HOW TO HANDLE CONFLICT AT THE
WORKPLACE
·
When
you are faced with conflict at the workplace, your primal instinct kicks
in—fight or flight.
·
Running
away translates to denial that the issue exists and sidestepping the topic when
it comes up.
·
Fighting
involves an emotional outburst, needless aggression and fixing the blame.
·
There
is a third, professional, option that you can choose: pursuing your best
interests rationally.
·
Conflict
is best understood through three principles:
o
First,
that it is inevitable at work.
o
Second,
that you can never win a conflict.
o
Third,
you can stabilise and resolve disagreements while creating workable solutions.
·
A
clash simply indicates that people are concerned sufficiently about an issue to
disagree with each other, so accept it and proceed.
·
Pushing
for an outright victory escalates it to a war, where everyone gets hurt.
·
Workplace
fracas arises from structural or personal causes.
·
The
former includes sharing of scarce resources, guarding one’s area of
responsibility, and discrepancies in seniority and compensation.
·
Personal
causes include ego, competitiveness, jealousy, status, and gender stereotypes.
·
These
issues grow to full-blown clashes if either party has poor communication skills
or indulges in strong emotional reactions.
·
However,
you can master the art of conflict resolution.
1. Attitude
·
Each
conflict is an opportunity to grow, irrespective of how painful the
consequences.
·
Understanding
what works and what doesn’t is invaluable for all future disagreements.
·
So listen
well to learn and arrive at the best outcome in the current conflict.
·
This
will lead to a deeper understanding of the motives of the other person, which
will help you handle the issue better.
2. Approach
·
Choose
your battles wisely, as you cannot win or fight them all.
·
Stick
to those where the consequences matter to you.
·
In
all other disagreements, give way to preserve energy, relationships and peace
of mind.
·
Whether
you or a competitor gets a reserved parking slot is not as important as getting
the next big assignment.
·
Seek
to confront and address the issue as early as possible in its lifecycle.
·
Unless
there is a clear tactical advantage, procrastination or avoidance only serves
to increase the cost to your career and personal happiness.
·
Finally,
adopt an honest, open approach and plain communication.
·
Avoid
sarcastic comments or loud interaction, and ensure that you exude a positive
body language.
3. Action
·
Ask
for a meeting to discuss the issue.
·
If
the other person is willing, invite a mature, unbiased mediator, such as your
common boss.
·
During
the discussion, use neutral language shorn of judgmental tone and words, and focus
on ‘I’ over ‘you’.
·
Speak
about your issues and how you felt, not what the other person did.
·
Note
down the points on which there is no disagreement and use these as a foundation
to build the solution.
·
Acknowledge
actions where you were clearly wrong while accepting the other person’s
positive contribution, both past and present.
·
Your
actions will help release some stress and bring forth reciprocal statements.
·
Next,
make sure that both parties understand the price to be paid in terms of work
output and relationships if the conflict continues to escalate.
·
Then
try to generate various agreeable solutions.
·
Towards
the end of the meeting, request for an assurance from all parties on concrete
steps that each will take to reduce the level of conflict.
·
If
there is no consensus, seek a commitment for another meeting, and on the medium
of communication in the interim.
·
Each meeting
will increase the comfort and defuse the intensity of the conflict.