Ep. 120 - Denise Patterson McKenney is a success story in how to negotiate a win/win which is really how to WIN! Have you ever wanted to win an argument so bad you could practically taste it? Have you ever laid awake at night thinking of what you should have said? Have you ever "won" and regretted it? Have you ever had to discuss a negative performance with an employee and wished you knew how to even begin the conversation? Denise tells us how to prepare for the conflict situation - and the big one - how to exchange criticism for feedback. Words can hurt or heal - she even helps us give bad news.
Top Takeaways:
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- How to be comfortable with silence when you're in a room with people not getting along
- The importance of health and safety for employees during the pandemic
- How to stand with what is good for both the employees and the company when negotiating conflict
- The power of keeping peace and not rushing to throw cutting words that could injure the other party forever
Learn how to begin with the end in mind from Denise Patterson McKenney.
"In a room full of people who are not getting along or not getting a contract or not working well together at work, you set the stage, you let them talk and you listen." -Denise McKenney
Best Podcast for Black Female in Mediation
Denise McKenney serves as a Commissioner with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in the division of ADR and International Dispute Resolution. As a collateral duty, she also serves as the agency's Director of Equal Employment Opportunity. Her areas of expertise include mediation of collective bargaining agreements between unions/management, workplace employment disputes; training design/delivery, conflict coaching, and systems design. Her publications include "Labor-Management Partnership: A 12 Step Program for Change" published in the American Bar Association's Deskbook for ADR Practitioners.
Her international experience includes travelling to Germany and Japan to train chaplains of the United States Air Force. She has trained labor attaches in Panama and Hungary. Ms. McKenney has also served as an instructor in Thailand for the Rotary Peace Center at Chulalongkorn University and has provided training and consultative services to labor-management dispute practitioners in Haiti.
Denise has more than 30 years of government service to her credit, and is actively involved in educational and training organizations such as the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), the Training Officers Conference (TOC), the American Society for Curriculum Development (ASCD), and the Howard University Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa.
Her community involvement includes serving on the Workforce Development Committee for the Potomac Job Corps Center in Washington, D.C., the BRAVA Board for the performing arts in Bowie, MD and serving as a facilitator of race relations for Prince George's County, MD.
You will also learn the power of silence as a mediator in allowing conflicting parties to open up and possibly present answers.
Key Moments:
Denise narrates growing up in the segregated Baltimore and how her father advocated for equality for her during her school years [5:41]
How Denise learned to define noise to different cultures and understood how different people lived [11:47]
Transitioning from family mediation to an employee development specialist/ trainer for the federal government [16:58]
The meaning of collective bargaining- agreement on how employees will be treated as stipulated by their union [20:43]
The different needs for different employees during the pandemic plus the different skills mediators use to calm people down [22:44]
Denise explains the differences between her experiences in an HBCU college and a primarily white college [29:37]
How Denise made her presence known as a black student during her college days in a primarily white college [38:12]
Denise advises people on the importance of truly listening, being comfortable with silence, and employing a filter before speaking in anger [40:22]
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