Asking questions is one of the simplest yet most effective ways to motivate employees. It may sound trivial, but the right questions can really work wonders in the team. It’s like talking to a friend – you ask, listen, and find solutions together. Let’s see how it works in practice.  

Email communication is one of the most frequently used tools in business. How often does it happen that emails are misunderstood? To avoid this, it is worth knowing the 7C method, which will help you create effective and professional messages.

Communication in conflict is an art. Everything is going quite well for us, we effectively exchange information, we have built more than one tower out of pasta during training, and everything is fine… until. Until strong emotions take over. All the coaching models we learned disappear from memory, leaving two people growling at each other. What to do when someone approaches and we feel an explosion is imminent? How to avert disaster at the last moment? Below you will find an overview of 5 rescue communication techniques in conflict. Communication in the team goes quite well for us… until strong emotions take over. Because communication in conflict is an art.

Using stereotypes is often unconscious and automatic, just like the occurrence of attribution errors. Their use can also create communication barriers, so it is equally important to understand their mechanism. As is commonly known, a stereotype is a simplified cognitive representation, a ‘mental image in our heads’ (Lippmann, 1992). This means that we attribute specific traits to certain groups. Using stereotypes can affect the effectiveness of communication. It often happens that we evaluate people we talk to based on their status. We then follow learned patterns concerning specific groups. If we classify someone into a specific group, we will attribute to them the general characteristics commonly associated with the community to which they belong. This will also affect our behavior towards that person. This may result in a communication barrier and many issues being assessed incorrectly. A good example that shows how stereotypes influence judgments about other people is a study conducted by Darley and Gross in 1983. The aim of the experiment was to check how schemas concerning specific social groups affect participants’ evaluations. The participants were divided into two groups. In both, a film was presented in which a little girl played in a toy-rich environment (first group) or a toy-poor environment (second group). Then the participants were shown the same child, this time solving a cognitive test in which she made a few mistakes and marked a few correct answers (50/50). After this activity, the subjects were asked to comment on her intelligence and potential for achieving success in the future. The study similarly assessed the intelligence of the girl. In contrast, individuals from the group who saw the child playing in a wealthy environment claimed that she would achieve greater success than those from the group who were shown the girl in a poor environment. This study clearly demonstrates that participants’ judgments were influenced by the stereotype of what it means to be poor or wealthy. Moreover, the participants were unaware that any schemas were affecting their thinking. The given example shows how stereotypical thinking influences the way we evaluate others. It is important to be aware of this to avoid making hasty judgments about people and situations, which will help us avoid misunderstandings and barriers in communication. How to apply this knowledge in practice?

When a team works together day after day, conflict is often simply inevitable. It can arise between two employees, managers, or the entire team. However, there are ways to effectively deal with it. Patriot Software has proposed as many as 6!

Resolving conflicts in the team often means stress, emotions, tensions, and doubts for managers – both before approaching the conversation and after it ends. Difficult conversations in situations where each party feels uncomfortable are a source of stress at work and are a challenge in the emotional sphere (i.e., what to do to ensure the discussion does not end in a disaster for our relationship?) and the business sphere (what to do to avoid demotivating the employee in such a situation?) When such important issues are at stake in our conversation, it is worth approaching each other kindly and being well-prepared – especially in the context of our own emotions. Each of us has a certain sequence of actions that appear under stress. What allows us to avoid entering stress sequences is having fully charged energy reserves. From your own experience, you know that many of your reactions in such situations depend on the mood you start the conversation with. When our batteries are charged (neutral or positive state), even when we find ourselves in a difficult situation, we can handle it better in terms of both our own emotions and specific outcomes (we propose more accurate solutions). IMPORTANT: recharging batteries is building resilience to stress, which allows us to better cope with emotions. Resolving conflicts at work or having a difficult conversation, we will experience emotions – this is inevitable. The essence of recharging batteries is to build a buffer, a reserve of internal energy, which will allow us to maintain decent comfort during such a conversation.  If we catch signs of stress, we can identify what we should focus on in search of ideas for quickly recharging our batteries a day or two before a difficult conversation or meeting. Below you will find some ideas on how to feel more comfortable and have greater reflection and decision-making during such a conversation with an employee/team.