Skip to main content

To Collaborate or To Compromise … Which Is Best?

Image
By
The people factor and your ability to absorb change could and does make all the difference for IT service providers.  Most IT practitioners will agree that “change” requires some organizational change management.  Organizational Change Management (OCM) is the process of preparing, motivating and equipping people to meet new business challenges.  Conflict can be looked upon as good!  Embrace conflict don’t ignore or avoid it because it is necessary to listen to conflicting opinions that may not have been considered.  Learning to use different conflict modes helps to move forward and increase engagement that could make your organizational change a success.
The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument is a tool for helping people understand how different conflict-handling styles affect interpersonal and group dynamics and for empowering them to choose the appropriate style for any situation.  I was studying this in preparation for an “Organizational Change Management” workshop and had an ah-ha moment regarding the use of  “Collaborating” vs. “Compromising”.   

It always appeared to me that compromising was good. Lisa Schwartz, Founder of ITSM Academy, explained that compromising is not bad but perhaps “collaborating” would be better.   This makes perfect sense when we think about the fact that when you compromise someone is giving up something.  That means that someone “loses” some and that another “wins” more.  There is an agreement or “compromise” on this win/loss solution but a “Win” and “Loss” none the less.  Now let’s consider “collaboration”.  Collaborating is both assertive and cooperative.  Collaborating involves an attempt to work with others to find some solution that fully satisfies their concerns. It means digging into an issue to pinpoint the underlying needs and wants of the two individuals. Collaborating between two persons might take the form of exploring a disagreement to learn from each other's insights or trying to find a creative solution to an interpersonal problem.  The greatest benefit is that “collaboration” ensures a win/win solution.  


So should we “Collaborate” or “Compromise”?  The answer is yes.  The challenge is to know the difference between these and other conflict-handling styles and when to use them to ensure your strategic initiatives.

To learn more:
http://www.itsmacademy.com/orgchange/

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Four Service Characteristics

By
Recently I came across several articles by researchers and experts that laid out definitions and characteristics of services. ITIL provides us with a definition that can help drive the creation of value-laden services: A means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks. An area that ITIL is not so clear is in terms of service characteristics. Several researchers and experts put forth that services have four basic characteristics (IHIP): Intangibility—Services are the results of actions not things. They have no physical presence and represent a logical set of elements. One way to think of service is “work done for others.”  Heterogeneity—Also known as “variability”; services are unique items because of the mechanisms used to deliver services, which is people. Because the people element adds variability, the service is variable. This holds true, especially for the value proposition—not eve...
Post a Comment
Read more

What Is A Service Offering?

By
The ITIL 4 Best Practice Guidance defines a “Service Offering” as a description of one or more services designed to address the needs of a target customer or group.   As a service provider, we can’t stop there!   We must know what the contracts of our service offering are and be able to put them into context as required by the customer.     Let’s explore the three elements that comprise a Service Offering. A “Service Offering” may include:     Goods, Access to Resources, and Service Actions 1. Goods – When we think of “Goods” within a service offering these are the items where ownership is transferred to the consumer and the consumer takes responsibility for the future use of these goods.   Example of goods that are being provided in the offering – If this is a hotel service then toiletries or chocolates are yours to take with you.   You the consumer own these and they are yours to take with you.      ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The New Four Ps of Service Management

By
By Donna Knapp For years, people , process , and technology (PPT) was a widely recognized framework for balancing and integrating the components needed to achieve optimal performance and outcomes. In the ITIL v3 Service Design publication, this framework was expanded to the four Ps: people , processes , products , and partners . ITIL 4 has further expanded and evolved this framework to the four dimensions of service management. These four dimensions are collectively critical to the effective and efficient facilitation of value for customers and other stakeholders in the form of products and services. The four dimensions of service management are: Organizations and people Information and technology Partners and suppliers Value streams and processes. These four dimensions represent perspectives which are relevant to the whole service value system (SVS), including the entirety of the service value chain and all ITIL practices. Each ITIL practice is a set of organizational resources base...
Post a Comment
Read more