How do you manage conflicts within a team?

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Conflicts within a team are not uncommon, but where do they come from? Most often, conflict comes from misunderstandings, then from misunderstandings that turn into disagreements, then from disagreements that turn into conflicts. There can be conflicts of values, conflicts of territory, conflicts of interests, conflicts of points of view but in all cases, the common point is that a conflict is two people who do not accept two different points of view. We will look together at how, perhaps, first of all to avoid conflict and then, when there is a conflict, what are the different modalities to manage this conflict well and return to a cooperative scheme.

Try to avoid entering into the conflict so as not to have to manage it

First, let's look at how to avoid moving from facts to conflict. We could say that in the first stage, there is what is happening, there are the words that are used, there are the behaviors and the way in which people interpret them, hear them, or observe them. But we interpret everything we see and everything we hear.

Or we stay with the neutral interpretation: “I see that you think that, I think that. I see that it is different. Let's talk about it.”, and so we agree that we don't agree, or we agree that we see reality differently, and we don't even come to disagree, since we say to ourselves: “Well, that's interesting, we don't see reality in the same way. Let's talk about it.”.

Or we don't know how to do that and we say to ourselves: “We don't agree.”, even if the best thing is still to say to ourselves: “We don't have the same points of view, let's talk about it.”

But if we agree that we disagree, we can also say to ourselves: “Well, what do we agree on? What do we disagree on? And is there some misunderstanding? And what we notice is that often we say to ourselves, “What do we agree on? What do we disagree on? ”, this is already making a lot of progress and the discourse. This way we avoid getting into conflict, since we agree that we don't agree, we just need to adjust a few points to move forward.

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Resolving conflicts through team coaching

When it is unavoidable, recognize the conflict in order to better manage it

We arrive at a conflict when we do not agree to disagree, and when we remain tense about our positions, whether they are territorial positions, positions of values, positions of judgment... Positions whatever they are, and when instead of coming back down and saying: “Let's see what we have in common, let's see what we want to do together”, we came to a stuck situation, which is generally what we call conflict.

So, whether open or closed, conflict is the state of play of the fact that there is a blocked relationship, a blocked communication or in any case ineffective because of not knowing how to resolve a disagreement, a misunderstanding, an unsaid.

So the whole strategy is, when a conflict arises, start by naming it, say:

“We agree that now, there is a conflict, it is blocked, we can't talk to each other anymore, to understand each other, so what can we do? ”. Naming the conflict is already 50% of the way done.

Unfortunately, when there are people who say, “No, everything is fine,” it is going to be difficult to resolve this conflict because if there is denial, there is a desire not to move forward and to do nothing. It is more complicated, so we will have to use arguments to say: “We agree that this is what we want to do together, that there is something we need to move forward on, that there may be different points of view, etc.”

Once a conflict is recognized, how do you manage it to resolve it?

Once the conflict is recognized by those involved, there are several options for resolving it: there are losing strategies and winning strategies.

Losing strategies for dealing with conflict

There are four losing strategies: giving in, avoiding, imposing, or competing.

Give in

Giving in is saying, “OK, you're right.” In the short term, why not, if it is a small conflict that is not important for you and after all, the relationship is much more important than the subject, it is finally an interesting strategy. But most of the time, giving in doesn't help much, because in the end, you couldn't say what you were thinking, you weren't able to have constructive conversations, and in the end, it's likely that the subject didn't move forward between you.

Avoid

Avoiding is also not a very winning strategy, because avoiding conflict, again, does not allow the other person to hear what you have to say, does not allow either of them to have a positive confrontation. And finally, a certain number of unsaid things, misunderstandings, etc... accumulate under the carpet.

Impose

Imposing is simply saying: “We are in conflict, but you are going to do as I say to you like that, it will go faster.” This strategy is not necessarily interesting because it is about taking power and saying: “We are in conflict, but I am the one who decides.”, and this will only intensify what already exists if the person in front of you does not adopt the previous strategies.

Competing

Finally, the strategy of competing, that is to say, to want to win at all costs and to be in a battle of ideas where everyone starts to be right, prove wrong, etc.

Winning strategies for dealing with conflict

Besides, there are two strategies that are winning.

The first is to say to yourself : “We agree that we don't agree, now what can we do to move forward both of us or all three of us or all four of us? ”. The idea is to focus on the purpose of our conversation, of our life, of our team and to say to ourselves, “How do we discuss this? What do we do to resolve this conflict? ”.

The second is to take time to explore, much like Sherlock Holmes, everyone's points of view, like a universe. We can ask questions like, “What do you think? What is it that makes you feel uncomfortable? What makes you say that? What do you agree on”, to go back to what we were talking about before we got into a conflict.

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Conflict management is above all about being humble, saying to yourself: “My reality is not the reality of the other person, so I have to admit that people do not see things the way I do.” So, with humility, without trying to impose, I am going to explain how I see the world and I am going to listen to the other person in his way of seeing the world.

It is also a work on your ego, you have to put it aside and open the conversation. It's a lot of courage because you have to name the conflict, disagreement, or misunderstanding to move forward, rather than putting it under wraps, and a lot of people don't like conflict and admit they lack the courage to do it.

We hope that you will succeed in resolving conflicts intelligently, subtly and patiently. Not everyone is necessarily inclined to explain why they think differently than you do, but think of it as a true collaboration strategy that is essential for moving forward effectively as a team.

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