While we’d all love to work in an environment where everyone gets along and everything always runs smoothly, the reality is that conflict and disputes are a regular part of life in any organization. Shared resources— human and nonhuman—get scarce, priorities differ, and differences of opinion over the appropriate goals of the organization and how to achieve them arise. This is perfectly natural in any organization. The important thing is to manage these conflicts effectively. Here are a few strategies for doing just that.
Don’t Go in Angry
Employees can get very passionate about their jobs, and that’s a good thing. But when it comes to resolving conflicts, it’s best to wait until everyone has calmed down enough to have a professional and productive discussion.
We can both self-manage and intervene in situations where tempers seem to be flaring. Through self-awareness we can monitor our own internal emotions to identify times when we may be acting out of passion, rather than logic, and suggest that a time-out might be in our best interests. When observing conflict situations, in a meeting for instance, we can also help to defuse the situation by suggesting that the group take a time-out, or table the discussion, for some later time.
Don’t Make It Personal
This is, of course, often easier said than done. In work (and even personal) settings, though, it’s important to take the people out of the issue and focus on behaviors, observable actions—and their consequences, rather than personalities.
For instance, a manager with an employee who is habitually late to work, will likely create conflict with a statement like: “You’re irresponsible!” Instead, the manager would be wise to keep the conversation focused on the observable behavior (showing up X minutes late) and its impact on the organization: “When you show up even a few minutes late, your coworkers are forced to step in to cover for you, or customers have to wait to get the service they need.”
Personal attacks only serve to escalate conflict and delay, or even prevent, an ultimate resolution.
Listen
They don’t teach us to listen in school, do they? That’s unfortunate, because effective listening is a critical business skill, particularly during conflicts. When engaged in a conflict, it’s essential to hear the other party out rather than simply trying to jump in and become defensive. As Mike Kappel writes for Entrepreneur, “Listening always should be about gaining understanding. Don’t let yourself become reactionary to the other person’s words.”
Find a Path Forward
Ultimately, you want to find a resolution to the situation, and this requires getting to some kind of agreement between the parties involved. “Your conversation primarily will focus on the disagreements, but resolution is possible only when you find points of agreement,” says Kappel. “You should emerge from the experience with some positives instead of all negatives.”
Most people try to avoid conflict as much as possible. But in the workplace, conflict doesn’t necessarily have to be negative. It’s perfectly natural to have differences of opinions and competing needs, and the health and success of the business require successfully resolving these issues. The key is to train your employees—and yourself—on how to manage that conflict effectively for the benefit of everyone involved.