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10 Conflict Resolution Strategies that Actually Work

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Conflict is a part of any work environment. It can’t be helped. When you have a group of people working under stress with different personalities, there’s bound to be a few problems.

That conflict exists is not the issue, but having an effective conflict resolution strategy to resolve that conflict if it begins to impact the business is crucial for any manager. While conflict can be a creative fuel that helps teams compete and work more productively, it can also easily blow up and bring everything to a dead stop.

But how do you defuse a situation that is lit by anger and other emotions that are not responsive to rational engagement? It’s not easy, but there are ways. Here are 10 conflict resolution strategies that can help you manage volatile team members.
how to resolve conflicts in the workplace
1. Define Acceptable Behavior

Before there is any hint of a conflict, you can reduce or even eliminate potential problems by setting a standard of behavior in the workplace. If you give the team the room to define what is and is not appropriate, they will.

However, as a manager it’s your responsibility to set the tone. You can do this by writing specific job descriptions, creating a framework for how discussions are run, noting the hierarchy and who is responsible for what, defining proper business practices, choosing which project management tools to use, helping with team building and leadership development, etc. The more you set the guidelines, the better the team can follow them.
2. Don’t Avoid Conflict

Depending on the type of person and manager you are, there are several ways you might respond to conflict in the workspace. For one, you could ignore it, and let the participants work it out among themselves. This is not always the worst approach. Teams must know how to collaborate, and conflict resolution is one of the tools they’ll need to do that.

However, if you’re avoiding dealing with conflict because it makes you uneasy or because you don’t want to reprimand someone, then that’s a misstep. Of course, it’s your job as manager to deal with such matters. You have the authority and should act when it is called for. Not to do so only gives the conflict legs on which to carry itself to a confrontation that will have an even worse impact on business.
3. Choose a Neutral Location

One of the first steps to diffuse any conflict is to change the environment. People are heated and that anger is often tied to a place. It sounds odd, but just removing the people from the room they’re fighting in will help put the conflict in perspective.

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