Conflict between a manager and employee is inevitable in just about any type of business situation. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Handled correctly, conflict can benefit individuals and organizations by producing stronger, more resilient working relationships, improving creative output and generating innovative solutions. But handled incorrectly, conflict can act as a negative force that undermines an organization's efforts.

Conflict management is thus essential to effective management and organizational success. What are the best ways to manage conflict? In this series of articles, I'll present various conflict scenarios and discuss the approaches to handling each one.

Problem-Solving Approach

Many of us engage in everyday behaviors that serve to both prevent and resolve conflicts. Such avoiding, accommodating and compromising behaviors are a natural conflict management mechanism and in many cases do the job effectively. But they're not always enough. In many cases, it takes a conscious and deliberate effort to forge creative, lasting resolutions.

This type of effort is what I refer to as a problem-solving approach. It's also a "win/win" approach because it seeks input from all sides and everyone gains or "wins" something. Problem solving is, I believe, the key to managing conflict and maintaining good working relationships.

Why Doesn't Everyone Use the Problem-Solving Approach?

Using a problem-solving approach involves confronting issues. This presupposes seeing conflict as a constructive force. This is why the problem-solving approach is not universally applied. Those who fear conflict - and many do - want not to resolve conflicts but avoid them altogether. Thus, the fear of conflict ultimately impedes its resolution and the achievement of its positive potential.

Luckily, the fear of conflict can be overcome. Often times, it's due merely to the individual's lack of experience. As managers gain experience, they can develop conflict resolution skills. Moreover, managers must overcome their fear of conflict to become better managers. That's because the skills they develop in confronting conflict are tools to resolve conflicts with their staff, other managers and outside clients and vendors. They can also teach these skills to others.

The 2 Types of Conflict

All conflicts are not the same. It is critical for managers to be able to differentiate between two types of conflict with which they might be involved: unnecessary conflict and resolvable conflict. Let's first take a quick look at each one. Then I will address each type of conflict separately.

Unnecessary conflict occurs when individuals have differing perceptions, lack information or harbor hostile feelings. Such conflict can arise unexpectedly, cause disagreements and build up into a full-blown personal hostility if signs are not noticed early enough.

Resolvable conflict occurs when two individuals' viewpoints on an issue initially seem as opposing fixed positions but are actually based on different needs, goals, values or interests which first need to be understood and then worked out to their mutual satisfaction.

Unnecessary Conflict - Cause

Unnecessary conflict occurs most often when individuals feel that their personal agendas are not being addressed by another individual. Unnecessary conflict can be the result of:

• Strong negative feelings such as anxiety, stress or anger;
• Unclear communication such as misunderstandings or a lack of information; and/or
• Disagreements resulting from differing perceptions and attitudes such as prejudice,resistance to change or a bias toward "the way things have always been done."

Unnecessary conflict tends to escalate needlessly especially when a manager inadvertently causes the conflict or adds to it. At times, managers don't even have the control to resolve these conflicts, which can be caused by organizational constraints.

Unnecessary Conflict - Resolution

To prevent, reduce or resolve unnecessary conflicts, managers must:

• Defuse the emotion and prevent the conflict from building;
• Identify the cause of the conflict;
• Decide whether to intervene; and
• Determine how to otherwise improve the situation.

10 Tips for Managing Unnecessary Conflict

These 10 tips can help you handle unnecessary conflicts, thus saving your time and energy for resolvable conflicts.

1. Confront difficult issues early on. Intervening when it's too late to resolve the issue only builds bad feelings and resentment.

2. Don't promote conflict by causing defensiveness or counterattacks. People tend to become defensive when you order, judge, name-call, threaten, condescend, show impatience or use a tone of voice that communicates intense dissatisfaction.

3. Observe nonverbal signals that people are upset or overwhelmed. Examples: Deep sighs, tense shoulders, lack of eye contact and sarcasm.

4. Don't exaggerate or use "hot button" words and phrases, such as "always," "constantly," "never," "I hate it when you . . ." and "it's useless." Use words and phrases that understate such as "often," "usually," "sometimes," "I'm uncomfortable when you . . ." and "It's not productive."

5. Treat people with respect. Give people the benefit of the doubt and allow them to save face. People often justify their actions or blame others because they aren't given the benefit of the doubt.

6. Avoid arguments. Don't argue with or take people's comments personally; briefly acknowledge their comments or needs, then direct the discussion toward productive action or agreement.

7. Actively listen to people who express strong concerns or complaints.

8. Avoid the temptation to "fix" or take on the problem as your own. Just by listening, you can help defuse strong emotions and help solve a minor problem that could develop into an escalating conflict.

9. Assert your needs and explain the impact of others' actions. Use "I Statements" to prevent tensions from building and causing unnecessary conflict. Consider this example: "I'll be working on the monthly report for the next couple hours, so I'd appreciate if you'd only interrupt me for emergencies or, better yet, go to each other for help first. Will that work for you?"

10. Release your own tension regularly, and gain support for your needs. Don't fuel conflicts with your own stress. Exercising, venting to a friend or deep breathing can help managers prevent, reduce and control conflict. If you discharge your own negative emotions regularly, you can be mentally ready to listen and communicate about tough issues.

Conclusion

In Part 2, we'll look at three separate scenarios of unnecessary conflict. We'll look at a weak and ineffective handling technique, followed by a stronger and more effective technique.

MEMBER REPLY
Measuring Attitude

I just wanted to add to that Safety Attitudes article by Jim Montanaro in last week's issue of SafetyXChange, that including a section on safety in employee appraisals (forms) is also a good way to incorporate safety and allows you to appraise employees attitudes towards safety programs as part of their annual review.

Robert G. Scheuerlein, CPEA, CIEC
Commercial Occupational Safety & Health

TRAINING BLOOPERS
April Is the Cruellest Month

I worked for a company with a pretty abysmal safety record. One year, we were starting off going gangbusters - no recordables and it was already April!!  We were doing HAZWOPER* and ISO training in a local hotel (it was a nice treat for the guys to get out of the plant and the plant manager thought it'd be good for morale). During one of the breaks an employee tripped over a chair leg and sprained his ankle. Recordable.

Two weeks later an employee got bitten by a raccoon while moving an empty (or we thought it was!) drum. Recordable.

A little after that, an employee got stung by a wasp and went into anaphylactic shock. You guessed it  - another recordable.

Fortunately our string of bad luck ended there that year.

Name withheld by request

* Editor's Note: For those of you not familiar with the term, "HAZWOPER" is short for the OSHA Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response standard.

What's the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you during a training session? Send your bloopers or blunders to catherinej@bongarde.com. Don't worry - we won't use your name unless you say we can.

Story Tools:  E-mail this to a friend  Print This Post Top