In a recent Leadership Tip – Do You Throw Sand? I provided a playful look at the similarity between our early childhood sandbox lessons and today’s workplace. The first Sandbox Strategy of the eight I wrote in Sandbox Strategies for the New Workplace: Conflict Resolution from the Inside Out is: Positioning Yourself for Good Play.  This requires awareness of how you are showing up to relationships at work, and a willingness and openness to see what needs to be seen in ourselves.  That way, we won’t be looking to others for change, or overlooking the things that you can shift inside yourself.  Have you ever thought about a conflict situation from this frame of mind: “Not me…I don’t throw sand, or bury turds, or steal people’s toys, or pick mine up in a huff and go home.” If so, read on.

Look Inside to Resolve Conflict…

I’ve always believed that personal leadership is foundational to professional development, or in sandbox terms, you can’t build a castle on quicksand. Our self-worth is critical in our ability to be well-positioned for success. Therefore turning inward and thinking inside ourselves to discover the things that are blocking peace and productivity at work is a worthwhile investment. The more honest and vulnerable you are to test the foundation of your own esteem and confidence, to find those areas where you might lack integrity or vulnerability, the better you can excavate and rebuild your own relationship with yourself. You’ll be building your castle on level ground.

In the book, I tell a great story about one of my own limiting beliefs that surfaced when I had a new crush.  It surfaced as fear, insecurity, a squeaky voice, and tears.  My EFT Practitioner Karin Goldgruber helped me dig it up so that I could understand it, and why it was planted in my subconscious mind, and we overcame it together in one session.  It’s a longer story, well worth the book’s price, but the high-level summary is that I had to go inward and clean up some boulders (limiting beliefs about myself) that were blocking me from having what I wanted and deserved.

The happy ending is that I married that crush!

Self-cultivation is a journey that is worth taking, and the most responsible thing you can do for good relationships at work and beyond is to position yourself for the best outcome possible.

Penny

Learn the strategies that will help your team resolve conflict in the NEW workplace.

• Embrace, accept, and welcome conflicting values
• Understand the importance of collaborative relationships for career advancement
• Take responsibility to co-create a winning culture with productive and profitable results
• Empathize with coworkers and even competitors to be the leader others WANT to follow

Press Appearances:

• CEOWorld Magazine 
• Blue Heron Journal
• Mareo McCracken
• EverydayMBA, Host: Kevin Craine 
• Savvy Business
• Swimming in the Flood
• Get Down to Business
• HR.com Leadership Excellence
• Indian Management Magazine
• Stay tuned, more coming soon…