Conflicts at work: causes and ways to resolve them

Problems in relationships with colleagues

It’s so good when you have the opportunity to work in a friendly team, where they will definitely help and support you, and will advise you if an employee has doubts about something.

In such an organization, employees are not just colleagues, but also friends, and you go to work with pleasure. This was the case before, but now have you noticed the emergence of incomprehensible tension between colleagues, and the manager’s attitude towards employees has become somehow strained?

First, you just need to observe, and then decide what needs to be done to change the unpleasant situation.

What is conflict behavior

Conflict is a clash between people due to differences in views, interests, goals, perceptions that arise in the process of social interaction. Simply put, a situation where several people or groups have different views and cannot come to an agreement.

Conflict behavior is the manifestation in emotions, conversation and actions of a negative reaction to a conflict situation. This behavior is a consequence of conflict.

Conflicts do not arise out of the blue; from root causes to resolution, they go through as many as 5 phases:

1. The prelude to conflict includes all the factors due to which conflict may arise. Lack of mutual understanding, differences in interests, culture, religion, education - all this contributes to the emergence of conflict.
2. Triggering event. Conflict does not arise by itself. There must be an event that provokes it.
3. The initiation phase is actually the period when the conflict has already begun. Inflexibility in opinion, verbal disagreements - all these are warning signals indicating that the conflict has already begun.
4. The differentiation phase begins when people express their grievances and show dissatisfaction to each other. At this stage, the causes of the conflict are raised.
5. Resolution phase. People should try to compromise and resolve the conflict. At this stage, various options for resolving the conflict are considered.

Negative communication with colleagues

You suddenly noticed that all office conversations, letters and other means of direct communication with colleagues have a purely negative attitude and complete reproach, and there are no constructive recommendations or basic approval at all - this is a clear sign of a truly unhealthy relationship. And the very first thing you must do is to immediately stop any attempts to communicate with you in such a manner.

Constant negativity and reproach can destroy any positive motivation to work. The sooner you can explain to your colleagues that you do not intend to continue communicating in this manner and will not tolerate such treatment, the faster such communications will return to normal business communication.

There is another interesting way to emerge victorious from the current situation: influence your colleagues “with your endless kindness.” This product is truly capable of qualitatively extinguishing any negativity.

Causes of conflict behavior

• Difference of opinion. It is a conflict between the ability to narrow down the number of possible solutions to a problem by applying logic and knowledge and thinking outward.

• Position. This is a situation where the wrong person is promoted.

• Inconsistency. The employee is required to engage in activities that do not meet his needs or interests.

• Incompatibility. Someone adheres to goals and views that do not correspond to the worldview of another and exclude the satisfaction of his professional needs and desires.

• Economy. Insufficient employee benefits.

• Stress. Conflicts from stress from external sources.

• Poor or inadequate organizational structure and lack of teamwork.

• Power. Often a conflict for power occurs when several people apply for a leadership position.

• Weak leadership. Conflict is inevitable when someone supervises a more qualified and experienced employee.

• Arbitrary interpretation and application of rules and policies. Lack of transparency and openness causes dissatisfaction among employees.

Why is it important to be able to resolve conflicts in the workplace?

Conflicts in the workplace negatively affect team relationships, productivity, and take away time and energy that can be spent on more important things.

When employees are involved in conflict, they tend to lose concentration and have poor focus on work. They put all their energy into fighting each other, and as a result, the goals of the organization remain unprioritized.

Conflicts also lead to disrespect and unnecessary tension in the team. When employees talk badly about each other, it disrupts the positive atmosphere within the organization and prevents everyone from working.

Regardless of the types of conflicts in the workplace, ignoring them and hoping they will go away can be costly to a company.

Consequences of work conflicts for leaders:

• Spent time listening to people's complaints
• Lost productivity as people spend more time worrying about conflict than focusing on organizational goals
• Truancy
• Staff turnover

If you are involved in conflict, you are likely to feel dissatisfied, frustrated, and resentful. Unfortunately, as a rule, most people are not able to leave these feelings at work, so their loved ones also suffer from conflict situations.

In any business there will be employees who don't get along from time to time. Due to differences in their personalities, lifestyles, opinions or some other factors, sometimes employees simply cannot work as a team. And when there is disagreement in the workplace, it affects everyone.

Managing conflict among employees constructively can lead to healthy competition, process improvement, innovation, and increased creativity.

Some colleagues are too selfish

In any team there are employees who do everything only the way they want it, and only for themselves. First, they tearfully ask you for help on some project, assure that only you, with your knowledge, competence and professionalism, can cope with this impossible task, and then they simply forget about your existence, demonstrating with all their appearance that all the merits are theirs alone , and you don’t even get the most basic human gratitude.

If at first a person is overcome by bewilderment and indignation, then their place is taken by a bitter feeling of resentment, which grows and strengthens over time, and this already becomes quite a serious problem, because the team is literally shaken, and most projects fail.

In such a situation, you need to immediately put such a selfish colleague in his place and let him understand that any help can only be on a “win-win” basis. If the team overcomes this unhealthy selfish dynamic, then it will become truly successful.

Types of conflicts

Interdependence Conflicts

These types of conflicts occur when one employee's work depends on the work of another. For example, if the salesperson is always late entering monthly sales data, the accountant is always late with the reports.

Interdependence conflicts can be easily overcome if:

• Employees are well versed in delegation skills
• Able to conduct complex negotiations and come to agreements
• Missing deadlines comes with consequences

Conflicts based on interdependence arise due to work reasons. Simply put, employees fight not because they do not share each other’s ideas, but because one lets the other down.

Different approaches

Such conflicts often occur because employees have different views on how to achieve a goal. For example, one employee wants to complete work quickly (task-oriented) and move on to the next task as quickly as possible. While the other is more concerned about tailoring the product to the client and taking their opinion into account in the process (people-oriented).

Different approaches to completing tasks can be beneficial to a team's performance, so it is important to find compromises and use differences to benefit rather than harm.

Different management styles

Leaders lead their teams differently. Team members who have to deal with different leaders throughout the day can become confused and irritated by different leadership styles. For example, one leader may be more open, while another is strict and requires strict subordination.

To avoid these types of conflicts, make sure that the company's leaders have the same values ​​and views on basic management issues. Leaders must be consistent in decisions, respect subordinates and remain humane. An autocratic leader can lead to decreased employee engagement and satisfaction.

Personality conflicts

Personality clashes are the leading cause of conflict in the workplace. These types of conflicts arise from emotions and beliefs about someone's motives and character. For example, a team leader criticizes someone for being late because he thinks the team member is lazy and disrespectful. A team member sees the team leader as an unfair and biased person.

You can cope with personal conflicts only by looking at the situation from a different angle, from the side of another participant in the conflict. Most people in such situations shift responsibility onto others, but do not see that they themselves are partly to blame. In personality conflicts, most often, both sides are unfair to each other.

Test for working through personal conflict

1. Think about the conflict you currently have. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle.
2. In one column, write down everything that doesn't suit you. All the feelings, thoughts, judgments, labels, conclusions that come to mind.
3. In another column, write down all the real facts. Facts are observable, objective, concrete actions and information.
4. Then write down how your reactions or actions might have affected the situation.

To distinguish between facts and personal judgments, use a simple example: a blue sky is a fact, a beautiful colored sky is a personal judgment.

As you review the list, you may find that your claims are not supported by the facts. That you have made many assumptions and interpretations about what another person's behavior might mean, but not the fact of what it means. This exercise is designed to help you become more objective in your current situation.

Styles of conflict

In order to understand how to resolve a particular conflict, you need to have an understanding of conflict styles.

• Competition is a style that places one's own needs above the needs of others. He relies on an aggressive communication style. Those who use a competitive style seek to control the discussion. They fear that losing control will lead to decisions that do not meet their needs. Competition, as a rule, leads to retaliatory measures, aggravation of the situation and increased tension in the team.

• Accommodation, also known as smoothing, is the opposite of competition. People who use this style defer to others while trying to be diplomatic. They tend to allow the group's desires to suppress their own, which are rarely discussed at all because maintaining the relationship is a priority.

• Avoidance is a common reaction to a negative attitude towards conflict in general. Conflict avoiders think that if they don't bring up the issue, things will go away on their own. But, as a rule, feelings are suppressed, opinions remain unexpressed, and the conflict grows until it can no longer be ignored. Because grievances remain unexpressed and relationships inevitably deteriorate, the other party often does not even understand what happened.

• Compromise is an approach to conflict in which people discuss their desires and reach an agreement. Although compromise is the best solution, it is usually unsatisfying. Each side is still committed to its own views and does not always understand the other side well enough.

• Collaboration is the coming together of individual needs and goals to achieve a common goal. Often referred to as win-win problem solving, collaboration requires communication to achieve an optimal solution. Collaboration provides the opportunity to reach consensus, integrate needs, and potentially exceed the capacity budget that previously limited conflict.

By understanding each style and its consequences, you are more likely to resolve conflict in the most appropriate way:

• If a competing style is used, others may be forced to accept a “convenient” decision, but this acceptance may be accompanied by resentment.
• If we adapt, the relationship can be good, but there remains disappointment that our opinion is not taken into account.
• If we compromise, then good relations will remain, but grievances may remain for a long time.
• If we collaborate, we are likely to be more confident in our chances of working together productively and maintaining a healthy relationship.
• And if the conflict is not discussed at all, both sides may remain in the dark about the real issues and problems, which is the worst case scenario, because sooner or later the conflict will escalate.

Have you caught a colleague telling an outright lie?

This is a serious reason to think about it, because any relationship ceases to be good when dishonesty and insincerity appear in it. Where there is a lie, there is and cannot be any trust. And this is already the starting point for the destruction of all positive relationships with employees. People begin to doubt the functions they perform, distrust of management and colleagues appears: what if they do not want to fulfill the promises they made earlier?

The most correct thing in this case would be to directly ask the liar why he is doing this. In this way, you can protect your team from the spread of an avalanche of untruths, and thereby return to it that precious trust that is simply necessary for productive teamwork in the future.

Conflict is not always bad

Not all conflict situations have negative consequences. Healthy conflicts, on the contrary, sometimes open up new ways to solve problems and help you look at things from a different perspective. Healthy competition is a great way to be more productive and develop.

The best way to minimize negative conflicts is to create the right atmosphere in the company, regularly work with teams and employees individually, and hold 1:1 meetings to better understand employees and notice in time if something is going wrong. If every employee knows that the HR department and management are ready to support him in a difficult work situation, he will be more engaged and incidents of conflict behavior will occur less frequently.