Every so often I get an inquiry about training that goes something like this:
Me: Can you tell me why you’re interested in conflict resolution training?
Potential Client: We have two divisions that need to work together, but whenever they have a meeting, it ends up in a screaming match. So we’d like to get some training to improve their communication.
If you have two groups in open, hostile conflict, putting them together in a room for a day of training will not help. In fact, it might even make things worse. What this client really needs is to understand what is driving the conflict between the groups. Until the client knows this, any “solution” just amounts to throwing money at the problem.
Or the conversation might go like this:
Me: I got your message that you’re interested in anti-harassment training. Can you tell me what’s going on in your workplace?
Potential Client: We’ve had a few complaints about one of our managers. So we want to have a training session so everyone knows what is appropriate.
First, if you’ve had complaints about someone’s behaviour, you need to do some kind of investigation. Depending on the circumstances, it may not be necessary to do a full, formal investigation, but you need to get a better idea of what is going on.
Second, if the problem really is centered on one person, individual coaching for him or her is a better use of resources than group training.
My main point in all of this is: Solve the right problem. If you have ongoing workplace conflict, address that. If you have one manager whose behaviour is inappropriate, devise a plan for him or her. Don’t send a whole group out for training.
And if you’re unfortunate enough to have a whole culture of disrespect among the people in your organization, then you need a long-term strategy to address that. Training will play a part in that strategy – but don’t mistake the training (a tactic) for the strategy.
About the image: Rahulrdx223 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]
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