3.5.5 Complaint-Handling Guidelines, Part Two

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From the course by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Leadership and Influence

16 ratings

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Leadership and Influence

16 ratings

Course 3 of 4 in the Specialization Professional IQ: Preventing and Solving Problems at Work

The only thing you get to change is yourself, and in the prerequisites to this course we’ve given you real tools to do that. Now, use those tools to influence the course of your future, your team's future, and your organization's future. Make a plan for yourself that will help you help others, and learn skills to make it happen. Listening and being sure of your values underpins everything that comes with professional influencer and leadership soft skills. We’ll go on to look at self-assessment and leadership planning, negotiation, addressing and resolving conflict, and successfully identifying and promoting circumstances you want. After this course, you will be able to: - state your own mission and plan with confidence - negotiate and persuade - deal with difficult people - contribute to crafting a working environment you want to work in The prerequisites for this course are Courses One and Two of the Specialization "Professional IQ: Preventing and Solving Problems at Work".

From the lesson

Week 3: Difﬁcult Conversations as a Leader

Develop skills for tackling difficult conversations, including giving and getting feedback and handling complaints.

3.5.1 Complaint-Handling Guidelines1:21

3.5.2 2MC: Side Business1:20

3.5.3 Preparation Is Key5:49

3.5.4 Complaint-Handling Guidelines, Part One6:26

3.5.5 Complaint-Handling Guidelines, Part Two5:32

3.5.6 Applying the Guidelines: Side Business6:00

Meet the Instructors

C. K. Gunsalus
Director of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE), Professor Emerita of Business, and Research Professor at the Coordinated Science Laboratory

[MUSIC]

You've got the first five guidelines in hand, here are the next five.

Number six, say what you'll do and do what you say.

People who are in a state of anxiety, or unrest, or

concerned who've worked themselves up to bring you a concern or complaint.

Tell them how long it's going to take you and

when you should expect to get back to them.

And if it takes longer than you expect, check back in with them and

simply explain, I thought I'd be able to get all the information by now,

I haven't been able to.

You may know there's a perfectly benign reason you couldn't get them to

answer by Tuesday.

You needed to talk to Bob, he's out of town,

you needed to talk to Helen, she was in meetings and not available.

You know the reasons are benign,

the person to whom you made the commitment doesn't know any of that.

And number six is tightly connected with number seven,

which is really boils down to ignorance breeds pessimism.

When people don't know, they make things up.

And what they make up is invariably worse than what's really happening.

So say what you'll do, do what you say, and

bear in mind that just keeping people informed will really make a difference for

keeping anxiety levels as low as they can be in a difficult situation.

Rule number eight is to keep notes.

And I'm going to give very specific prescriptive advice here about your notes.

Your notes should have four things and four things only in them, the date,

who's present, the facts that are told to you and any actions you promise.

Do not record you impressions, really looks flaky, seems unreliable to me,

what a nut job, do not write that stuff down.

If this problem turns out to be a serious one, other people will have

access to your notes, whether it can be an internal investigation in your company or

involved in a lawsuit.

Do not write down your contemporaneous reactions and thoughts.

Write down facts and facts only, the date, who's present,

the factual items being told to you, any action you promise.

Guideline number nine is about trusting your instincts.

Guideline number nine says that if you are fearful as you prepare for

this meeting or as you're in the meeting, get help.

The fear instinct is a very primitive internal instinct and

if something is making you fearful, do not ignore it.

Don't be a hero, ask for help, appeal for

somebody else to be involved with you, double check.

Sometimes the fear instinct is triggered by otherness or differences and

it may not be a matter of personal safety.

The world though is too unsettled to take chances with your safety or anyone elses.

If you have a fearful response as you prepare for a meeting,

get somebody to be in the meeting with you, go to HR, get some advice.

Get somebody to sit with you, arrange the meeting in a neutral location,

arrange the meeting that you can get out of easily,

arrange to have somebody check on you.

Don't let the person sit between you and

the door, take some standard, common sense precautions.

Do not take chances with your safety or with anyone else's.

The final guideline is that some problems require formal process.

There are some things you are never going to resolve informally and

you can spend a lot of time and energy having to making the effort.

So, if the problem, if the allegation or complaint brought to you, if true

is very serious, like, criminal, don't try to resolve it on your own informally.

If the problem has very deep roots, so for example the first thing somebody tells you

is, well first you have to understand what happened 18 years ago.

Don't try to resolve it informally go and find some process, ask HR,

ask legal, get some sort of process involved in it.

If the power differential between the parties involved is

very large like an unpaid summer intern and your CFO.

This is a place for process because the only way that your outcome will be

credible and stand up, and people will accept, is that if you

have some formal process, with a little bit of protection and due process in it.

Because otherwise people, especially if you clear the CFO, or

the more powerful person,

people will always think you whitewashed it or brushed it under the rug.

Finally, if any of the people involved have really volatile personalities or

violent pasts, now you want some process.

Do not try to handle problems like that on your own.

Those are the 10 guidelines, pay attention, I promise they will help you.

[MUSIC]

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