Very few managers walk into a role with 100% of the skills needed to be effective. You might get training on how to conduct a performance review or hold an absence discussion. You might also get a guide on how to approve a leave request. Yet, support on managing conflict and learning how your behaviours can influence your team’s response seem to be regularly missed.
Perhaps you don’t have anything to learn about conflict. You’ve never had a crossed word or rolled your eyes at someone’s ‘absurd’ suggestion. You’ve never muttered anything under your breath or avoided a situation and then wished you’d handled it differently when it came back to bite you later. Except you have. Everyone has. Conflict situations are an everyday occurrence, so learning how to manage conflict effectively is an essential skill for a manager.
The more you understand your own behaviours and responses, the better you can see their impact on the situations and the people around you. So, let’s focus on how to make conflict a healthy experience, where you can encourage your teams to discuss concerns and reach amicable agreements regularly.
Recognising what conflict is
Before you can learn how to manage conflict, you first need to recognise what it is. Workplace conflict comes in all different forms – from reaching agreement on how to tackle a project and when key milestones need to be hit, right through to managing personality clashes or addressing inappropriate behaviour such as bullying or harassment.
As you think about these examples, you’ll realise conflict is part of everyday life. It’s inevitable and your role isn’t to remove it. However, how you choose to manage those situations has a huge impact on their outcome. Think about it – do you calm things down or inadvertently make them worse?
The benefits of managing conflict effectively
Everyone knows what happens when workplace conflict gets out of control – doors slam, words get shouted (or emailed), awkward atmospheres and strained conversations appear and,ultimately, the grievance and potential Employment Tribunal aren’t far behind.
Yet what happens when you get it right? What’s the benefit of developing your own conflict management skills?
Communication improves – when you spot an issue early on, you can encourage people to talk it through. After a while, they start to spot their own triggers, and learn how to change their approach. Everyone begins to feel comfortable asking the difficult questions and working them through together, because they know they aren’t being judged and they recognise there are different perceptions at play.
Team morale increases – have you ever noticed how people feel better when they’re listened to and involved in finding solutions? Managing conflict helps individuals to have their say. When you develop active listening skills, you aren’t just jumping to your next point, you’re taking the time to hear the issues and respond to them specifically. People feel more valued, and feel better about being in your team
Challenges reduce – when communication improves and people feel valued, the number of challenges you experience will reduce. Many of the minor issues get resolved without needing your involvement leaving you more time to focus on the potentially large issues coming down the track. When you have time to look for these, you can take proactive steps to manage them, and your actions can help defuse the situation before it escalates.
How does conflict coaching help?
If you’ve ever experienced coaching before, you’ll know the focus is on looking objectively at a situation and seeking tools and techniques to help you manage it differently in the future. Conflict coaching does the same, it’s just specifically focused on your natural reaction in conflict scenarios. It provides greater self-awareness to help you consciously choose constructive behaviours, rather than allowing your emotions to subconsciously control you.
As a manager, you may find it easy to have a difficult conversation with a team member, but what happens when you disagree with a senior leader’s proposal, or a large client comes to you with a complaint? Perhaps you’re fine with performance discussions, but you find managing long term ill health absence more challenging.
Conflict coaching develops your skills and knowledge of how to navigate conflict situations and encourages you to have courageous conversations even when you’re a long way from your comfort zone. It allows you to set personal goals related specifically to conflict issues where you struggle to get involved, find it difficult to express yourself in a helpful manner, or where your reaction typically makes things worse not better.
By getting to know your conflict profile, you can build self-awareness about how you typically approach a situation, and when it’s helpful to adopt a different style. It also gives you tools to recognise your own triggers and move from unhealthy, antagonistic conflict, to healthy, collaborative techniques which support open and honest communication and (hopefully) lead to resolution.
Getting better at managing conflict
By recognising you’d benefit from some support, you’ve already taken the first step. The next stage is to find a conflict coach who can help you.
With over 20 years of experience managing conflict, and supporting grievances, investigations and numerous other challenging situations, Debbie, The HR Detective, is a certified practitioner for the Conflict Dynamic Profile. She can provide conflict coaching tailored to your needs.
You might need one-to-one support, or a group session to improve team communication across the business. Whichever it is, call the HR Detective Hotline today to chat through your requirements and see how conflict coaching could help you. 01278 802329 or email debbie@thehrdetective.co.uk
