How to Successfully Resolve Office Conflict- Management Perspective

Bear in mind, conflict is inevitable in the workplace.  You can expect your employees to disagree with each other about something at some point.  Sometimes employees disagree simply because of a conflict of interest.  Some conflicts arise because of personality clashes. Others are caused by petty office gossip. And some occur as a result of a disagreement pertaining to work related issues. Whatever the reasons, conflicts can be resolved if managed properly and dealt with before they get out of control. If you fail to deal with conflict in a timely manner it can have a negative impact on your company.  But you should also keep in mind that sometimes conflict can bring about some positive results for your company.  For example, an individual may propose a fresh new idea that could contribute to the overall success of your business as a result of a conflicting idea with a co-worker.  Nevertheless, you must know how to resolve conflict in the workplace whenever it arises.  Here are steps that you can use to help resolve conflict in your company.

Step 1
PRIVATELY MEET WITH INDIVIDUALS INVOLVED
First, and foremost you should privately meet with those who are involved in conflict to find out what they are at odds about and explain how you want to help them bring about a peaceful resolution.  Meet in an area where you can be alone with them only as to avoid further aggravation from others and away from the area in which the conflict originated.  Once you locate an area to meet, you should allow both parties the opportunity to elaborate on what they feel is the reason for the conflict.

Step 2
ENCOURAGE COLLABORATION
You should encourage those individuals who are involved in conflict to work together to resolve their differences in an effort to avoid low morale and a noticeable decrease in productivity.  It will be rather difficult to achieve goals and objectives when employees are in serious conflict with each other.

Step 3
DISCOURAGE AVOIDANCE
Encourage those individuals who are involved in conflict to confront the issues even if they don’t want to.  Avoiding the issues will only contribute to the problem. The goal is to work on getting the problem solved, and it cannot get solved if they are avoiding each other.  Avoidance can also have a negative impact on productivity.

Step 4
ACT AS MEDIATOR
As the mediator, your role is to remain neutral.  Don’t take sides with either person involved.  Taking sides will only cause the conflict to escalate.  Also, someone will feel like a loser and the other will feel that they won.  You want to accomplish a win-win result.  However, you can offer advice on how they can work towards resolving the problem.  Example, perhaps you can have each make a list stating what they feel the problem is and then compare notes.  They might discover that the problem is not so difficult to resolve as perceived.  It could be something as simple as miscommunication.  You might want to also stress to them that it's okay to agree to disagree sometimes.

Step 5
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
At this point, those individuals involved will need to resolve their differences so that they can move forward.  It may not happen immediately but they will need to work towards a common goal.  Ask those individuals involved what they think would be the best possible solution to the problems that they are facing with each other. Suggest to them that they should put away negative perceptions and begin to look at things from a positive point of view. It’s imperative that each individual actively listen to the other in order to bring about a peaceful outcome. If they fail to come up with possible solutions, you will need to offer helpful solutions that will aid in resolving this conflict.   If you can succeed in resolving conflict among your workers, you will be recognized for your ability to resolve conflict in your workplace. Bear in mind that this is a skill that not every person in management has mastered.