Conflict Resolution with Colleagues

One of the most stressful situations to face in the workplace is a conflict with a co-worker. Whether it’s a long-standing feud that you can’t even recall how it began or a recent spat that has made work tense and miserable for you, not getting along in a civil manner with colleagues is often painful.

You may wrestle with how to resolve the conflict. Or, maybe you consider not doing a thing – it wasn’t your fault, after all! The other person needs to apologize, you think.

But while you wage an internal debate about what to do, the situation may only get worse. Your conflict may make other colleagues feel as if they’re being forced to choose sides, or your boss may become irritated you can’t get along with others. The result is that an unresolved conflict can hurt your career, not to mention the tension that can bring on physical ailments such as headaches and sleepless nights.

Steps to Resolve Conflict with a Colleague

There are several steps you can take to try and resolve the conflict or at least keep it from wrecking your career. Consider:

Ø  Communicating like a grown up. No hiding behind email or texts. Emails and texts can be misinterpreted and certainly don’t convey sincerity or instill trust. Meet with the person privately in a face-to-face conversation.

Ø  Not expecting miracles.  Even if you get some issues out in the open, your negative feelings aren’t going to disappear overnight and that may be true for the other person as well. The old adage about time healing all wounds should be heeded – give yourself time to get past the experience.

Ø  Finding the value. You may believe the only thing you have gotten from the experience is an annoying eye tick, but conflict can help you grow. Take the time to consider what led to the conflict and the role you played. Is this kind of conflict something that has happened more than once? Could you take some steps to avoid it in the future by changing your behavior or strategy?

Ø  Keeping your perspective. From the time you were a child, conflict has been a part of your life whether you were fighting over a toy with a sibling or arguing with a parent about curfew. Any conflict at work is just that – another conflict. Don’t let it overwhelm your life so that you carry it with you and start arguing with family or friends.

Ø  Forgiving yourself. Sometimes you can’t let go of a conflict because you keep replaying it over and over in your mind, thinking of all the things you should have said or done. But you cannot change the past, so learn to forgive yourself and let go.

How to Stay Upbeat After a Conflict

Once you have gotten past the conflict, you may still find yourself struggling to remain upbeat or not be sucked back into another bad situation. If you’re looking to stay out of such struggles, try:

Ø  Avoiding the Debbie Downers. There are sometimes certain colleagues who are forever in a dismal place, and want others to join them. Limit your interactions with such people because their negativity can be just as contagious as the flu.

Ø  Starting a new pattern. Recent political ads often were negative, and you may have learned to avoid the candidate robo-calls or the hateful television ads. You can do the same now by avoiding the negative messages that others still like to spew. Try to get a daily dose of stories about people doing good works to help keep your view more positive.

Ø  Stepping carefully into social media conversations. It can be fun to connect with friends via Twitter or Facebook, but avoid snarky interactions with strangers. It can only make you feel isolated and negative when you engage in a tit-for-tat conversation about the breakup of Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber, for example.

Ø  Taking down time. Know your limits and when you need to turn off your cellphone or computer. Don’t push yourself so much that you’re headed for burnout. Instead, find something fun that you enjoy and consider that as important in your health routine as eating well and exercising.

How do I resolve conflict between colleagues?

There's no doubt that in any group setting, sooner or later , you will encounter conflict. As a director, manager or supervisor, mediating in conflict is a challenge akin to tightrope walking. But it's a challenge that comes with the territory.

So, what's the received wisdom in managing conflict successfully? How do you become the Henry Kissinger of HR? Here are our top tips.

• Spot conflict early on — If you think there's trouble brewing between your staff confront reality d on't just hope it will go away. An unresolved conflict will fester and could grow into something bigger.

• This of the wider issue - Always remember it's not just the antagonists who are affected. Everyone in their vicinity will be affected by the stress. Act fast before people choose sides and your team or organisation is divided.

• Create the environment - ‘Having it out' in the middle of the office will not work. Meeting behind closed doors allows everyone involved to have the chance to air and share their views in a calm and considered way. Before anyone says anything though, have them understand and agree that the sole purpose of the meeting is to resolve the conflict.

• Get together - Always meet the antagonists together. Allow each to summarise the situation from their viewpoint, without being interrupted. Reinforce the fact that this can only be resolved through discussion and negotiation.

• Be assertive — Don't be sympathetic or skirt around the issue. On the other hand, avoid taking an aggressive tone. Listen with empathy and objectivity. Make it clear you will not take sides.

• Get the facts - Ask questions to clarify and understand exactly where the underlying problem is. Identify the major issues concisely and state how you see this affecting individual performance, disrupting customer care and damaging client relations. Focus exclusively on work issues and leave individual personalities aside.

• Agree the problem together - Build consensus on your assessment of the problem before searching for a solution. Look for common ground between antagonists. Your clarification alone may end the conflict at this point . If not, it is vital you agree on a common perception of the issue.

• Personality vs. process - It may become clear the conflict has arisen more as a tension between conflicting personalities, rather than because of a specific work issue. Make it very clear; while i t is reasonable to disagree over work issues, it is unprofessional and unacceptable to allow personality conflicts to affect the workplace. A useful exercise to elicit further understanding and resolution is to ask each party to identify what the other employee can stop, start, do more, or do less of.

• Explore potential solutions - Identify and discuss potential resolutions. I f one party feels they've won, the other may still remain disgruntled, so concentrate your efforts on building a solution positive to both. Insist that both sides input in solution generation and e nsure each suggests what he or she personally might do to resolve the conflict.

• Agree a solution — Once the potential solutions have been discussed, decide on the solution that best meets the needs of both parties and your organisation. Write this up, with agreed-upon actions clearly stated. Decide on how you will collectively measure success. Monitor progress regularly and positively reinforce success with verbal praise.