Conflict!

You Got the Job – Now What? Rising to the Challenge in Your New Library Position

Atlanta Emerging Librarians2014-10-25

Cliff’s to-do list for new library jobs

1. Make a 3-ring binder called “Promotion & Tenure ” where you keep record of every accomplishment and compliment. Update it (and your CV) on the first of every month.

2. Get an organizational system and stick with it. I recommend Getting Things Done, but use whatever helps you get tasks out of your mind and into a system.

3. Constantly work on improving your soft skills. People remember how you make them feel. Getting and keeping a job depends on human interaction.

4. Interview your colleagues. Everyone loves to talk about themselves – find out about work backgrounds, goals, career choices, professional philosophy, etc. Work-related talk reveals a lot.

5. Ask your boss, coworkers, and employees about their conflict styles – listen to what they say and then observe how they behave.

“I should like to ask you to agree for the moment to think of conflict as neither good nor bad; to consider it without ethical prejudgment; to think of it not as warfare, but as the appearance of difference, difference of opinions, of interests. For that is what conflict means—difference. … As conflict is here in the world, as we cannot avoid it, we should, I think, use it. Instead of condemning it, we should set it to work for us.” – Mary Parker Follett, 1926

Conflict is a central part of the human experience

https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewbunday/2370697445/

But we avoid it because sometimes it hurts

https://www.flickr.com/photos/francisco_osorio/6110603840/

Types of Conflict

Pseudoconflict

https://www.flickr.com/photos/soukup/5157560198/

Simple Conflict

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kurt-b/12597412465/

Ego Conflict

https://www.flickr.com/photos/90461913@N00/7053975627/

Responses to Conflict

Avoidance

https://www.flickr.com/photos/12023825@N04/2898021822/

Domination/Competition

https://www.flickr.com/photos/instantvantage/6450325837/

Accommodation

https://www.flickr.com/photos/120077902@N02/13236406853/

Compromise

https://www.flickr.com/photos/95213174@N08/10329928973

Consensus

Scenario 1

• You’re the digitization librarian. The repository librarian asked for a faculty member’s article to be scanned, but is angry when the article is delivered as a plain PDF without optical character recognition.

• Who is in conflict?• What kind of conflict is it?• What response to the conflict would you choose?

Scenario 2

• Your fellow reference librarian is having a rough week and responded curtly to a request from the department head for more information on a project. Later you hear the department head saying how surprised she was at the use of that tone with someone of her rank.

• Who is in conflict?• What kind of conflict is it?• What response to the conflict would you choose?

Scenario 3

• You’re a metadata librarian working with a team of technology and reference librarians to update your cataloging procedures. The reference librarians want to keep geographic subdivisions, while the technology librarians want to get rid of geographic subdivisions.

• Who is in conflict?• What kind of conflict is it?• What response to the conflict would you choose?

Practice!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdgovpics/13603486304/

Suggested Readings• Allen, David. (2002). Getting Things Done: The Art

of Stress-Free Productivity.• Beebe, Steven A. & Masterson, John T. (2011).

Communicating in Small Groups: Principles and Practices. • Carnegie, Dale. (1998). How to Win Friends and

Influence People.• Crowley, Katherine, & Elster, Kathi. (2007) Working

With You is Killing Me: Freeing Yourself from Emotional Traps at Work.• Rahim, M. Afzalur. (2010). Managing Conflict in

Organizations.