, right? Wrong, according to Professor Leslie Perlow of the Harvard Business School.  

According to Professor Perlow, a corporate ethnographer, the old adage "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" is dead wrong. Conflict is not only inevitable, but is an important part of a healthy work environment. And the outright suppression of conflict can lead to very bad outcomes. Professor Perlow calls it the "vicious spiral of silence," which destroys relationships, wastes time, and undermines productivity and morale.  

The result of an organizational culture that suppresses conflict may be as simple as holding useless meetings because no one will stand up to say what they really think of them. Or a culture of silence could result in engineers knowing of a life safety risk that they cannot report to others in the organization, as was the case with the recent Columbia space shuttle disaster. Whether the result is wasted time or lost lives, any organization will be better off if it can recognize and manage the conflicts that come from differences among individuals and groups.  

But being able to effectively manage conflict is not something that people are naturally good at. Quite the contrary; most people do not like confrontation, and have been socialized to "go along to get along" rather than to raise issues of real concern to them. Although such an attitude may work well for small disagreements, suppressing real differences and conflicts will only lead to bigger problems down the road.  

Leaders in any organization need to learn skills to manage and constructively use conflict. These skills include the application of appropriate assessment tools, communications skills, and decision making and facilitation expertise. Most importantly, leaders need to learn not to fear conflict nor to take it personally, but rather to see it as an opportunity for real growth within their organizations, and ultimately, within themselves.  

Source: The New York Times, August 3, 2003  

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has given the federal government a C+ rating for its record of promoting diversity and equal opportunity over the past year. The overall number of complaints was down slightly from previous years, as was the average processing times of complaints. However, the government received a failing grade for its employment record regarding people with disabilities.  

Source: www.hrnext.com July 18, 2003  

 

Past Offenses and Current Discipline  

May an employer consider past disciplinary actions when deciding whether to terminate an employee, even if those past actions are currently in the grievance process? Yes, according to a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court.  

The case concerned a postal worker, Maria Gregory. Ms. Gregory had been disciplined three times for various workplace infractions, with the disciplinary actions ranging from letters of reprimand to unpaid suspensions. When Ms. Gregory falsified overtime hours, the decision to fire her took into account her personal history, despite the fact she had grieved each past disciplinary action against her, and several of those grievances were still pending. According to the court: "There is certainly nothing arbitrary about the [disciplinary review] board's decision to independently review prior disciplinary actions." In overturning the lower court's decision, the Supreme Court continued, "Following the Federal Circuit's ruling would require the Board to either wait until challenges to disciplinary actions pending in grievance proceedings are completed before rendering its decision, or to ignore altogether the violations being challenged in grievance in determining the reasonableness of the penalty. The former may cause undue delay... The latter would, in many cases, effectively preclude agencies from relying on an employee's disciplinary history... in any disciplinary action."  

This decision is considered to be a significant victory for employers' rights.  

Source: U.S. Postal Service v. Maria A. Gregory, U.S. Supreme Court # 00-758.  

© Linda F. Willing, 2003