Yes, conflict is contagious! Suprised? I will bet not. Emotion is contageous. As contageous as a yawn or the Swine Flu.You can’t be responsible for someone else’s happiness or anger. You can only be responsible for yourself BUT you can take a tempurature of the emotional environment of your workplace.

Are people laughing? Are people talking about each other or to each other? Is there something in place to help people handle stress?

Here is my advice.

Ask yourself these questions:

How am I doing with this work environment–really?

What is really freaking me out?

What am I disappointed with?

Would my co-workers or boss agree with me or would they describe me differently?

What one thing can I do to help me make it to lunch? To the end of the day? To the end of the week?

Then- seek out others just to say hello and how is it going. If you are concerned, share your concern then share what you are doing to make it through the day.

Why? Because unless the GIANT Pink Elephant in the room is addressed it will grow and suck the life force out of everyone. The result is that the conflict s.unless identified and addressed the emotional climate will worsen.

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Look at those pretty silos. Unfortunately, silos at work are not so pretty. Business consultants/ and HR geeks like me, referr to deliberate lack of communciation and hard boundaries between divisions or departments as “silos”.

Did you know that “silo-ing” can also take place in small and very small employers or work groups. Symptoms of siloing are lack or communication, miscommunication, or obfuscation. It can also come informs of emotional shut down at work, not talking, not even looking at each other.

What is scary about silos is this….most people don’t recognize that they contribute to the siloing. Consider this…

When is the last time that you made eye contact with a co-worker? The last time you spoke to someone–maybe even the person with the desk next to you– just to acknowledge their existence, not to make a request for information.

Here is my challenge to you….just observe yourself. Are you creating a mini silo farm? Do you see it going on around you? If so, break the silo effect. Just say “hi”.

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I just read this great article by Jocelyn Noveck of the Associated Press about (now former) Governor of New York-Eliot Spitzer. The headline read "Why the powerful do dumb things?" As someone who regularly dives into situation where people made some pretty poor choice. Ms. Noveck had me hooked. She then had me laughing and nodding with 100% agreement.

" Yet, if the New York Governor is proved to have been involved in a prostitution ring, it would hardly be the first time that a powerful, brilliant person in public life has done something dizzyingly self destructive."

Dizzyingly self destructive. I love that quote and as a person who steps in to messes at work. I say that Ms. Novek is on the mark. Much of what I see is that people create circumstances where they get in their own way-primarily by making poor choices. Choices, by the way, that seemed like a good idea at the time. So Governor Spitzer, I am sure that calling a prostitute from a hotel room seemed like a viable option to pass the time…whatever.

However, talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. I think had he asked for some advice or disclosed his idea to a trusted adviser-even his dog- his actions might have been different. Yet, how often do we make choices in secret. Don’t seek objective feedback. Bounce ideas off of someone to our detriment?

Here is the other part of the article that I really liked " In order to be such a high profile position, you have to believe that what you are din gin innately right"

So how does this apply to the average working person, manager, or owner? Simple, we too lack introspection. Managers-realistically- can not delve in to deep consequential analysis with every decision. The nature of management is to make decisions-often decisions that impact the lives of others.

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