Tips for Managers to Successfully Deal With Conflicts at Workplace The workplace is a pretty exciting place where you get to meet and interact with people belonging to diverse cultural backgrounds and get to learn a lot of things. Multinational companies and big organizations working across the globe have a diverse workforce and to manage the whole bunch of people managers have to toil a lot. The success and failure of an organization depend largely on the performance of individual teams and the managers guiding these teams. The delivery of work largely depends on the internal dynamics of a team and the managers are responsible to guide and keep a track of everything. Whenever you are working with a large group of people it is natural that there will be diverse opinions about everything as no two people will have a single reaction to the same event. Now, managing these diverse opinions and beliefs is a crucial task for managers who help the team in reaching a consensus. However, at times it is often seen that these diverse opinions and beliefs often lead to quarrels and conflicts between colleagues & teammates which adversely affects both the work and morale of everyone. Here in this article, we will discuss some tips that will help managers successfully handle workplace conflicts.
Pinpoint the Source of Conflict One of the first things that you should do whenever a conflict arises is to pinpoint the exact starting source of the problem. This is because if you are aware of the factors leading to the situation, then you can draw on effective strategies to deal with the problem. Resolving the conflict starts with identifying the source of the problem and as you are in a senior position things might reach your ear a bit late & when it is all blown up. Moreover, it will also help you in evolving a consensus among the different parties. You should ensure that all the information gathered by you is coming from both sides and you are having a form grasp of where it is leading in the future. When you have all the details, you can easily develop a mutual understanding between the warring sides.
Active Listening Now, most people don’t have this habit and are considered poor listeners. Whenever you listen patiently to all the things your coworkers have to say about the problem, half of your task regarding solving the problem is over. Listening patiently and actively will help you in detecting the source of all the troubles. You must get each of the warring sides to a private place and let them air all their grievances & perceptions regarding the problem. Now, you must allocate an equal amount of time to each of these sides so that they don’t feel you are biased against anyone. You should have a positive outlook and be polite yet assertive when the need arises. Besides that, you can set some prior rules that must be followed in the meeting. Listening to both sides patiently will help you in finding out the solutions.
Investigate Properly Investigation forms an important part of your problem-solving process and you must not hurry in solving the problem. You should take your time and thoroughly examine all the facets of the problem and then only you should work towards finding an amicable solution. Have a free and frank discussion with everyone involved and take into account their viewpoints whenever you are trying to build a consensus. Remember that problems involving a large number of people can only be solved by building a consensus where no one feels left out.
You can also ask them to gather at one place after you have heard them out individually and investigated all the matters thoroughly so that everyone participates in finding a solution.
Develop ways to find out the Common Goal The most important step in finding out the solution is getting all to agree on common goals. Your most important task is to bring everyone on the same page and ensure that the same problem doesn’t arise again. Being aware of the different stages of the conflict and varying viewpoints will help you evolve common goals. After carrying out the above steps you need to sit down with your team members and have clear communication with all of them in a confident & assertive manner. After agreeing to a common solution, you need to delegate responsibilities to each party and see to it that the solutions are implemented without any hindrances.
Finally The above-discussed factors are some of the steps that you need to take up as a manager to solve the dispute among your team members. Managers with good leadership qualities are sought-after by big organizations because of their troubleshooting skills.