5 Ways To Enable Your Team For Better Conflict Resolution

Conflicts are a part of every team, starting from differences in opinions to business values, conflicts can arise due to all kinds of reasons. While every conflict will not have a severe impact on the overall performance of your team, some can considerably damage the team internally.

This can result in diminished productivity, forced job hopping, absenteeism and poor health. When you sense a conflict between your team members, do not ignore it. These will come handy when you are approach conflict at your workplace as well.

1. Knowing When To Intervene

Intervening in matters that concern your team is important but only after a certain point. Resist constantly intervening in every matter that can be sorted independently. This will help inculcate a sense of ownership in your team and will encourage your team to resolve certain conflicts on their own. This does not mean that you do not have to keep a check on what is going on within your team(s).

2. Maintaining Healthy Competition

Conflicts can also occur when a person is constantly judged and compared with others. This might give rise to serious stress issues. To overcome this, always maintain healthy competition among your employees. Understand that every employee is different, has different capacity and is valuable to the organization in their own way. You can organise engaging workshops that help the employee develop their skills even further.

3. Ensure Team Bonding

Helping your employees' bond well with each other is one way to ensure a proper flow of communication. If your employees are well acquainted, they will be able to handle work pressure and conflicts much better. For this, you can organise team dinners and outings that will help the team bond with each other. To ensure that our employees engage socially, we often organise office outings together, quarterly parties and other casual events that create space for our team members to blend well outside work.

4. Bridging Communication Gaps

Clear communication is as important as enabling team members to know each other better. Communication gaps often affect employees and their relationship with others in the team. To effectively overcome this problem, you could even consider an open culture with a flat hierarchy. This working model gives room for better and effective communication between employees and helps managers bond with their team. A simple yet interesting concept shared by Elton Mayo – an Australian Psychologist, industrial researcher and organisational theorist. He said that people's performance at work performance depends on both their social relationships and job content. We often forget about one half of that equation, which is why it's crucial to build a balance between these two aspects.

5. Induce A Proper Stress Management Regime

A proper stress management regime is required to help the employees resolve conflicts. It is possible that many members are suffering from stress that is taking a toll on their overall health and work life. This stress is often due to personal problems, work-related issues or even due to conflicts within teams. Talk to your employees on a regular basis, appreciate the team as well as individual efforts whenever possible. Apart from this, you can also organise different types of clubs for your employees to bust stress. Playing sports, being part of the same reading club etc., help employees show more compassion and kindness to each other.

At the end of the day it is important to remember that conflicts, are inevitable. This is why enabling your team to handle them better can substantially reduce stress and aid camaraderie. The ability to resolve conflicts tactfully is after all essential for the growth of a business. Remember, the magic only happens when your teams are prepared to resolve conflicts wisely and swiftly.