Most people dread having to confront a conflict at work or at home. Unfortunately, ignoring the conflict will not cause it to disappear. At some point the conflict will need to be addressed to allow people to work and live together well and to avoid permanently damaging the relationship. Determining when to raise and issue or confront a problem, or when not to confront a problem, is a challenging question.
Conflict of interest
Different people will be in the same job for entirely different reasons—some for the money, some out of personal interest, some for career advancement, and some for a temporary learning experience. In any of these circumstances, it is possible that one’s personal interests may interfere with the common interests of the team and create a conflict. Should that become the case, addressing the conflict may become necessary.
Conflict of attitude
Different people have different approaches to their work and to tasks in general. For example, one person may focus in on the details and another colleague may be more of a big-picture thinker. These differences in approaches may cause tension between the co-workers particularly if one person’s attitude is that his or her approach is the best or only way to do a good job. Although it is difficult to change one’s natural approach, it is possible to have a respectful and positive attitude towards people who have different approaches. A decision to confront a person with an undesirable attitude may be wise only if that person’s behaviour has negatively impacted the work environment. If their negative attitude affects the morale and productivity of the team, trying to address that issue as soon as possible is likely necessary.
Conflict of goals
Getting the job done on time is an important goal in the workplace. Some people achieve that goal by working methodically right from the start of a project while others may get the work done on time through a last-minute rush. These differences in how one reaches one’s goals may become a source of conflict and stress among team members. As the team’s ability to meet their overall goals may be impacted by how individuals on the team meet their individual goals, having a discussion that explores how to handle these conflicting ways to meet the team goals may be in the interest of all team members.
Conflict of ethics
In determining when one needs to confront a conflict that may arise concerning an aspect of a colleague’s ethical behaviour, reference to Peter Bregman’s “rule of three” theory may be useful. According to Bregman, if an issue concerning one’s ethical behaviour is noticed at least three times then confrontation is warranted. If a co-worker’s actions seem to be deliberate, and are repeated, making the choice to confront that person may be appropriate as otherwise the concerning behaviour could develop into an unwelcome habit.
If you’re in doubt about confronting an issue, consult these five circumstances that likely warrant confrontation:
1. When you believe that addressing the issue upfront will lead to positive change.
2. When a person’s actions or attitude negatively affects others.
3. When there is a chance that the matter will get out of control if not confronted.
4. When not confronting the issue will likely be costlier than the unpleasantness of confronting it.
5. When you continue to feel uncomfortable and realize that addressing the issue may be the best way to ease your concerns.
Stitt Feld Handy Group offers training in communication skills, negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and alternative dispute resolution for large and small businesses, using the latest adult education techniques. Contact us today to learn how to get started.
To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To make better decisions, we need to understand how our mind takes shortcuts and how those shortcuts trick us into making bad decisions. If you understand how your mind works and when it fails you, you will make better decisions. To improve your decision-making skills, please visit our Effective Decision Making Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
Conflicts are part of almost every interaction, be it between individuals or businesses. The differences in habits, attitudes, convictions and individual preferences ensure that no two entities operate in the same way.
The usual outcomes of conflict
Depending on the importance of the relationship between the parties, the possible outcomes of conflicts include:
• Avoidance: Pretending that an issue does not exist. This common mistake negates the opportunity for conflict resolution. The conflict may fester and spread to other areas.
• Competition: In workplaces, instead of facing the issue and resolving the conflict, people may suppress it. Unnecessary competition and mistrust resulting from this can lead to loss of communication, team dynamics and even jobs.
• Compromise: If a business relationship is important to one of the partners, conflicts may be resolved by giving in to the demands of the other party. These compromises are often grudgingly made, and the underlying dissatisfaction may lead to the breaking up of the association later.
• Accommodation: Both the parties may give in to each other’s demands when the association is equally important to their businesses. While it may seem like a fair deal, constant disagreements and blame-games may decrease productivity.
Why collaboration is a better alternative
The usual outcomes of conflicts have negative connotations. No constructive growth can result from negativism. It’s a temporary truce at best. The usual outcomes may be sufficient to meet short-term goals, but not to achieve lasting peace and progress. On the other hand, collaboration is a long-term solution. It brings in the synergies of common goals and creative inputs from everyone.
How to turn conflict into collaboration
The first step in turning conflict into collaboration is education, through conflict management training or a conflict management workshop. Some major points are outlined below.
• Change the attitude: Conflict is normally seen as a minor war in which both the parties try to hold on to their weapons and one-upmanship. It should be ideally viewed, however, as an opportunity for greater growth. This change of attitude is the first step to collaboration.
• Listen to all: When people sit across a table to discuss issues, often everyone is too busy expressing their own views and opinions to listen to what others have to say. An attempt at collaboration should ensure that all the issues, facts and viewpoints are brought to the table, and all are heard.
• Remove the emotions: Conflicts are more often than not emotionally charged. People feel threatened when their ideas are rejected and their suggestions are opposed. They react with anger, resentment and frustration. Objectivity is lost when emotions are present. Separate the issues from the emotions and give full attention to the facts.
• Search for common ground: When free exchange of aspirations and ideas takes place, you may come across some common ground that can be the basis for the journey forward. Identify common goals and areas that can benefit from cooperative effort. Make a note of resources that can be shared and people who can work together.
• Reach an agreement: All the discussions during the search for common ground are geared towards reaching an agreement that is in the best interests of all the parties involved. Marsha Shenk, a pioneer in Business Anthropology, calls it the “agreement for results”.
• Set goals: To bring a collaborative effort to fruition, words should be translated into actions. Setting short-term and long-term goals within a framework of time and achieving milestones is very important.
Collaboration is an ongoing process. For it to be successful, the exercise of finding common ground, making agreements, and setting goals should be repeated over and over again until it becomes a habit. It takes mindfulness about the common goals and strong commitment to follow through. These tips can help, along with courses in conflict management training or at the least, a conflict management workshop.
Stitt Feld Handy Group offers training in conflict management, communication skills, negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and alternative dispute resolution for large and small businesses, using the latest adult education techniques. Do you want to turn conflict into collaboration? Contact us today to learn more about how to get started.
To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To make better decisions, we need to understand how our mind takes shortcuts and how those shortcuts trick us into making bad decisions. If you understand how your mind works and when it fails you, you will make better decisions. To improve your decision-making skills, please visit our Effective Decision Making Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
Although a dispute often arises from a single incident, it can easily become an ongoing conflict situation if not quickly resolved. The presence of an unresolved conflict in the workplace can drastically impact an entire team of employees. This can result in a decrease in morale, lower productivity and an overall toxic workplace atmosphere.
Common Reasons for Workplace Conflicts
Poor communication among co-workers is a common reason why conflict in the workplace develops. Divergent interests, values and personalities may also be sources of conflict among members of a company.
Approaching Workplace Conflicts
Managers tend to spend more time than they desire trying to resolve workplace conflicts. There are usually two common responses to a conflict situation—either ignore it or fight it out. Neither of these approaches will lead to a satisfactory outcome for all parties involved. Instead, workplace conflicts should be sorted out in a positive and constructive manner. Through the use of techniques that allow for collaboration and promote compromise, a mutually beneficial resolution of the conflict can be achieved.
Effective Ways to Resolve Workplace Conflict
As a manager, you can attempt to resolve conflict at your workplace by taking the following steps:
• Allow those involved in the conflict to articulate the causes of the conflict. It is important for the parties to the conflict to feel that they are given an equal chance to be heard in an impartial way. They should be allowed to express themselves in a comfortable setting and without the fear of being subjected to any negative repercussions for doing so. Also, if the parties are made aware that different perspectives about the conflict should exist, then there is a greater likelihood of putting everybody at ease when expressing their views.
• Ensure that the parties to the conflict understand why it must be resolved. It may be necessary to inform the parties that the conflict they are engaged in is impacting their colleagues and the overall atmosphere of the workplace. A first step towards resolution may be to emphasize the parties’ talents and to indicate that they make necessary and important contributions to the organization.
• Directly communicate with the parties involved in the conflict. It is desirable to address the issues of the conflict through face-to-face meetings instead of through other impersonal forms of communication. Of crucial importance for the manger is to become an active listener when hearing from each party. Doing so will allow the manager to extract the key issues that underlie the conflict and to focus on the core of the problem.
• Understand that discussing the events that gave rise to the conflict can cause highly charged emotions among the parties. This may impair the ability of everybody involved in the conflict to remain focused on finding a productive resolution. A prudent decision the manager of the conflict could make in such a situation is to adjourn the session to a later date. By taking this step the parties should be able to return to the conflict resolution session with a demeanour that is more conducive to working out a solution.
• Try to create a solution that is agreeable to all parties that ensures the same conflict does not happen again. Getting to that point could require more time and patience then was initially anticipated. Through encouraging the parties to suggest practical suggestions to deal with the issues that have caused the conflict, there is a greater likelihood that a successful and permanent resolution of the conflict will result.
• Find a common basis that will unite the parties to the conflict. If the manager can help the parties recognize the common interests and goals they have, then there is a strong chance that they will work together towards resolving the conflict and to meeting their common interests and goals.
The management of conflict resolution can be very challenging. Without an effective procedure for resolving conflict in the workplace, the burden on the manager to resolve the conflict will increase. If you are looking to improve your conflict management skills and your communication skills, the Stitt Feld Handy Group offers comprehensive alternative dispute resolution courses to human resources managers, employees, entrepreneurs, and people involved in all forms of business.
To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To make better decisions, we need to understand how our mind takes shortcuts and how those shortcuts trick us into making bad decisions. If you understand how your mind works and when it fails you, you will make better decisions. To improve your decision-making skills, please visit our Effective Decision Making Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To make better decisions, we need to understand how our mind takes shortcuts and how those shortcuts trick us into making bad decisions. If you understand how your mind works and when it fails you, you will make better decisions. To improve your decision-making skills, please visit our Effective Decision Making Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
Getting to the root of problems means understanding everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, including one’s own
Originally published in: Canadian HR Reporter, November 8, 2004
Dealing with office conflict is one of those management tasks with high risks, low rewards and seemingly no end in sight. Negative patterns can develop despite a manager’s best efforts. Standard approaches become ineffective, and breakthroughs are only temporary.
As a manager watches her office environment lapse back into negative behaviour, she may start to ponder more radical responses. She loses perspective, finds no one appreciates her efforts, and may let things build up until the situation explodes and someone is transferred, gets fired, or quits. The stress is unpleasant and the impact on the workplace can be profound.
How can workplaces deal with such situations in a more effective way? First, there is no one magic answer when people are involved. Everyone has their particular strengths and weaknesses when it comes to interacting with others. Each worker has a preferred approach to situations, based on training, experience, skills, emotional make-up and relationship with others.
Dealing with workplace conflict most effectively requires all involved to first assess their own skills and to look at where they consistently have difficulty or fail to live up to a desired workplace culture. This self-analysis can be a difficult task at the best of times; but it’s even more difficult when there’s no reward or encouragement for taking the time necessary to reflect on such issues, or when doing so is simply impossible because of the pace and volume of work.
However, take a moment to assess how much more time employees and managers would have if they could reduce the amount of conflict they regularly deal with at work. Some managers spend up to 30 per cent of their time dealing with situations of conflict among their reporting employees. This is time deflected from the resources of the organization, which reflects poorly on the manager and staff alike, and which requires additional resources in order for the organization to achieve its goals.
This assessment should persuade managers to be self-aware, comfortable with their strengths and weaknesses, and realistic about how both affect the workplace. As a result, they would be better able to manage weaknesses and minimize their impact. Knowing oneself allows a manager to model the expected behaviour for the workplace, to respond positively to challenges, and to maintain credibility with staff. The manager who screams and shouts arbitrarily when confronted with conflict cannot demand and expect calm responses and respect.
He may get calm responses superficially, but he is building a workplace of poor morale, high turnover, pervasive with disrespect and lacking in commitment.
Perfection is not the standard, of course. The standard is consistent honesty and therefore credibility. When managers make errors, they must acknowledge them, not in a way that excuses themselves to others, but in a way that seeks out the same standard for all and strives to hold everyone consistently to that standard. Errors should be reviewed and efforts made to avoid them in the future.
Managers may assess themselves through training, mentoring, self-study, and feedback. Self-assessment will be a continual task for managers as their careers progress. In addition, they must guide their staff through the same kind of self-assessment, all the while making the appropriate investment depending on each individual’s role and responsibilities in the organization, and on the particular strengths or weaknesses in relation to that role.
It’s from this work that a manager may discover the reasons behind a conflict instead of the bandage solutions to an immediate problem. The fuss about the photocopier not being refilled, for example, may turn out not about the photocopier, but about a feeling that someone in the office is a “free rider” while others are forced to pick up the slack. Once a manager can assess the accuracy of these perceptions, she can make the conflicts explicit, resolve them more thoroughly, and reduce their incidence.
A manager should also assess the chemistry of interactions, looking for the best mix of skills and personalities for the responsibilities of her workplace. She can help move those who do not, or cannot, fit well into roles better suited to their skills and assignments more in line with their personalities — whether within or outside the organization. The ideal departure is when a manager and a staff member come to the mutual conclusion that the employee will be more productive and happier somewhere else, and when the manager helps that staff member leave in a positive manner.
Of course, people have different levels of self-knowledge. Not all people will react well or effectively, despite good modeling. These people still require the honesty, consistency and credibility of treatment that will allow them to be as comfortable and productive as possible. Assessing their productivity is not simply a matter of how they do their jobs. Someone’s impact on workplace chemistry should be an explicit part of his job evaluation or a performance review, and the manager’s expectations should be made clear to them, as should the consequences of not meeting these expectations.
For a manager, this is difficult work, and often thankless. However, this is one of the most important roles for managers. Fulfilling it in the most effective manner possible will reduce their stress, achieve more for the organization, and over time reduce negativity and conflict in the workplace.
To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
To make better decisions, we need to understand how our mind takes shortcuts and how those shortcuts trick us into making bad decisions. If you understand how your mind works and when it fails you, you will make better decisions. To improve your decision-making skills, please visit our Effective Decision Making Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.
Please do not contact the Stitt Feld Handy Group about any Canadian Human Rights Commission issues or questions. We are a training organization and not affiliated with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission is responsible for promoting and protecting human rights. As part of this mandate, the Commission is responsible for investigating and resolving complaints of discrimination in employment and the provision of services within the federal jurisdiction.
The Commission is required to investigate and manage complaints that involve important, sensitive and often complex issues. As a result, it is important for its staff to have highly developed skills to manage difficult conversations and resolve complex disputes all while protecting the public interest. Beginning in 1998, the Commission hired the Stitt Feld Handy Group to design and deliver a variety of customized workshops including programs on mediation, advanced mediation and having difficult conversations.
The Stitt Feld Handy Group worked closely with representatives from the Commission to understand their unique roles and the specific challenges they face at the Commission. With this information, the Stitt Feld Handy Group was able to design interactive workshops that were skills-building and that included customized role plays and exercises involving human rights issues. The skills covered by the various workshops included:
Participants left the workshops with an enhanced ability to resolve complex disputes and conduct difficult conversations with greater skill and confidence.
“Great balance of personal stories, concept discussions and group discussions. Very engaging!”
“I found the role plays very valuable. It is great to learn the theory but even better to put it into practice.”
“Excellent, super relevant, practical and well-paced. Highly relevant.”
“The instructor is one of the best instructors I have ever encountered.”
“Engaging presentations, real-life examples, chance to practice leads to real opportunities for change.”
BDO USA is a leading multi-service accounting services firm with 64 offices and more than 5000 staff across the U.S., providing audit, tax, consulting and advisory services to an array of national and international companies and organizations. Founded in 1910, BDO USA is part of a global network and services more than a dozen major industry sectors with revenues in excess of $1 billion as of fiscal year end 6-30-15.
Since 2003, the Stitt Feld Handy Group has provided more than 30 multi-day workshops for BDO, on topics including enhanced negotiation skills, dealing with difficult people, and managing difficult conversations. For much of that period, SFHG has been a core provider of training for BDO’s Leadership Institute (BLI) and its precursor, BDO Sales College. In that context SFHG has trained BDO’s rising stars and future leaders in the art and science of managing negotiations and difficult conversations effectively. SFHG has designed highly tailored workshops imparting key skills adapted to the real world context in which BDO operates, using real examples from BDO’s environment.
In delivering their workshops, SFHG instructors and course designers are highly attentive to the needs of BDO staff, adapting material and instruction to meet evolving needs year to year, and designing new curriculum for ongoing new requests within BDO’s training environment. In an atmosphere where participants are very busy professionals, SFHG has always made their training highly relevant and useful to BDO’s practice.
“I thought the topic and examples were key to what BDO does and will aid me in my development.”
“The instructor was dynamite! He engaged the participants and got a lot out of the group. His use of real world examples during the discussions brought real life to the case studies. The course pulled together a lot of different negotiation aspects and put them into a more clear, concise and usable format for the future.”
“Very effective, real life situations and useful tools to use.”
“Instructor does a great job of recognizing our business and adjusting conversation accordingly.”
“I feel I can apply these concepts immediately back in the office/meetings.”
“Excellent instructor. Not only was he prepared thoroughly, his passion for teaching the principles of negotiation was demonstrated throughout the course.”
The JEITT, a distinct but integral part of the Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago, operates with the vision “Transformation through Education”. We deliver continuous judicial education to the judges and judicial officers in support of the administration of justice. The training and development programmes delivered are the hallmark of the Institute as we strive to improve the functioning and competence of the Judiciary and its judicial officers, keeping all au courant with changes that may influence the Judiciary’s operations.
For our “Dealing with Difficult Conversations” series of workshops, Stitt Feld Handy Group facilitated sessions which looked at the primary causes of difficult conversations. Real life video examples were displayed and closely analysed. Participants were encouraged to look at their own ‘triggers’ in daily life and discuss their views on them, following which they participated in exercises focusing on models for beginning, analysing and responding to difficult conversations.
The Stitt Feld Handy Group also facilitated for the JEITT a 5-day Mediation workshop in which participants took part in negotiating role plays, learned about and discussed Principled Negotiation, viewed and partook in activities surrounding Mediation scenarios, and engaged in demonstrations and debriefs.
“Learning skills for listening and how to be heard in actual situations was really valuable.”
“The moderators were knowledgeable and highly engaging!”
“The interactive workshops were quite interesting, and made you recognise your ability to engage in conversations that could be challenging.”
“The workshop was most educational, enlightening and enjoyable.”
The York Region District School Board has over 123,000 elementary and secondary school students and employs over 7,500 teachers, 400 administrators, 1,100 plant and maintenance staff and 1,000 professional and para-professionals.
The Board’s mission statement is, in part: “To advance student achievement and well-being through public education”. To meet their commitment to students, the Board recognizes that their staff needs advanced negotiation and conflict resolution skills as well as the ability to have difficult conversations effectively. To that end, starting in 2000, the Board retained the Stitt Feld Handy Group to offer over 30 different workshops for various groups from the Board.
The Stitt Feld Handy Group has designed more than 30 different customized workshops for the Board ranging in length from one to three days. These different workshops were customized for superintendents, trustees, principals, vice-principals, teachers, special education teachers, social workers, psychologists, plant operations, maintenance staff, IT and procurement staff.
For each of the workshops, we worked closely with representatives from the Board’s Centre for Leadership and Learning to identify their learning objectives for the program. We also interviewed participants through on-line questionnaires and over the phone to deepen our understanding of the issues they face in their workplace. With this information, the Stitt Feld Handy Group then designed and delivered the program for the specific target audience.
Some examples of the workshops we have designed for the Board include: multi-day workshops for the senior administrators (principals and vice-principals) that focused on advanced conflict resolution skills for managing the myriad types of conflicts that administrators need to resolve in the course of their work. For the workshops for the procurement office, the focus was on enhancing and refining their negotiation skills to help them achieve better deals on behalf of the Board and to be able to negotiate agreements when conflicts arose on existing contracts. Several workshops on having difficult conversations were designed for special education staff who need to have conversations with other staff, parents and outside service providers about meeting the special education needs of their students.
“The most useful workshop I have attended in 5 years. Practical solutions were excellent. Theoretical knowledge coupled with practical examples – Excellent!”
“I liked the practical value of the workshop in our dealings with parents and other educators. The instructors broke down the subject in a way that was easy to digest and apply in real-life situations.”
The Government of Nunavut (GN) was established by the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and represents all of the people of the territory, both Inuit and non-Inuit. The GN is committed to reflecting the values, the traditional knowledge and the diversity of Nunavut’s population and works hard to support the development of the public service. The GN is doing so by ensuring fair and transparent practices for career advancement, working towards enhanced Inuit employment in professional and leadership roles and facilitating investment in education.
The Government of Nunavut recognizes the importance of providing employees with comprehensive training programs that develop job-specific knowledge and skills through “hands-on” learning and practice. From 2013 to 2016, participants from across Nunavut were given the opportunity to learn alternative dispute resolution techniques such as negotiating, managing difficult conversations, mediating tough problems and learning how to deal with difficult and emotional people. Inuit Societal Values was also included in the program delivery by incorporating sessions in Aajiiqatigiinniq – Decision making through discussion and consensus. An elder was invited to lead the discussion on how dispute resolution was traditionally done in communities and families.
“Skills taught to participants are applicable to a vast range of situations and the professionalism, engagement and experience of the Instructors made the whole difference.”
