Time to say Goodbye

The last eight weeks have come and gone so fast.  As I have always closed out my blogs for the class I want to wish each and everyone of my colleagues the best of luck with your program.  I will be moving into my specialization classes, Advocacy and Public Policies, which I am very nervous.  I am excited about the journey that I will be embarking on.  Communicating and collaborating with all of you has been a joy and I hope to see you some of my remaining courses.  Good luck to all of you!

Is it time to adjourn?

Saying good bye is a hard action to do especially if that bond was made between two or more people.  My very first administrator position was for a facility that was a very small close nit family.  I came on board during a time that they were preparing for their self-study for NAEYC.   After the ups and downs of preparing for the ultimate goal—Accreditation from NAEYC.  After we met our goal, my superior needed me to transfer to a larger facility that was about to open.  Emotions that came to me were indescribable.  Some of the aspects that stood out to me that made it harder to say good bye were simply the friendship that was made between the other manager and myself.  We had so many challenges that sprang up on us that we overcame together that it was very difficult to say goodbye to each other. 

As my days came to an end with this team, I continuously visited with each individual and shared my favorite attributes that they displayed that made them so successful working with children.  This group upon working with them were not following best practices with children, not because they did not want to but because they did not have a leadership team mentoring and modeling for them appropriately.  I want to say that they were so successful with their everyday routines of working with children because of my team of leadership. 

As we draw near to the last few courses left with the master’s degree program I have thought about how it is going to feel saying good bye to my colleagues.  Wishing someone good luck does not really express the true words that I would want to say to everyone.  I feel that we all struggle day to day with completing the required college level work, while still fulfilling our duties as a parent, a spouse, and working fulltime.  Adjourning is an essential stage of team simply because everyone wants to feel that they contributed in a positive way and to celebrate the group’s achievement.  Friendships are made among group work and it is imperative to keep those professional friendships simply because of needing someone’s else’s professional opinion with other projects that will happen in the future.

Conflict Strategies

Unfortunately conflict has arose in my office recently but not so drastic that as a professional we could not come together as a team and resolve it.  We use strategies without even thinking about them when ti comes to conflict.  Two strategies that stood out to me this week are as follows:

·         Win/win approach-is about changing the conflict from adversarial attack and defense, to co-operation.  It is a powerful shift of attitude that alters the whole course of communication (Conflict Resolution Network).  I never want anyone to feel that they are not worthy of being heard or that they are not right.  We all have true concerns or arguments about situations that we are passionate and I like to come to a resolution that both of us win.

·         Escapist strategy-avoiding direct conflict and are good for quick resolutions but may leave issues unresolved (O’Hair & Weismann, 2012).  I have actually used this strategy because I was tired of discussing the subject.  Feeling as if we were chasing our tail and not getting anywhere, especially if it is a subject that really is not important or hold any value to the program or the community. 

Both strategies are great to use in any situation involving conflict.  I have personally used these two before, especially the escapist strategy. 

Conflict Resolution Network. (n.d.). CR kit. Retrieved from http://www.crnhq.org/pages.php?pID=12#skill_3

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's