April 15, 2008

Conflict Resolution at Workplace

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Are you having a conflict at workplace?, get know how to identify the conflict and certain approaches you should take to conflict resolution. Many of executive or manager's time is spent in resolving people problems: disputes, differences, criticisms, unhappiness raised by workers against co-workers.

A conflict often means somebody thinks they are getting taken advantage of. Just like a two kids who argue endlessly over who's piece of pie is bigger the bottom line is often really how bit the pie is, but who's getting an unfair advantage and who's getting the short end of the stick.

Ideally, organizations would have liked a Collaborative and Cooperative office environment. Some employers go to the extent of including such criteria in their staff's appraisal, although others might subtly work this into their definition of a team player.

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD at http://www.medicinenet.com/ says, “Misunderstandings and communication problems remain one of the most common sources of workplace strife, and interpersonal difficulties are magnified when conflicting work styles coexist in one setting. Generational differences (baby boomers vs. GenX-ers), personal management styles, educational background, and cultural diversity are all potential sources of office misunderstandings”.

When the going gets tough, your coworkers can be the first to get on your last nerve. Whether it's due to on-the-job pressures, stress at home, familiarity or just proximity, when you're feeling hot under the collar, it's often your coworkers who wind up feeling the heat -- whether they actually deserve it or not. So the next time you're ready to explode because your cube neighbor did something that irritates you yet again, let these tips from business-harmony experts help you make peace rather than war written” by Beverly West at Career advice Monster.


Get Know and Understand “How—and—why—the—conflict—arisen”

It is important to understand the cause of the conflict in order to adequately resolve it. Some of the usual causes of conflict situations in office are:

[1]. Facilities & Office Supplies Support

This can range from lack of stationery supplies to slow machines to sharing of workstations. These are not difficult issues and can be easily managed.

[2]. Incentives & Rewards

This is another major source of conflict. Employees often compare the rewards they receive and inevitably think that they have put in more efforts than the colleagues next to them and deserve better rewards.

[3]. Staffing Circumstances

Staff wages and office rent are often the leading cost components of any business. Today's staff are expected to multi-task, work long hours and handle increased work olumes. In a stressful workplace like this, any unintended but ffensive remark may trigger violent reactions from the other party.

[4]. Competitions & Rivalries

Empowerment is a good thing but authority has to be clearly defined. Try having two deputy CEOs perform overlapping functions and you will soon find both stabbing at each other's backs.

[5]. Works Distributions

Bosses are often faced with a dilemma on who to delegate a job to. We know that overloading an efficient worker may eventually lead to his burnout. In spite of this, bosses continue to assign more work to our good workers and risk their unhappiness.

[6]. Personality Clashes

With increasing reliance on foreign talents, and employees coming from diverse backgrounds and cultures, conflicts are unavoidable.


Approaches to Conflict Resolution

If you're management, do it yourself, don’t delegate. Nothing is easier than delegating inter-worker conflicts off to one of the workers. Wrong move. If they are bad at it, the problem will stay or get worse. If they are good at it, you've undermined your own credibility. Face the issue and deal with it.

And here are some general considerable approaches you can take:

[1]. Non-confrontational: Ignore and forget

Many choose to be non-confrontational. When faced with an unpleasant situation, they would rather ignore and pretend that they were not part of it. In situations caused by misunderstandings or sudden flare of temper, withdrawing rather than confronting may be a wise approach. However, where one party is always aggressive and unreasonable, walking away is perceived by people as lacking courage and dignity. This is avoiding a problem, not resolving it.

[2]. Be Assertive

The other end of the spectrum is to be assertive and insist on your stand. This may sometimes work when the need to take charge of the situation far outweighs the need for good human relations. Hence, in many industrial strikes where workers demand higher pay and better benefits, you may find the management taking aggressive steps like issuing threats and ultimatums. If the management turns soft, it is likely to see repeats of the demands and may eventually be at the mercy of the workers. Where relationships are important, let the parties know your position on the matter with clear statements.

[3]. Win-win Resolution

In a conflict situation, viewing each other as enemies will always lead to heightened emotions like anger. We should look at it as a problem that has surfaced, hear each other's needs, and work together as partners, instead of adversaries, to arrive at a win-win outcome. If the needs had been discussed, both can have exactly what they want.

[4]. Actively Listening

In relation with a potential conflict with any customers, when a customer comes to you with complaints and seems extremely emotional about an issue, the job of a good customer relations officer is to listen and defuse the tension. The mistake that many officers make is to take on a defensive stance and launch into textbook statements of how glorious the company's track records are. This only infuriates a customer who is not bothered about the history. Listen and understand their emotions. The louder they shout, the more they want to be heard, so acknowledge their problem and empathize with them. At the appropriate part of the conversation, let them know a little about your position or the company's policies. Try not to propose a solution, but lead the customer to suggest a solution and state what he wants. Take positive steps and always keep the customer informed about what happens next.

[5]. Creative Solutions

Think of conflicts as presenting a challenge, an opportunity for you to do something creative and think out of the box. To give an example, a staff may insist in having his workstation relocated and the boss denies his request, citing space constraints. If the boss had probed, he would learn that the staff is unhappy because the workstation faces a washroom. What both parties should do is to put on their thinking caps. Perhaps they could realign the door of the workstation to face another direction, or shift the position of the desk and chair.


Bring It Up to an Official Mediator

Sometimes there is an irreconcilable clash of interests or positions. In the case that you could not get any resolution by yourself, you may bring it to the desk of an official mediator.

If you go this way, you should know that a facilitated dialogue is a face-to-face discussion between the disputing parties with a third-party neutral facilitator. Usually the facilitator asks the employee raising the issue to explain the issue from his/her perspective. Other employees are then invited to participate. Each participant has the opportunity to ask questions for information. The facilitator may ask questions. All participants are involved in discussions to identify their respective interests, brainstorm possible options for resolutions, and evaluate the options against the interests to reach accords.


For The Employee

If you are an employee, Beverly West written a good tips at Career advice, go read on:

Rethink Conflict
Rather than throwing down the gauntlet next time you find yourself in coworker conflict, try to start a calm, productive dialogue, where you can collectively arrive at a situation that satisfies both parties. This way, you both come out winners.

Address the Underlying Problem, Not the Latest Symptom
The fact that the gal in the next cubicle just took another personal call when you need to meet with her is probably not really why you're so steamed. True, this is less than considerate, and if it's a repeated pattern, you may want to discuss it with her. However, it's rare one irritating act is the true source of conflict.

Exercise Emotional Intelligence
These three applications of emotional intelligence can be helpful in productively resolving office conflict:

[a]. Air Grievances Sensitively: Think about the effect your criticism will have on its recipient. If your words suggest the person is dim-witted, lazy or inconsiderate, you will get defensiveness and resentment in response. Talk to your coworker the way you would want to be spoken to, and aim for resolution, not revenge.

[b]. Consider Others' Working Styles: Try not to get irritated just because somebody's approach is different than yours.

[c]. Learn to Negotiate Effectively: Focus on the desired outcome of a conversation with your coworker, and strategize the best possible way to achieve your result.

Manage Your Stress
the best way to avoid office drama is to refuse to engage in it. Nobody can cook up a full-scale conflict alone. If you can maintain a clear head, a good perspective on the issues, a sense of self-awareness and some compassion for your coworkers, you really can work in peace.

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