Change and conflict in the workplace
Posted: 20 May, 2016
By: Annemarie Lombard
Section: Corporate, Relationships
Change in work environments is constant and recurring. Restructuring of teams, change in business operations and workspaces create uncertainty, and stress and resulted in performance issues in the workplace. People are different and respond differently to all these changes. A great and non-threatening way to unpack and understand this and get people to move through these times is the use of our Sensory Matrix™ self-assessment. It is an online sensory assessment to identify how people have different thresholds and responds differently to all these enviornmental and task influences. On a very unconscious and primitive brain process change affects us differently. Just knowing this about ourselves and our teams is the first part to acknowledge this and adapt more effectively. Through team assessment workshops we take teams through this process to understand diversity and ackowledge that we are different. These individual differences can (and do) create conflict but also add value to team work and efficiency. We are so quick to label others and think we are right. Working through the high demand and high stress of change is about self and team awareness. How do we cope with this effectively is through a process of self-regulation – a base component of stress management – how to pull yourself together and think before you act. Control of self behaviours is important to reduce conflict and build team collaboration. Secondly using sensory ergonomics to identify stressors and irritations in your workspace will help people to reduce them and incoporate strategies to be more in-sync with work environments.