Conflict can arise between anyone inside a company. Between coworkers, management, departments, branches, and partner companies, there is a lot of room for differing interests and opinions.
No matter your role in a company, you can become a more effective human being and thus, an employee, when you know how to resolve conflicts. This is a very valuable leadership skill that will help you climb the ladder and open up new opportunities!
Conflict Management meaning
When you are at work, it is possible that you may disagree on certain aspects of work, conflict management is a necessary skill to have in order to avoid any issues at work.
Conflict management refers to the process of resolving disputes or disagreements between individuals or groups. It involves identifying, analyzing, and addressing the underlying issues that are causing the conflict, in order to find a mutually acceptable solution.
Conflict management can take many forms, but the goal is always to find a way to resolve the conflict that is fair and equitable for all parties involved.
How to Deal With Conflicts at Work
There are many different kinds of conflicts that can arise in a workplace. You’ve probably already seen conflict for yourself or heard about some from someone you know. It is not uncommon for there to be work conflicts. In a way, it can be a good thing, because it means that people are able to voice their concerns, opinions, and needs. The important part is to resolve the conflict in a way that is satisfactory to everyone involved.
Understand the Reason for the Conflict
Typically, a conflict at work will be professional in nature.
Perhaps there is a disagreement between coworkers about responsibilities. Maybe management wants to implement a new time-keeping system that causes a major inconvenience to the lower employees.
Sometimes there are more personal conflicts, like if someone keeps leaving the office microwave dirty.
Depending on your role and position in the company, you may or may not want to get involved with the resolution. If you are the manager of the people it concerns, then it is your duty to get things back in order. If you are beneath the people involved, or if it doesn’t impact your department, you may want to stay out of it, unless you have something extremely helpful or insightful to offer.
Understand the Procedures in Place
Many companies have a pre-existing procedure for conflict resolution. It might involve mediation from HR or an outside mediator to come in and help untangle the issues.
Be sure you know what the procedure is before you begin an action plan so you adhere to the company policies. Usually, these policies are in place due to laws requiring workplace disagreements to be handled formally.
You may also want to seek formal or professional mediation if the conflict becomes violent, if anyone is making threats, if the parties are unwilling to talk to each other, if workers are striking or threatening to strike, or if deliberate insubordination occurs.
If you find that the particular conflict doesn’t need to have a particular procedure in place, and it is within your duty to become involved, you will want to be very sure that you can help resolve the problem!
This is where your individual skills will be paramount. You should have high emotional intelligence skills, as well as previous experience in conflict resolution. We will get into the particulars of what you can do later on in this article.
What to Avoid
It is always important to know what to avoid in order to keep a situation from getting worse. At times, it may mean that you need to step back. If you aren’t the person for the job, you must admit and accept that. Trying to wedge yourself into a situation you cannot resolve will only make it worse.
You need to keep a level head and stay reasonable whether you are one of the parties in the conflict or if you’re trying to mediate. These situations can easily become tense, and one wrong move can set everyone else off into a bad state.
Avoid overstepping, sacrificing your own well-being, putting your own job in jeopardy, gossiping or playing games, and using or allowing disrespectful communication.
Talk It Out & Reach A Common Ground
Some problems can be resolved by the people who are in conflict. They may be able to talk it out and reach a solution together. This is the ideal scenario, but sometimes the issue is too complex to be solved by the parties.
When to Seek a Mediator
There may be threats of a lawsuit, violence, threatening behavior, a toxic work environment, or other problems that require professional help.
A sign of a good leader is to know when to call for backup. If you are responsible for the people who are in conflict, you are responsible for getting the issue resolved as peacefully and fairly as possible. If you are unable to mediate it yourself, it is your duty to find someone who can.
If you are one of the people involved in the conflict and you feel that either of you is unable to have a civil conversation, you must find someone to mediate. You may also need an outside perspective to find new solutions that both of you can’t see because you are too closely involved.
Talk to HR
The best resource for conflict resolution at work is Human Resources. HR’s job is to ensure that the workplace is a suitable environment for everyone working there.
They may be able to walk you through or facilitate the conflict resolution procedure designated by the company. Or, they may be able to help resolve the conflict with a single meeting.
Finding an External Third Party
Sometimes a work conflict simply cannot be solved by HR or anyone else at the company. That’s why there are professional mediators!
You can find lawyers and attorneys who can mediate, but there are also people who are mediators by profession. Usually, companies will seek a mediator in order to avoid getting lawyers involved.
These people have the training, experience, and often college degrees, in professional mediation. You can also learn a thing or two from observing how the mediator manages the conflict resolution.
Following Through as a Manager
If you are the manager responsible for the people who are receiving mediation, it’s important that you stay involved in the process. If you are able, sit in on the mediation meetings so you understand everyone’s perspective and concerns, as well as monitor the progress of the resolution.
If you cannot attend the meetings, keep in touch with the mediator. See if they can provide notes about the meeting. You can also call each party to a meeting individually (since it may not be a good idea to have them in the same room before the conflict is resolved) and ask them how they think the process is going.
"A good manager doesn't try to eliminate conflict; he tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people. If you're the boss and your people fight you openly when they think that you are wrong--that's healthy."
Robert Townsend
Conflict Management Techniques: To Solve A Conflict
For problems, you can step in and help solve, or for issues that you are involved in, you can use these tips for conflict management.
Practice Emotional Intelligence
Before you even encounter any issues, it’s important to know how to be an effective communicator. Good communication skills go hand in hand with emotional intelligence (EQ). You can have good EQ and poor communication, but you cannot have poor EQ and good communication.
Practice the five components of EQ: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. With these tools, you will be better capable of handling whatever comes your way and thinking on-the-spot in high-stress situations.
Neutral Ground
It’s important to stay calm, cool and collected when involved in the conflict. Again, this is easier with high EQ.
If you are meditating for others, you want to avoid getting swept up in the rivalry. You need to remain neutral no matter what. Don’t make assumptions about anyone’s intentions or take sides.
It’s important to be able to take all of the information in while at the same time being able to understand the reality of the situation without the bias that might come from the parties involved.
If you are one of the parties, do your best to stay grounded and realistic. Accept that you might not have the best solution, or you might have a misunderstanding on your part. Take responsibility for your actions and work in good faith to try to reach a resolution.
Respectful Communication
It’s easy to get tripped up and say the wrong thing, or the right thing with the wrong tone, and accidentally make things worse.
Ensure that you use phrases like “It sounds like…” and avoid putting words in people’s mouths. Ask questions for clarity. Tactfully use a mixture of open-ended questions and yes or no questions.
If you are involved, use “I” statements to avoid sounding like you are blaming someone else. Use “I feel,” “I think,” “I would like,” etc. And, be sure to stay genuine and respectful.
In any case, if you say something you regret, or you say something that comes out wrong, immediately own up to it and apologize, and rephrase what you meant.
Active Listening
Make sure you are actively listening, not just waiting your turn to speak. This applies whether you are the mediator or one of the people in the conflict.
If you are meditating, encourage the parties to practice active listening as well.
Respond directly to what is being said and ensure that everyone involved feels they are being heard.
Reaching a Mutually Beneficial Solution
Instead of aiming for a compromise, which implies that both parties need to lower their expectations and forfeit something in order to meet in the middle, try striving to reach a mutually beneficial solution.
Your intention is to find an agreement that leaves both parties happy with the solution. Some problems obviously do not have all-happy solutions. But, by reaching for the absolute best-case scenario, you will find a better solution than if you were to shoot low.
Temporarily Avoiding the Conflict
Sometimes it just isn’t a good time for a conflict to arise. The benefit of a conflict in a work environment is that at the end of the day, you are all there to work together as a team to reach a common goal. As such, it may be possible to delay delving into the conflict if necessary.
If you’re in the middle of a big project, if you are already dealing with a different conflict, if someone is on holiday, or if there is another place in your work that is demanding your attention and you simply do not have the time, then you can try to put the conflict on hold.
You’ll need to be very clear with the conflicting parties about the why and how of the situation, and make sure that they agree to get along as usual for the time being. Make sure to set a hard date for your next check-in, where you will decide if it’s time to go ahead with sorting the problem out, or if it needs to be pushed back again.
If it really can’t wait, then you will want to call a mediator to take over for you.
How to Use Conflict Management Techniques in Your Career
No matter what position you’re in, you can use conflict management skills to further your career.
In a management position, you can obviously prove your team leadership skills by handling conflicts that arise with your employees.
As an entry-level employee, you can shine among your peers by showing a high level of maturity if you are involved with decision-making. Since many of the same techniques used for mediation are also applicable to negotiation, you can show that you are well-suited for a role with more responsibility.
You can also use these techniques to negotiate a higher salary, better benefits, and other perks!
Where to Learn Conflict Management Skills
There are many resources for learning conflict management, mediation, emotional intelligence, communication, and negotiation skills.
Books and Articles
There are a wide variety of conflict management books that can be found online or in stores. Additionally, many websites are dedicated to these very subjects, and you can find great articles to learn from.
YouTube and Podcasts
This particular set of subjects is also very popular on YouTube and as Podcasts. Creators can show or tell you about real conflict management examples and strategies.
Videos will help you see examples of body language and how people in conflict should interact to keep things calm. Podcasts can give you great insights into guest experts and the details of different techniques.
Practice with a Coach
The only way to get better at any of these skills is to put them to use. And since you may not want to try out your mediation skills for the first time during a crisis, it’s best to hire a coach to help you practice.
With Superprof you can find coaches with all sorts of backgrounds specializing in many different types of conflict resolution. They can evaluate your techniques and effectiveness as they teach you more about being a competent leader.
Conflict management is a highly versatile skill that is sure to boost your career and personal fulfillment.
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