What are the sources of conflict?
Conflict can arise in the workplace between team members or between management and employees. To address conflicts effectively or to prevent them from occurring in the first place, it’s important to understand the root causes. Here are some of the most common sources of conflict in the workplace.
- Poor communication. Although many people think they have great communication skills, conflicts can easily arise from simple misunderstandings. A lack of clear communication is a major source of conflict.
- Personality clashes. In a diverse workplace with a mix of different personalities and communication styles, it’s likely that some people simply won’t get along.
- Resistance to change. Most people sit somewhere on a spectrum between completely open to change and completely resistant to change. For some team members, change can be a major source of stress and can cause conflict with management.
- Harassment. For whatever reason, an employee or manager may be harassing or bullying one or more of their colleagues.
- Increased workload. Employees may feel that their managers are pushing them too hard and that their workload has become unmanageable, causing them to become resentful.
- Unclear job expectations. Without adequate coaching and training, employees are left guessing what their manager’s expectations are. A team member who isn’t sure of what success in their role looks like can lose confidence and become defensive and frustrated.
- Negative work environment. Employees may feel unsafe or unhappy if their work environment is hostile or toxic.
Related: 5 Tips for Creating a Positive Workplace Culture
- Poor management. Conflict can arise when a manager lacks management skills or there is a mismatch between their leadership style and the team’s needs.
Related: On Your Mark: 5 Tips for New Managers
- Unrealistic expectations. Managers may ignore the needs of their team or set unrealistic expectations, such as frequently asking employees to work overtime.
How to manage conflict at work
When conflict arises, it’s essential that you address it quickly to prevent it from escalating. Here are seven steps you can follow to effectively manage day-to-day conflicts between people in your workplace.
- Meet with the people involved in the conflict separately. Arrange one-on-one meetings with each team member. In the meetings, identify the most important issues for each person. Try to establish what each person needs from the other person. For example, are they looking for better communication, empathy, understanding? Try to find areas of common ground as a starting point.
- Meet with your team members together. Start off by asking each person to summarise their main issues. Make sure they are not interrupted. To resolve the conflict, each person must feel that they are being heard. Ask each team member to raise the other concerns that are important to them. Listen carefully to what they say. Their concerns may have changed since the first meeting. If that’s the case, work with the concerns that they put forward in the second meeting. Raising something they said in the first meeting without their consent or guidance could make the situation worse.
- Summarise the most important issues. When summarising, maintain an impartial attitude and show that you support both team members. Even if you personally think one person’s concerns are more important or more valid, give the same amount of time and attention to each person.
- Discuss possible resolutions. Encourage both employees to put forward possible solutions. Make sure that you get different suggestions from each person. For each issue, aim for at least three resolutions.
- Determine whether the resolutions are workable. Before settling on a resolution, it’s important to work out whether it is realistic. To do this, create hypothetical scenarios using ‘What if …’ questions. Ask your team members to respond to the different scenarios.
- Allow space for negotiation. At this point, your team members may start negotiating a possible solution. Allow them to do so without interrupting. Listen to them both carefully. If they can’t agree on a particular point, summarise the other things they have agreed on so far. This should prompt them to keep going and arrive at a mutually satisfactory resolution.
- Check in with everyone and wrap it up. Before concluding the meeting, it’s important to make sure that everyone feels that they have been heard and their needs have been met as much as possible. Ask each person if there is anything else they would like to add and if they are satisfied with the outcome.
Conflict management styles
People approach conflict in different ways, depending on their personality, beliefs, values and the situation. There’s no single style that works best in all scenarios. As a manager, it’s vital that you are aware of the different conflict management styles and know which one is best for the situation. Here are five common conflict management styles with examples of suitable situations in which to use them.
1. Collaborating
People who adopt this style work together to find a solution that fully satisfies everyone’s needs. This strategy is both cooperative and assertive, meaning that everyone feels heard, negative feelings are minimised and the chosen solutions work best for everyone.
This is the best strategy when both the long-term relationship and outcome are important. For example, when merging two departments, you might adopt this strategy because you want the best of both in the newly formed department. It could also be useful when two separate teams are working together on a process.
2. Competing
This is an assertive and uncooperative style. People who adopt this style are not concerned with finding a mutually beneficial solution – they pursue their own interests at the other person’s expense. This strategy often produces a positive outcome for one party and a negative outcome for the other.
It’s best used when the relationship isn’t important, but the outcome is. For example, when competing with another company for a new client. Lawyers adopt this strategy because they want the best outcome for their client at the expense of the other party. A word of caution: avoid using this conflict resolution strategy in your company – it damages relationships and is unlikely to yield a positive outcome.
3. Avoiding
This is more of a conflict avoidance strategy than conflict resolution. People who avoid conflict are inclined to be unassertive and uncooperative. They will either dodge an issue to be diplomatic and/or wait for it to blow over or withdraw from a situation because they find it threatening.
This is the most appropriate strategy when it’s safer to put off dealing with the issue or for minor grievances and one-off mistakes. An employee may adopt this strategy if they notice a co-worker violating company policy by making video calls on the job, for example. If it’s the first time it has happened, they may decide that it isn’t worth compromising their relationship over it.
4. Accommodating
People who want to be unassertive and cooperative commonly use the accommodating style. They sacrifice their own interests to satisfy the other person. The danger of using this strategy too often is that people leave themselves open to being taken advantage of, which can create resentment.
This is a useful strategy when you want to strategically lose a battle to win the war. In other words, when the outcome is insignificant, but you want to maintain or build the relationship. As an example, let’s say an employee delivers a report to a colleague in PDF format and the colleague complains that it isn’t in Excel format. Although they know their colleague didn’t specify a format, they decide it would be more beneficial to preserve the peace and accommodate the request than to try to prove they weren’t in the wrong.
5. Compromising
The aim of this style is to find a solution quickly that is acceptable for everyone and that partially satisfies the needs of the people in the conflict. People who use this style tend to be assertive and cooperative.
This strategy is best used when the outcome isn’t crucial, but time is of the essence and you just need to make a decision, so you can deal with more important things. For example, when you’re planning an event and there are last-minute issues with the venue, a compromise would be to cancel the event. It’s a financial sacrifice for you, but dragging out the conflict wouldn’t benefit anyone. In this case, it’s best to cancel the event and work out the best solution later.
Conflict is an inevitable part of life. But with these tips and strategies, you can embrace it and effectively manage disputes at work. A workplace with well-managed conflict is a happier, more productive and more profitable one.
