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At the average business, employees spend nearly 3 hours per week dealing with office conflict. Managers often devote even more of their time to doing so - up to 7 hours per week! While this may not seem like much, in 2008 it added up to about 385 million working days, or 359 billion dollars in the the United States.
Often, individuals ignore or avoid small conflicts until they escalate into angry outbursts or feelings of resentment that do long-term damange to working relationships. This talk will explore conflict management and defensive communication styles, and discuss strategies to successfully resolve divisive issues before they result in a toxic working environment.
Mary Sue Love, PhD., is an associate professor and SIUe, teaching graduate courses in negotiation and leadership, and undergraduate courses in group projects and the business environment. She also teaches in the Construction Leadership Institute. Love received her BBA and MBA from the Univeristy of Missouri at Kansas City and her Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Missouri. Her research interests include improving interpersonal relationships at work, organizational citizenship behavior, and improving online learning outcomes. Love's work has been published in Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, The Internaitonal Journal of Human Resource Management, the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, Career Development International, and the Journal of Applied Psychology.