Dealing With Differences
According to Mediate.com, workplace conflict causes 65 percent of performance problems and 50 percent of employee departures. Managers spend 1 to 3 days per week directly addressing conflict.
The Pittsburgh Business Times reports that conflict costs U.S. companies an estimated $36 billion a year, and results in low job satisfaction, poor performance, and poor customer service.
Management consultant Joan Lloyd wrote in her nationally syndicated column: “The drama of a full-blown workplace conflict can rival the best made-for-television movie. All eyes are glued to the episode of the day, instead of on the work at hand. The players become heroes and villains…. People behave in fairly predictable ways when circumstances create the right stage.”
Recognize Reality
No company is exempt. Employees come to work with different personality traits, values, agendas, and communication styles, and these differences cause disagreement and misunderstanding.
Recognize healthy versus unhealthy conflict. Healthy conflict occurs when individuals work toward the same goal. This approach allows differences to stimulate new ideas, sharpen strategies, raise productivity, and improve quality.
Unhealthy conflict involves unresolved struggle in which individuals try to secure an advantage over one another.
Respond Constructively
Do not let coworkers’ attitudes dictate your responses, and do not let disagreements become personal power struggles. Ask yourself how you can pursue team goals and demonstrate justice, honor, tolerance, and forgiveness.
Prepare yourself so that you can participate in planning meetings, and then do what you can to make the plan succeed, even if you think you have a better method.
Consider what you can learn from others, even if they approach you with hostility. Speak directly to the other person. Listen to his or her perspective, and then discuss how to proceed.
Clarify your areas of responsibility in order to avoid competing jurisdictions. If the issues at hand involve others, make sure you consider their thoughts and feelings, but do not discuss conflicts with anyone who is not part of the immediate problem or solution.
If necessary find out what mediation, arbitration, or reconciliation options can help you resolve negative conflict.
Treat your coworkers with civility and respect.
Written by Kristin Fahrenbruck Baumgartner