 All managers need to deal with conflicts at work. Even in the best teams, conflicts arise and how you deal with conflicts at work will make a significant difference to the team's motivation and productivity. Unresolved conflicts quickly sap individual and team energy and motivation. Creates a worsening atmosphere to work in and really does harm to what the team can deliver. I'm going to take you through how to manage conflicts at work. And certain types of conflicts managed well can be good for the creating ideas and robust solutions as a team, airing differences and promoting understanding between colleagues. To help you proactively manage conflicts, we're going through, first of all, not all conflict is bad. Secondly, remove areas of potential conflict. Third, deal with behavioral problems and incompetence. Fourth, understanding goes a long way. And fifth, proactively manage negative conflict. And if negative conflict at work arises, then chances are it will not reduce or go away without changing what is causing the conflict. Towards the end of the video, we go through the steps to take to effectively deal with conflicts within the team and hostility between colleagues. Do stay for this. My name is Jess Coles and I've had a 25-year management career in corporate and household names through to SMEs, from professional level through to board director level. Conflicts between sensible people usually comes about from differences or some form of pressure, fear or threat. And for example, I saw one colleague, let's call him Dave, employed bullying tactics towards a new team member who was doing a really good job. The conflict between them stopped once Dave was confident his position was not under threat. And if you're new to this channel, enhance.training shares, business and people management expertise to help you improve your performance and that of your team and business. And if you like this video, the first way to deal with conflicts at work is to recognize not all conflict is bad. We all have different backgrounds, different beliefs, different ideas and different reference points. These differences can be a very good thing for a team to have as well as being sources of conflict in the workplace. In my view, you want team members to feel safe enough and confident enough to voice their opinions and ideas and to be able to constructively challenge their colleagues. Collaborative problem solving, testing and evaluating assumptions and actively considering alternatives creates better solutions than individuals working alone in most cases. Actively discourage situations where the team acts as a group of individuals promoting their individual ideas to the exclusion of others or persuading others that theirs is the right option or defending their positions and downplaying weaknesses. These behaviors are harmful to creating great solutions and collaborative working. And on the surface, these two situations can look very similar. When you look more closely, the interactions between team members will be quite different. When considering how to deal with conflicts at work, encourage collaborative problem solving and be comfortable with differences of opinion, challenge and heated discussions providing the individuals are working as a team towards creating great solutions. If negative or destructive conflict begins within the workplace, then proactively take steps to resolve conflicts in the workplace. Doing nothing is by far the worst option as conflicts often have a big negative impact on the team's motivation and performance. The second way to deal with conflicts at work is to remove areas of potential conflict. Conflicts can arise within a team and between teams because of actions or decisions made by managers or other individuals that directly cause conflict. Here's a couple of examples where conflicts can arise. Firstly, if individuals or team responsibilities have been set up with overlaps, conflicts can often happen. Or secondly, if operations have been structured without enough thought, conflicts can be created. Or thirdly, if goals or targets have been set between individuals or teams and they're badly out of alignment. And fourth, how others have made requests that cause different kinds of overlaps which lead on to conflict. As a manager, it is worth spending time periodically to try and spot overlaps that might create conflict and remove or minimise to deal with conflicts in the workplace. If you are seeing areas of conflict arising which are not caused through personality issues, then dig under the surface and piece together the possible underlying sources to the conflict. Check things like, firstly, areas of responsibility to ensure there is minimal or no overlapping staff members and be clear as to what's going to happen if there is an overlap. Secondly, take a look at goals or objectives. Work through the goals for individuals, teams and departments to check if they might be causing conflicts to arise between individuals. Thirdly, performance levels. Differing expectations of performance levels for those in similar roles could easily be causing conflict or be perceived as a threat. Fourth, managers. Is the manager or management figures putting pressure or setting up individuals to potentially come into conflict? This might be you or other managers. And then fifth, any other underlying reasons that are causing misunderstandings, threats to status or influence within the business or impacting the work, input or output of one or both parties to the conflict. When you spot conflict, always find out what is causing that conflict to investigate overlaps and similar situations which might be the cause. If these overlaps are not resolved, the conflict will continue even if you spend time resolving the symptoms of the conflict with specific individuals. To resolve these conflicts at work, making changes to areas of responsibilities, goals and working practices are essential. The third way to deal with conflicts at work is to deal with behavioral problems and incompetence. Conflict between team members can be caused by people with behavioral problems such as bullies and it can be caused by incompetent people. Both situations need to be tackled to remove this potential cause of conflict at work. Tackle those behavioral problems such as bullies or overly demanding people or difficult people. For some, their behavior can be changed through coaching, good management or taking away the stresses or fears that are causing their behavior. For others, it is more appropriate to use formal processes to address their behaviors or approach such as starting a performance improvement plan. Incompetent people are those that are not able to keep up with the demands of the job, for instance, that have been promoted too far or the job has grown too big for them to manage properly. Their lack of knowledge, skills and experience leads to problems for those around them. For instance, actions taken or inaction or decisions made make situations worse, not better. These stresses and problems lead to creating conflict within the team. Options to resolve these types of conflicts include firstly, intensive training, mentoring and coaching to upskill the individual. Secondly, moving the individual to a more suitable position within the company or third, moving them out of the company. Get these individuals into positions in which they can make a much more positive contribution to their colleagues and the company. Take action to remove conflicts caused by dysfunctional people and incompetence. The fourth way to deal with conflicts at work is to know that understanding goes a long way. If you are paying attention to the non-verbal signals from the staff around you, watching the interactions between staff and asking questions in your one-on-one meetings with staff, you should find out about conflicts fairly quickly. A lot of conflicts come about through a lack of understanding. Employees know and understand their position. They may not know about or understand their other person's position. Our emotions can get in the way of us sitting back and putting ourselves in the other person's shoes for a moment or just outright asking them where they're coming from. If the individuals don't find out about the other person's position on their own, then you can step in to ask questions of each person to get them talking about why they're taking their position. A question to ask could be, James, you have quite a different position from Debbie. Please can you explain the assumptions and decisions that you've made to arrive at that position? In this case, ask Debbie to listen. Then you can go on to ask Debbie to explain her position and get James to listen. The act of both people actively listening to the other party taking in and considering their point of view does wonders to disfuse a lot of conflict. The approach of promoting understanding works well in meetings and when conflict is fairly new. Your role is to remain impartial and to facilitate better understanding. For more entrenched positions where emotions such as anger and fear are blocking understanding then take a more structured approach. The fifth way to deal with conflicts at work is to proactively manage negative conflict. To deal with conflicts at work that have escalated or have become a lot more emotionally charged, a more systematic and involved process helps considerably. Take the role of mediator rather than manager. Remain impartial and be very careful not to appear to support one party over another. Five sensible steps to resolve conflicts at work are firstly, speak to each person separately to understand their issues, viewpoints, pressures, etc. and don't take sides. Secondly, bring the two parties together in a private meeting room and act as a mediator. Thirdly, ask questions to build understanding and discussion between the two parties in conflict. Try not to tell them information that you know or share your opinions. Fourth, help both parties to reach a compromise or mutual understanding which both parties feel is acceptable. And fifth, hold both parties accountable for implementing the agreed solution or compromise. As mentioned before, if the main cause of the conflict is external to the individuals then you'll need to take action to resolve the issues that are causing the conflict. In summary, the causes for conflict between team members covers a wide range from individual to individual through to teams and functions being in conflict within a business. When conflict between employees or teams occurs take action to reduce or resolve the conflicts as quickly as possible. Get as much support and help as you need. The five ways to deal with conflict at work are firstly, not all conflict is bad. Secondly, remove areas of potential conflict. Third, deal with behavioral problems and incompetence. Fourth, understanding goes a long way. And fifth, proactively manage negative conflict. And if you have any questions about managing conflicts at work please leave them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to seeing you again soon.