Do your employees understand the importance of maintaining good communication when working within a team? Do they have the tools to resolve conflicts to maintain progress? Here is some helpful information to convey to your employees that will help facilitate effective cooperation and teamwork.
Teamwork Fundamentals
1. A team can’t function effectively without good communication among all team members. People can’t read your mind, and you can’t read theirs. You have to talk things out and keep others up to date.
2. To maintain good group communication, be sure to allow enough time for group discussion in which team members can voice concerns, report their progress, ask questions, and solve problems.
3. At these meetings and at other times, provide positive feedback to other team members about their performance and the group’s performance. Positive feedback sometimes includes constructive criticism as well as praise. Be open to constructive criticism and share your thoughts in a constructive way as well.
4. Maintaining good communication also involves learning and using good listening and debating techniques. You need to know how to present and defend your ideas as well as to listen and assess the ideas of other team members.
Conflict resolution webinar coming January 11 – claim your spot today!
5. And you must also be accessible to other team members so they can reach you whenever they need to talk about team matters.
Tips for Managing Conflict
Conflict can destroy a group. Your employee teams need to know how to handle it so they can move on and keep making progress toward their goals. Here are 3 tips to pass along:
1. To resolve conflicts promptly and effectively, you must begin by understanding that some conflict is normal and inevitable. In fact, differences of opinion can even improve a team’s efforts, as long as you deal with them appropriately.
2. To manage conflict within a team, you and your fellow team members have to establish ground rules for dealing with disagreements and then follow through when a conflict occurs.
3. Always seek win-win solutions when you try to resolve conflicts. Everyone needs to support the final decision so the team can move on past the point of conflict. And everyone needs to remember that when the team succeeds, so do all of its members.
Bring Your Supervisors Along…
… to our new conflict resolution webinar on Wednesday, January 11. They’ll get in-depth, practical information from the dual perspectives of expert HR strategist Eve Framiñán of TPO, Inc. and employment lawyer Mark E. Baker of Holland & Knight, LLP.
In just 90 minutes, you and your supervisors will come away with a rich understanding of effective ways to nip workplace conflicts in the bud and help productivity soar. You’ll learn:
- An overview of common kinds of conflict in the workplace, and how they develop.
- What normal, everyday conflict looks and feels like, and red flags to watch for to tell if conflict is progressing into dangerous territory.
- Why timing for the HR department is key. Step in too early, and a minor dispute suddenly escalates into something massive. Step in too late, and the damage, both mentally and physically, can be dire. Learn how to properly nail your moment of involvement.
- The key role of HR as intermediary. It’s easy to get swept up in a “he-said-she-said” situation, particularly if drama is involved (and when is it not?). Learn how to establish a neutral role that can clear the path for the true facts.
- How to help supervisors remain neutral.
- Why treating the symptoms of conflict is often too little, too late. Learn how to take more of a proactive, “wellness” approach to workplace conflict, which will allow you to neutralize conflict long before it even begins to occur.
- Tips on knowing when to remove the supervisor from the equation, when and if an investigation is warranted, the right time to pull in legal counsel, and when it’s time for HR to step away from the situation.
- How to develop a toolbox of coaching techniques that HR professionals can use in training their supervisors to watch for and manage conflict, and what actions to take at which times.
- The legal ins and outs of managing conflict that escalates to HR. Should there be an email trail? What words should be avoided when creating documentation?
- How you can help supervisors develop a crisis plan in case something does escalate to a dangerous or violent situation.
- The importance of dealing with conflict quickly but not in the heat of the moment. Learn how to step back yet be effective in a timely fashion.
- Skills and techniques that can make inevitable workplace conflicts more manageable, from the methodical (rehearsing a difficult conversation in advance) to the surprising (avoiding caffeine). Learn how to embrace the dislike of conflict and manage the situation to a successful outcome.
Don’t miss out—register now! Can’t make it to the live webinar? Order the CD and learn at your leisure.
Download your free copy of Training Your New Supervisors: 11 Practical Lessons today!
These are good ideas, but I’d make one tweak to the fundamentals to be shared with employees. In #4, instead of saying they should be prepared to “defend” their ideas, I’d say they should be prepared to “support” their ideas. I just think “defend” makes the situation sound antagonistic, which can be destructive.
These are good ideas, but I’d make one tweak to the fundamentals to be shared with employees. In #4, instead of saying they should be prepared to “defend” their ideas, I’d say they should be prepared to “support” their ideas. I just think “defend” makes the situation sound antagonistic, which can be destructive.