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  We are pleased to send you our November 2001 Issue as an example of our ManagementVitality Teamwork Newsletters. You may also go to November Teamwork Newsletter  to view an online copy.   Glenn McInnes President ManagementVitality Inc. Glenn.McInnes@ManagementVitality.com     	
 Teamwork Newsletter  NOVEMBER 2001 	
  Trust is the fuel that moves companies forward  Business is down. Layoffs loom. Employees are focusing on their family, and many fear losing their jobs. Yet, you need to move your company or your department forward. You need to move upward and onward. What does it take? Trust! We suggest that it is Trust that allows the balance between the opposing demands of work and quality of life.   As always, moving forward requires a balance of effectiveness vs. efficiency and short-term vs. long-term goals. A closely connected tenet of these four is trust and getting to trust is a process that can be worked on.  The ability to work  towards the future as a team requires trust because the future is pure promise, and has no reality in the here and now. Without trust, there can be no agreement concerning future events. After all, certain real, clashing interests will be sacrificed in the short term, for an unreal future built on promises. Trust is the factor that permits common goals to benefit both parties.  Thus, conflicts of interest are resolved through common goals pursed in an atmosphere of mutual trust. Those who understand capi (coalesced authority, power and influence) know that it naturally gives rise to conflicting interests. To get things done, a team must have common goals or interests to bind them together. Mutual suspicion must give way to mutual trust.  As we well know, the bearers of various implementation forces come into conflicts that simply do not get resolved. When fundamentally different interests are at issue, resolution often seems impossible. There are no obvious or immediate win-win solutions. In fact, Dr. Adizes makes the bold declaration that when conflict arises among people with different interests, the short-term outcomes can never satisfy both parties. In the short term, conflicting interests can only be addressed by a compromise, where both parties? interests suffer, or by a win-lose scenario that leaves one party seriously disgruntled.  Destructive conflict over different interests manifests itself as long, drawn out tensions between the different players. The conflict will not go away. The trick is to harness that conflict to achieve something, rather than trying to pretend that it does not exist. Avoiding conflict is not the secret. Encouraging constructive conflict is the way to move forward. Trust is the only path to constructive conflict in a situation of different interests.  However, trust can only be earned over time. To establish trust, one must establish a history of living up to promises. Since trust can be eroded in a split second, making the pursuit of common goals increasingly difficult, one must move slowly and carefully and in a non-threatening manner as one builds that history of trust.  To learn more, or for a refresher on the trust process, enroll in our online course, Teamwork Plus! at  www.ManagementVitality.com .     To send in your own question to this newsletter, write Katherine.Prouty@ManagementVitality.com.   To brush up or learn more about the Adizes Methodology, go to  www.ManagementVitality.com .   Congratulations to Michael Rossiter, Group Executive - Learning and Development,  LendLease from London England for winning the free enrollment in the November course of Teamwork Plus!.    To qualify for our December draw for our next free course,  subscribe to  this monthly newsletter! Your number to qualify for this month's contest is 4400.    If you found these ideas useful, please forward this Newsletter to a colleague.    Return to ManagementVitality Home Page 	


 		
 Online Courses:  Teamwork Plus! series   What: The six courses in Teamwork Plus! are  1. Managing Change  2. Harnessing Conflict  3. Predicting Decision Outcomes  4. Understanding Corporate Lifecycles  5. Overcoming Obstacles to Implementation  6. Effective Corporate Structure  	 Management Style Test 	


 	
 Student's Time: About 3 hours per course, any time of day or night, about 18 hours for the series.  Timetable: Six weeks, 1 course per week, starting January 14th and  ending March 1st. It's easy to take, even when travelling. It has a start date and an end date, and in between those dates you can start when you wish and proceed at your own pace, participating in threaded discussions which are tied to what section you are up to in the course. This means that between the start date and end date you participate in a dialogue in the context of where you are in the course and not in the context of where you are either in time or place, or whether you progress through the content ahead of or behind other students.    Host: Bill Caswell, P. Eng., 25 years as a CEO, ManagementVitality Content Officer and an Adizes Associate will offer comments on every student's answers to Questions and Exercises, throughout the series.  Price: $495 U.S. for the series of 6 courses.   Enroll in Teamwork Plus! at  www.ManagementVitality.com .