Read on to find out how resolving ambivalence can be a win-win!
Jeff is the owner of an electrical contractor firm. He and his organization are known as can do, problem solving people. Recently he had with an internal problem that caused him to pause. His sales manager Alex was highly successful in selling company services to the education industry, including both public and private schools. Jeff discovered that Alex was convicted of a felony in the distant past in this same industry. Jeff was ambivalent about what he should do.
After considerable worry, Jeff set out to resolve his problem. Initially it appeared that he had only two choices:
- Keep Alex on and risk the possibility that this information become public knowledge and reduce the company’s credibility with their significant client base.
- Terminate Alex and start fresh to build relationships in the education community with a new sales manager.
Before making a decision, Jeff sat down with his leadership team and addressed the challenge with common sense questions.
They asked themselves: “What are the facts that we know for sure?”
They interviewed Alex regarding his past felony and matched this information against public information available. They reviewed Alex history with the firm over 15 years, beginning with when was he hired, how he was hired, what had he accomplished, how he accomplished it, and other questions they thought relevant.
They identified the kind of information they did not have, or what they weren’t sure about.
They did not know how widely it was known in the education field about Alex’s conviction.
As a leadership team, they clarified what success would look like.
The Leaders wanted a win-win situation
for Alex, the company, and their customers. They wanted Alex to be a part of their team, believing that he made a valuable contribution to the organization. They also wanted to be respectful to their valuable clients and continue to keep them at their current and expanding share of their overall market.
With this background information and their goal clearly set, they were able to brainstorm effectively about what to do.
After discussing a variety of alternatives, the leadership team decided Alex could contribute to the organization in a staff capacity. He could design electrical solutions for the education industry and other industries as well.
Jeff and his leadership team found a way to reassign Alex instead of firing him. They re-designed their staff recruitment process to include stronger background investigation. They became a stronger team in a way that honored their core values as can do, problem-solving people.
Business owners, top leaders, and individual workers are ambivalent, because of mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about a situation.
Paula Durlofsky, writing on July 26, 2013, notes three steps to resolving ambivalence:
- Clarify your ambivalent feelings and the circumstances in which they occur.
- Remind yourself that no person or situation is perfect and that all people and circumstances have both positive and negative aspects.
- Recognize and accept your ambivalent feelings. Avoid rash decisions.
Jeff did each of these steps. He and his leadership team gathered the facts and wrote them down, accepted that there are positive and negative aspect of Alex, and came up with a logical method for reviewing their best options. They identified a solution different than either firing Alex or the status quo.
Questions:
- What situation are you ambivalent about?
- How might you expand communication with your stakeholders to identify a solution that you could quickly apply?
Chuck Scharenberg is the Founder of More Profit More Freedom, a consultancy that supports the execution of large-scale growth for small businesses. His practice has successfully grown businesses with processes that identify potential roadblocks and mitigation schemes to accelerate realistic execution..