 Managing conflict between team members can be a difficult task, and sometimes no matter what you do, the conflict remains. Conflict impacts the team, the individuals and you, in fact nobody wins. Conflict starts with what people think, feel and do, and the source of the conflict may not be the people who don't get in, or are in open conflict. I take you through five steps to tackle conflict between individuals or teams. Get more insight into why the conflict is happening and give yourself a much better chance of resolving the conflict permanently. Here's what I'm covering. Step 4 includes five tips to handle conflict between employees where differences of opinion or perspectives appear the main reason for the conflict. My name is Jess Coles and I've had a 25 year management career in corporates and household names through to SME. Conflicts between sensible people usually comes from differences or some form of pressure, fear or threat. For example, I saw one colleague, let's call them Bill, behave very poorly towards a new team member who was doing a very good job and the conflict between them stopped once Bill was confident his position was not under threat. If you're new to this channel, enhance dot training shares, business and people management expertise to help you improve your performance and that of your team and business. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. The first step to manage conflict between team members is to be proactive. If conflict between employees has arisen, then chances are it will not reduce or go away without changing what is causing the conflict. Conflict within your team does not help anyone. Those directly involved in the conflict nor those that have to work around them. The team atmosphere can quickly drop and the team performance will probably follow. So be proactive and take steps to resolve the conflict between the team members. Don't let the conflict fester and get worse. Before you take action, finding out what the issues are creating the conflict is a pretty critical step. Ask the individuals who are in conflict what they think and feel. Ask them questions like, you know, what does X do that you find annoying or stupid or difficult? What might cause person X to behave like that? What organisational rules or goals might put you into conflict with person X? Get specific examples of the behaviour causing the conflict rather than just gathering opinion. Then speak to those who are working around the individuals in conflict. You know, speak to their peers, their line reports, the junior members of the team. Ask what they are seeing. Ask them what is causing the conflict in their view. You are looking for patterns in the behaviour within the conflict. Aim to understand what the causes might be, not just the resulting behaviour of the conflict. Remain as impartial as possible. You're looking to find out what is going on and work out the why. It is too early to reach conclusions and certainly don't take sides. The second step to tackle conflict between team members is to deal with the difficult people and the incompetence. Conflict between team members can be caused by people with behavioural 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 between employees. Those with behavioural problems such as bullies or overly demanding people or difficult people need to be tackled. For some, their behaviour can be changed through coaching, good management or taking away the stresses or fears causing their behaviour. For others with behaviours very ingrained or they're just unwilling to change their approach then work out what action you need to take to change the dynamic such as moving them into another team or another role or worst case, moving them out of the company. Incompetent people, those that have been promoted too far or whose jobs have grown too big for them, say within a fast growing company, can cause a lot of conflict. Their actions cause problems for those that work with them and those that work around them and if people are constantly having to clear up after them they're going to grow angry and resentful, which can quickly lead to conflict. Get the incompetent individuals into a more appropriate position in which they can make a much more positive contribution to their colleagues and the company. Take action to remove these sources of conflict between team members. And once you've removed conflicts caused by dysfunctional people and incompetent people or work out that neither of these are the cause of the conflict between employees then the third step to handling conflict between team members is to dig under the surface. Once the more obvious causes of conflict between employees have been checked for and removed then causes of conflict can be due to organisational setup, conflicting goals, overlapping responsibilities or territories or recent changes implemented to name a few. Dig under the surface and piece together the possible underlying sources of the conflict. Check firstly areas of responsibility, ensuring there are no overlaps. Secondly, goals or objectives. How goals for individuals, teams and departments might be causing conflict to arise between individuals. Thirdly, performance levels. Differing performance levels for those in similar roles could be causing fears or perceived as a threat or in teams and bigger groups as well. 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 around those people. And 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. It can take some digging to find out the real issues, particularly as the individuals involved in the conflict between the team members may not be aware of why the conflict is happening. Ask as many people around the situation as possible to get many viewpoints and don't forget to look at yourself as possible causes of conflict. Find the underlying causes and you have options to permanently remove the conflict and thus behaviors of conflict between the team members. The fourth step to manage conflict between team members is to work on the communication. When you understand the underlying causes of the conflict, working out a lasting solution to the conflict obviously becomes a lot more probable. Communication between the parties to build a true understanding of each party's views, feelings and reference point is likely to make a significant positive difference in the conflict. If they understand what is behind the conflict, differences of opinion, very different assumptions or references, different pressures or goals imposed upon them or other external factors, most people will change their perceptions and the conflict reduces or even ceases. For causes of conflict that are largely contained between two individuals, such as differences of opinion, get the individuals in a room together. To improve communication and understanding, take the role of mediator rather than manager. Ask questions to get them thinking rather than tell them information. Lead them to understanding of the other person's position. Lead them to a decision or compromise but don't make it for them. If they rather than you provide a solution or reach compromise, which they think is fair, then they are much more likely to own it and therefore it to be a success. As a mediator, you are also there to help reach a compromise, which is fair in your eyes too. Five sensible steps to improve communication and reduce conflict are firstly speak to each person separately to understand their issues, viewpoints, pressures, etc. Don't take sides. Secondly, bring the two parties together in a private meeting and act as a mediator. Third, ask questions to build the understanding and discussion between the two parties in conflict. Don't tell them information or your opinions. Fourth, help both parties reach a compromise or a mutual understanding which both parties feel is fair. And fifth, help the parties implement the agreed solution or compromise. If the main cause of the conflict is external to the individuals or the team, then additional actions are likely needed. The fifth step to managing conflict between employees is to implement change. Implementing change, as many of you will know, is not easy. You have to get the individuals and teams brought into the change being proposed for it to have a chance of being successfully implemented. For causes of conflict that are mainly external to team members, such as conflicting areas of responsibility or goals or objectives, you as their manager need to make changes to resolve the conflict. As an example where it is your call to set responsibilities for each party, where one person's responsibilities stop and the other starts, or setting both parties' goals, making the changes is within your control. Communicating and persuading those within your team to accept the changes should be very doable. If others outside yourself and your team are responsible for inadvertently causing conflict, you know, say, setting up conflicting team goals, then building support for change is important to make that change happen. An example of conflicting goals could be, you know, the sales team with a revenue-only target and the finance team with a profit-only target and the finance team and the sales team keep getting irated each other. You might need to speak to each person on the management team and separately persuade them to change how the goals are calculated. Or get the finance team and the sales team to hammer out mutually supportive goals and then take this to the management team. If you don't build support to get enough people to support the changes proposed, to have enough people to overcome the vested interest or general inertia, change will not happen and the conflicts will persist. This helps no one. So take the time to build support and gain allies to make sure the change happens. So 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 even teams occurs, take action to reduce or resolve the conflict as quickly as possible. Get as much support and help as you need. The five steps to handle conflict between team members and between teams we've talked about are, firstly, be proactive, the why matters. Secondly, deal with difficult people and incompetence. Third, dig under the surface. Fourth, work on the communication. Fifth, implement change. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to seeing you again soon.