The first thing you need to know about conflict is that it is a completely normal phenomenon in a team and, under certain conditions of conflict, it can have a positive meaning. Both new team members or business partners, as well as established relationships between employees, pass through it.
In the first case, a successfully completed conflict contributes to the development of trusting relationships. In the second case, it helps to express the accumulated misunderstanding, which means it also allows you to restore relationships in the team and leads to improved teamwork, the development of new ideas and methods, and also improves quality decisions made.
To do this, it is important to remember that conflict is an emotional stage, and its solution must be in the realm of rationality. Therefore, when resolving a conflict, we always begin to act according to algorithms in order to get out of emotions.
And one more important point in working with conflicts: we always transform it from negative – as it should not be, to positive – as we want it to be.
Let’s look at typical conflicts in business and figure out how to act correctly and professionally so that disagreements do not destroy the team and business relationships, but, on the contrary, make them even stronger.
Owner and General Director
Often disagreements in this case occur against the backdrop of the owner’s distrust of the manager or insufficient awareness of one’s role on one side or another.
Let’s assume that the business owner and the CEO disagree about company development strategy. The owner may be looking to maximize profits in the short term, while the CEO may be pursuing a longer-term strategy that includes investing in innovation, expanding product lines, and finding new markets.
The business owner may begin to put pressure on the CEO for faster, more short-term results. The manager in this case may feel pressure on his professional decisions and sooner or later quit.
To avoid conflict, the business owner and general director must necessarily distribute their roles and areas of responsibility not verbally, but write them down. It is also necessary to meet once every two weeks (no more often, the General Director should feel that he is trusted and not checked) and agree on their positions on major issues, thus not provoking the emergence of possible discontent and misunderstanding.
Manager and employee
The initiator of the conflict can be either a superior or a subordinate. A line employee most often goes into conflict due to dissatisfaction with pay, unfavorable conditions, discrepancy between rights and responsibilities, and inconvenient schedule. A manager most often initiates a conflict due to dissatisfaction with the results of an employee’s work. Therefore, at the start, it is very important to determine what is the goal of interaction between a manager and a subordinate – the goal of the company as a community of people. And maintain conditions under which all employees will remember this goal.
In this situation, it is necessary for the manager to clearly state at the start what expectations he has from his subordinates, to define clear criteria for which the employee can receive a reprimand or encouragement. And the main thing is that the leader always supports these obligations and applies them to everyone equally and openly. Transparency of reward and punishment conditions is one of the most important systems for reducing conflict in a team.
Since the manager and subordinate are in an unequal position, the main responsibility for work conflict lies with the boss. Therefore, if disagreements have already occurred, the manager needs to take control of the situation and discuss the incident with the team. Or, if a conflict arose with one employee, discuss the situation with him personally, translating emotions into logic. For example, discuss how each party sees the optimal solution for them. And based on this information, we will jointly consider options for implementing these solutions.
However, the employee has the right to independently initiate discussions on certain issues if misunderstandings arise. He can negotiate “on the shore” with a potential boss or discuss issues in advance with the current manager.
Employees among themselves
To avoid conflict, the leader must monitor the situation in the team, and most importantly, clearly state the duties and responsibilities of each team member.
If a conflict occurs, then again the leader acts as a moderator, using an algorithm to find out what each side sees as the optimal solution to this situation, and the parties jointly look for ways to implement this solution.
Between departments or branches
Instead, a competitive spirit should be developed within the company to motivate departments to achieve better results instead of waging war against each other. This will allow employees to feel more motivated and interested in their work, without anyone losing out.
If a conflict occurs, then also openly discuss which solution option each department and branch sees, and jointly decide how to implement this in practice. Involve employees from different departments in key processes of the company. Organize collaborative discussions, strategy sessions, and weekly leadership meetings.
Conflict dismissals due to innovations in the company, changes in working conditions and wages
To avoid this, the manager must clearly, in detail and openly explain what is happening in the company, why these changes are necessary and how they will affect each employee. During the change, the manager must hold general meetings with subordinates at least once a week. Even short planning meetings will allow the manager to receive timely feedback “from the field” in order to make the necessary changes to the business transformation plan.
If there is a conflictual dismissal, the manager must determine for himself how valuable this employee is to the team and the company as a whole. If there is no reason to retain an employee, then this is an excellent chance to “cleanse” the team.
If the employee is valuable, the manager needs to talk openly with him, find out the reasons for the dismissal and discuss possible options for changing work processes in new conditions. It is important that the employee decide for himself whether he is ready to work under new conditions. Even if an employee decides to leave the company, this will not be considered a conflictual dismissal, which means it will be possible to avoid negativity from the entire team regarding this situation.
