Conflict Resolution Strategies in the Workplace
Conflict at the workplace is inevitable: 85% of workers across all levels encounter some form of altercation at work. People have their own way of working and communicating, and stress and deadlines might turn amicable conversations into shouting matches and more lengthy dissents. And when they happen, the idea is to address and settle them effectively.
Establishing a conflict management process in a company is fundamental. In this article, we'll mention some ways through which you can manage conflict in the workplace. We refer to the “workplace” as an office but also a remote meeting: any place, physical or not, where you interact recurrently with your colleagues.
Understanding your goals to resolve conflict at the workplace
During a conflict, your goal is not to prove to the company you were right, and the other person was wrong. Your goal is to solve the conflict and show the company you’re valuable because of it. So don’t get too stubborn but don’t apologize either (unless you’ve done something wrong or harmful, but we’re confident that’s not the case with most conflicts). If you’re provided the opportunity, explain why you thought the position was the best for the company, and you’ll be in the right lane. In the end, the goal should be allegedly the same: help the company be successful. And if someone’s bringing conflicts up and not thinking about that common goal, your method will leave them unmasked. You can come up strengthened and boosted from a confrontation, even if your initial idea doesn’t get through.
Now, since your endgame is clear, these are some strategies for solving conflict. None of these ways is mutually exclusive, but focusing on one or two points should suffice to solve most conflicts.
1. Ask the other person how they’re feeling
Effective communication is key to resolving conflicts. It might also be the puzzle piece that would avoid or dissuade disputes, but we’re dealing with a damage control scenario here. So, try sitting down and talking about how you feel about the other person involved in the conflict. This is a time for active listening and being open to different perspectives.
It’s true: you can’t always get what you want, and many company asymmetries prevent you from having a conversation where you can communicate in earnest. For example, you might not get to tell your CEO how bad you’re feeling because she’s the decision-maker. But, if you have the opportunity to sit down with anyone you’re in conflict with, don’t go around sulking. Rather than that, ask how the other person feels. That will open up the conversation for you to chime in, tell your side of the story, and attempt to solve the conflict.
2. Focus on events
It is essential to focus on the events that led to the conflict, rather than the personalities of those involved. It’s more convenient to be “objective” and focus on facts. Instead of saying, “When you do…” say, “When this happens…”. When you focus on events, you’re steering far off from a lane where you might offend people, even if it’s not deliberate. This is because you’re not talking about the person; you’re talking about what’s between you two that’s not working. And you can’t say nasty things to someone if you’ve already realised they’re not part of the problem. The concern is the event, not your colleague.
3. Express sympathy, even if it’s for the devil
Being compassionate towards others lets us put ourselves in their shoes and better understand their viewpoint. It’s even better if you express it out loud. If you start your turn in the talks with an “I understand how you feel” phrase, you’re letting everybody around you know you’ve made the effort to be sympathetic. It could even help you understand why the whole mess-up has gone down. It sounds like a marketing guru textbook phrase, but it cools down the room when things are too heated.
4. Request help from a go-between
You can involve a third person whom both team members respect. This person can mediate the situation and help you reach a mutually agreeable solution — a go-between rep between you two. This neutral party brings objectivity and a fresh perspective to the situation. It will also help make the outcome more legitimate since both parties already respect the person they’re calling in.
Steps to take to solve a disagreement at the workplace
Now that you have the strategies to pick more than one, you should understand that timing is significant in conflict resolution. The recent OpenAI saga, for example, is a scoop on the importance of timing during disagreements.
Here are some steps for approaching solving the issue. Every step complements a strategy and should help you choose when to act.
1. Don't let the tension escalate
It is pivotal to act quickly after conflict to prevent workplace rows from worsening. The longer a dispute goes unresolved, the more likely it is to escalate and become more difficult to puzzle out.
2. Prioritise the long-term areas
Whatever strategy you adopt, you need to identify the most critical issues that need to be resolved and focus on them first. In this stage, it's essential to discern between minor disagreements and critical issues that impact the team or relationship. You must always prioritize your long-term success in the company over personal pet peeves.
3. Bring on a plan with a solution
Develop a resolution plan once you have named and labeled the most intense conflict areas. It surely sounds complex, but a plan could be just an elementary course of action for what’s next. This is important: you’ll be offering solutions for what’s to come; don’t focus on what already went down, since that’s where the conflict rose from.
You can always leave the plan design to the person you’re in conflict with, but if that plan undermines your position, you better come up with a solution that satisfies both parties.
Now, how you bring on the plan is just as important as what you’re saying you should do. To communicate your plan, you can rely on the strategies we outlined since many involve how you express your concerns rather than what you say. The method with the solution is the “what” you can frame into the “how.”
4. Make sure everyone agrees
Now that the plan is on the table, ensure that the people participating in the conflict explicitly agree. This is not as in “be passive-aggressive and make sure everyone nods.” No — it’s about making sure that the path forward will work for most people, even those outside the conflict who are still impacted by the new decision. In the heat of the moment, sometimes you might take for granted that a certain person would be in, only to realize days later that they held out of the new path, thus bringing on… a new conflict.
Learning from conflict: Ways to avoid it in the future
Since conflict will probably happen, you can see conflict as a learning opportunity at work. Taking something positive from it is possible. You can always grab a lesson. After the conflict has transpired, you should take some time to reflect on what happened. These are some questions you can ask yourself:
- What could I have done differently?
- What could the other have done differently?
- How would things have gone down had the conflict been with a different superior?
- What lesson did I learn?
- How I'm going to manage conflict next time?
If you eventually leave the company, all of these questions will help you write a constructive review.
What if conflict keeps coming up with the same person?
If you continually find yourself in mild or severe conflict with the same person, then you should take specific measures. This is a slippery question because most people in this situation will blame their counterparts and say the solution would be to sack them out of the company. So let’s analyze this from an HR perspective only to then go back to what to do as a professional who’s snowed under conflict.
If two people who work together — even seldom — continually fight one another, they perhaps don't get along well, and they will never learn to coexist in the workplace. Fair enough. But this affects the company because the people might focus more on fighting or politics than on working.
Besides firing one or the two, what measures can a company take to avoid conflict from then on? One is to push for an async culture between the two workers. The two people will be expected to work together without even dabbling in small talk — they’ll just connect over email or pending Slack messages, taking friction to a minimum. Another way is to allocate decision-making to a third, more agreeable person. This is especially difficult if the two persons clashing are managers of their respective areas. The third way is to shift them to different projects, similar to hiding the dust under the rug. Even if all these solutions are considered here from an HR perspective, the truth is that any worker can request them to happen.
Now, as a professional, all these measures have a cost. You might end up somewhere you don’t like just because you’re running away from conflict. So consider them carefully before taking action.
Are some workplace conflicts impossible to solve?
Yes. Some workplace conflicts can’t be solved unless you oust the responsible person. A clear example of this would be discrimination. The bad part is that, if you’re a worker who’s suffering discrimination but still need a pay cheque, you might not have plenty of options to do something about it besides letting HR or the founding team handle the situation. It’s not like your counterpart will stop harassing you because you asked kindly. Discrimination or harassment are not in our category of “solvable conflicts,” because they’re held views more than healthy rows, and you should address them way less politically but just as smartly. And if such a wicked situation happens at your workplace, ensure to alert your colleagues about it through a review.
Understanding a company’s conflict history
It’s a good idea to rehearse conflict resolution strategies because a dispute will almost inevitably cross your paths. If you read an official statement about OpenAI in 2023, you’d probably believe that it was a heavenly company. However, anonymous (or instigated) employees have been expressing opposing views. That’s why the nature of conflicts within a certain company is so difficult to assess from the outside. It’s likely disputes will happen, of course, but, what’s the scale of them, and what’s the company record of dealing with these disputes?
You should reckon how important conflict resolution is for your professional path and understand how it will impact you. Company reviews are an excellent place to get a peek at company culture and at past mishaps. Conflict is not a bad word — it’s just another component of the workplace. However, how the people involved sort it out is essential to forecast. If you’ve put into practice any of these strategies, you can leave a review yourself and take advantage to explain how your resolution tactics helped you get ahead.
