Ten Common Conflict Resolution Mistakes and How to Avoid Them:

One of the most common and frustrating impediments to worker productivity is conflict between employees. Unresolved conflict can strain relationships, create tension and negativity, and dampen morale. Whether engaged in a heated debate, a disagreement, or an outright feud, take a strategic approach to resolving the problem. You’ll be most effective if you avoid making these common mistakes.

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1. Don’t make assumptions about the situation or the other person’s perceptions, motivations, or reactions. You’ll get a much clearer and more accurate picture by asking the other person directly.

2. Don’t take it personally – it rarely is!

3. Don’t look for blame. Instead, try to identify cause.

4. Don’t avoid the problem. It’ll only get worse, breed resentment, and resurface at a later date. You’ve simply got to deal directly with the issue at hand.

5. Don’t attack the other person’s character. That’s just playing dirty. It will not help you work things out and it will almost certainly have a lasting, negative impact.

6. Don’t gossip about the problem or about the other person involved. It’s unprofessional and will only make matters worse.

7. Don’t bring it up in public. This is a private matter to be resolved between you and the other party.

8. Don’t bring it up when there’s not enough time to address it. Instead, leave adequate time for a thorough discussion – or introduce the issue and schedule a time to resume talks in the immediate future.

9. Don’t bring it up when you’re angry, stressed, or feeling ill. That’s a disservice to you and the other person involved. Wait until you’re calm.

10. Don’t address the situation in an email. Email leaves far too much room for misinterpretation. While we’re on the subject, don’t copy others on a personal matter. This will almost certainly make the other party feel defensive, angry, or humiliated. It won’t, however, help resolve the problem.

Cricket was always fretting. “Everyone is listening,” she chirped. “Every note must be perfect.”

Cricket had a gift for reaching others with her music. She could change her tune to suit her listener. She could perk you up with a bouncy melody, liven your step with a reel or jig or calm you with a hymn or ballad. That responsibility had begun to weigh cricket’s heart. Her tone became shrill.

“Can’t you see I am busy?,” she would screech. “Don’t you know that everyone is depending on me?”

Everyone around could hear her atonal whinges.

“What horrid noise!” groaned the caterpillar. The other insects agreed. Something was wrong with their reliable and once harmonious friend. They decided to ask the one who had the most wisdom, the praying mantis. “Mmmm,” he said. “I shall see about this.”

Praying mantis sent cricket an invitation to tea. Cricket was so worried. “It must be perfect,” she shrilled. “He must be in need. I can’t let him down!”

Upon arriving, cricket tried to sense mantis’s mood. He appeared at peace. Finally, she asked what it was he needed of her. The mantis said, “You have been given a very great gift…” Cricket interrupted, “Thank you. You are too kind. I am only here to serve.”

“Yes you are,” mantis said solemnly. “Unfortunately you have been rather a poor tool of late.”

Cricket was so horrified and overwhelmed that she began to cry.

“But I tried so hard,” she said miserably. “I have worked until exhaustion trying to do well.”

“That is just the problem,” mantis said. “You are trying too hard. You are an instrument, but you have taken yourself out of the master’s hands and tried to wield yourself. Like a violin leaping from the hands of the virtuoso in the midst of a concert and playing a jingle.”

Mantis told cricket to think back to when she first began to play her tunes for others. “What were you thinking of then?” he said.

Cricket realized that she hadn’t been thinking of anything. She had simply seen someone and felt happy or sad or compassionate and her music had come from her soul to fill the air and heal the others around her.

“Think back to what happened to make you leap off on your own,” he added.

Cricket pondered. “I lost faith and stopped trusting what guided me and began to fear,” she said.

Fear turned to panic and panic to anger and anger turned to fear again.

“Take your faith back with you to your family and friends and you will soon change your tune,” said mantis.

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Author : Lisa Suhay is a freelance writer who lives in Medford, New Jersey. Her work appears regularly in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Newark Star-Ledger.

‘Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.’ – Jeremiah 33:3

The air was thick with lovebugs as I drove along the turnpike. Each year, about this time, the lovebug phenomenon occurs. My windshield was practically covered with splattered lovebugs, which were pelting the cars like driving rain.

I pulled into a gas station to clean off the window.  As I was scraping, I heard a cell phone ring.  A loud voice, from over by the next tank, called out, “Can you get it?!! It’s probably one of the kids!” She was outside her car, pumping gas, but she did not want to miss that call that might have been from her kids.

On some mobile phones there is caller ID. By glancing at my phone screen, I can quickly identify if one of my children are calling.  I try to take their calls anywhere I am, at any time.  You never know. Could be just a call to say hello, and chat, or it could be a call concerning a crisis situation, some type of emergency.  At any rate, I just like to hear their voice.

I thought about how prayer is like ‘heavenly’ mobile phones. Sort of “hot-lines”, to our  Father.

And whether His kids are calling to say hello, and have a simple prayer conversation with the Lord, or calling with a serious situation that needs a listening, compassionate ear and/or wise counsel and direction, He always answers that phone….

“I’ll get it!  It’s one of the kids!”

About the author :  Sally I. Kennedy is the author of  “Irish Thursdays”, “Words from the Heart”,  and “52 Little Parables from Ireland” . She lives in south Florida, with her husband Ben.