Essential Skills for Managing Conflict

This comprehensive multimedia product is full of action-oriented tips that will teach managers and their staffs how to confront conflict instead of allowing it to fester. They will learn how to work with people who have different styles and to discuss disruptive behaviors in a calm and productive manner. This product serves as both a workshop that trainers can present to a group of employees and as a self-paced study course managers can take on their own.

Essential Skills for Managing Conflict gives everyone the skills and steps needed to avoid conflict, analyze situations when they do arise and move past conflict to work well together. Managers and their team members will discover how to:

• Set standards of team conduct to eliminate common disputes.
• Identify personality types and understand how those can lead to conflict.
• Analyze how differing values shape people’s views of situations.
• Discuss conflicts in a positive manner.
• Take steps to avoid potential conflicts.
• And so much more!

The toolkit includes 10 scenarios that describe the symptoms of common conflicts, steps for resolving them and tips for preventing those situations from arising in your workplace. And for those rare occasions when two employees can’t resolve issues on their own, managers will find step-by-step guidelines for mediating disputes.

This toolkit contains:

• 60-minute audio conference, Dealing With ‘”Difficult” People (a $229 value).
• 18-minute video, Solving People Problems on the Job (a $149 value).
• Step-by-step guides for identifying the sources of common conflicts, dealing with situations effectively and preventing conflicts.
• Tools team members can use to understand their personal styles and values—and how those can lead to conflict.
• A detailed guide managers can use to train their team members to deal with conflict.
• Loads of customizable and print-ready forms that save time and effort.

No workplace is without conflict. Indeed, a certain amount of conflict is healthy, as team members challenge assumptions and debate ideas. But unhealthy conflict can tear apart an organization. Petty disputes and long-standing feuds overshadow the important work that people do. Unchecked conflict destroys morale and productivity, fuels stress and wastes time. As a manager you can expect to devote part of your time to mediating conflicts. But it should not consume most of your time. By training your team members to treat each other with respect and to talk directly with co-workers about emerging issues, you won’t be dragged into a daily drama of battling employees.

Essential Skills for Managing Conflict will take you through every step in the process, giving you skills to analyze and respond to a wide variety of workplace conflicts. This comprehensive multimedia product also will lead you through training your team members how to respond to conflict.

Are You Fostering a Workplace That Thrives?

Employees thrive in work environments where conflict is handled well. Following are the hallmarks of those environments. Do they exist in your workplace?

• Clarity is king. Many problems emerge when clarity is lacking. People become confused and start laying blame. They think: “It’s your fault. It’s my fault. What are we going to do?”
• Agreements prevent disagreements. How many times have you entered into a conflict with somebody, but when you traced it back, you realized that you were not clear about your expectations from the beginning?
• Conflict can be creative. In healthy organizations, leaders encourage honest debate. They don’t shut it down. They don’t fear conflict.
• Employees understand standards for conduct. Do you have agreed-upon sets of values, and does everybody know about them? Are they talked about? Do leaders support them?
• People are trained in conflict resolution. It’s unfortunate, but many people do not have good role models for handling conflict. They didn’t see good models growing up. They don’t see it in the workplace. People need conflict resolution training. Essential Skills for Managing Conflict gives you the tools to train your staff.
• Issues are dealt with sooner, rather than later. Many research studies tell us that if you deal with an issue early, people will be more receptive. If you wait, the problem will escalate. Conflicts and bad situations do not improve on their own.
• Integrity is valued. When you create a culture of integrity and mutual respect, staffers can resolve conflicts more easily.

The toolkit contains the following sections:

Section 1: Discover Conflict Triggers

When conflict erupts, it is easy for employees to believe that their counterparts are simply being difficult. However, a cut-and-dried definition of “difficult” doesn’t exist, and people’s biases, opinions and personalities affect the perceptions people have of one another. So a co-workerone person deems difficult isn’t seen that way by others.

That’s why it is critical for your staffers to realize that the person they’re butting heads with may not be “difficult.” The person may have a different perspective or be in a difficult situation. By stepping back, analyzing the situation, and learning what personal styles, values and other factors are triggering the conflict, they can change their perception of the situation—and their approach to dealing with the person. That allows them to resolve the conflict and move forward. It’s critical that your people understand that they can’t change those people they deem difficult; they can change only their reactions to those people. This section will teach them—and you—to do just that.

Learn how to:

• Observe conflicts from new perspectives.
• Recognize personal work styles and values in yourself and others—and how they contribute to conflict.
• Determine whether you are solving the right problem.
• Understand the difference between a difficult person and a person who is in a difficult situation.

After listening to the audio conference, use the forms included in this section to guide your approach to conflicts.

Sections 2: Resolve Common Issues

No workplace is immune to conflict. In fact, some conflict among co-workers is perfectly normal. However, it is very important that you and your team members know how to address conflict when it surfaces. And the sooner, the better.

Team members can—and should—speak to their co-workers when a behavior or action causes friction. If they remain calm and respectful, they can defuse conflicts and build stronger team relationships.

Resolving conflict isn’t as simple as telling someone “Don’t do that!” To bring about positive change, co-workers must make a deliberate effort, planning how to approach one another, outlining how a behavior is causing problems and describing in detail exactly what each person needs to change to resolve the conflict.

The video Solving People Problems on the Job reveals how to deal with eight types of conflict that employees are likely to face in the workplace, providing viewers with guidelines for handling many difficult situations.

Section 3: Treat Team Ailments

Savvy managers take appropriate steps to prevent conflict from getting out of hand. However, no one can prevent every dispute, and seemingly benign issues can grow and fester unnoticed until they surface and wreck havoc on teamwork. By recognizing the symptoms early, you can act before too much damage occurs.

The flashcards in this section detail 10 types of workplace problems that are leading causes of conflict among teammates.

Each handy flashcard provides you with this important information:

You will also find:

• Tips for Accepting Feedback Openly. Use these tips to train your team members-and yourself- to listen to criticism and respond appropriately. Because after all, moving past conflict requires people to accept others' feedback, even when they disagree with it.
• Guidelines for Facilitating Mediation Sessions. When team members can't-or refuse to-resolve issues on their own, use the step-by-step guidelines provided to bring the co-workers' war to an end and to gain their commitment for working productively going forward.
• Tips for Reducing Conflict on Virtual Teams. Because the distance between virtual teammates can magnify misunderstanding and exacerbate conflict, use these tips to prevent and resolve conflict among remote employees.