Managing Conflict on Your Team
Conflict among members of any group is inevitable. While you might prefer to avoid conflict by ignoring it, you do so at great peril. Avoiding conflict instead of managing it will contaminate the team’s functioning. That’s why effective managers harness the creative power of difference and manage conflict.
How do you resolve a conflict and limit the damage to the organization? By identifying the conflict early and providing an immediate resolution process. If you are far enough removed from the problem, you can manage that process. Otherwise, someone more objective should step in.
Begin by examining your possible role in the conflict. Have you communicated clearly with the people involved, without ambiguity, in a timely manner, addressing the priority issues that need addressing? Second, have your actions been consistent with your words? If the answer in either case is no, then you are contributing to the conflict.
Of course, you aren’t the only, or most frequent, cause of conflict within the team. Conflict often arises among the individuals of the team because they have values, behaviors, and goals that may conflict with someone else’s.
As a manager, you must take an active approach to conflict resolution. No matter how serious the problem appears on the surface, bring the parties together and make them aware of the need for resolution. If the root of the problem is minor, quick attention should ensure that it stays minor. A little attention may even cause it to resolve itself in the routine of a busy work schedule. If, however, you feel the conflict is serious enough to interfere with that routine, take immediate steps to resolve it.
Get all parties together. Schedule a time and place for discussion, inviting all those who are part of the conflict or directly affected by it to participate.
Talk it through. Get input from all parties about their needs, fears, problems, issues, and so on – anything that may contribute to the conflict, even indirectly. No matter how well you maintain objectivity, you may be seen as playing favorites. If you think this situation is likely to arise, get help from a third party outside the team. This individual should be someone neutral who will help people stay on track and allow everyone to be heard.
Create a diagram. List the various elements that are contributing to the conflict and create a diagram to display the competing needs, feelings, goals and concerns. The purpose is to illustrate how these items relate to one another and how much each issue matters to each party. Use three colors in creating the diagram:
RED for issues that are extremely important to someone or some group;
ORANGE for issues that are moderately important – negotiable to some degree; and
BLUE for issues that are of minor concern, in which participants have little emotional investment. The contrasting colors help you to see the degree of interest or energy in the various positions.
Identify and implement the best-fit solution. Have the participants identify the most mutually acceptable position by plotting on the diagram a "best fit" line. This line is determined by finding the path among the issues that satisfies the most serious needs of the parties without doing harm to any of them.
Your leadership will determine whether differences in your team become divisive liabilities, or creative assets.
Managing Conflict on Your Team - To learn more about this author, visit Andrew Wall's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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