Top Tips For Kicking Conflict Into The Long Grass

The cost of conflict for American businesses may be close to an all-time high.  Faced with challenging budgets and fewer resources, more than ever, now is a critical time for HR managers to make sure that conflicts don’t escalate into time and energy consuming furies.

1. Make sure that front-line managers can spot the early signs of possible disputes

The ‘Golden Hour’ period, when the early signs of a possible dispute first appear, is the most critical time for taking effective action.

2. Provide relevant, practical training and guidance

Aim at helping managers to intervene quickly but effectively, cutting through the nub of a dispute that often becomes entrenched and threatens team relationships over the longer term.

Provide practical, memorable, simple-to-apply approaches or ‘micro-tools’ that will help to unearth what lies at the heart of a dispute, encourage those involved to take different perspectives and think realistically about the best way forward.

3. Be accessible

Work on the image of HR as a place that individuals and managers who are struggling with difficult disputes can come for help and advice, not just as the port of call when ‘things get formal’.

4. Work on the culture

Corporate values and policy statements are all well and good, but unhealthy conflicts are likely to continue when such things as ‘bullying’ and ‘strong management’ or encouraging ‘different views’ and ‘competition’ are open to misinterpretation.

The recipe mix that influences beliefs and behaviors in organizations may not be easy to change, but large strides can be made through training, guidance and coaching in turning around false perceptions.

5. Don’t rush to formalize unless individuals’ safety is at stake

Rushing to formalize mediation, grievance investigations (if relevant and requested) or engaging third party input at a too early stage may actually help to polarize the positions of the disputing individuals rather than help to calm relations – and give managers an excuse for not playing their part in trying to resolve matters locally.

6. Make mediation accessible

When mediation is called for, be ready to offer a choice of mediators whose personalities, roles and skill-sets might best suit particular needs.  A trusted colleague from another department may often be preferred as a broker than an unknown HR specialist or outsider.

7. Try alternative ADR

Mediation can come in many forms – evaluative, facilitative and transformative, to name but a few.  But so too, coaching can play a part in helping individuals make sense of their disagreements and can often be an effective alternative to disputing parties sitting across a table.  One size of alternative dispute resolution doesn’t fit all.

8. Learn from experience

Every involvement in resolving a dispute should provide opportunities for learning.  Take time to reflect on what might be learned for future benefit and get in the habit of sharing useful insights with others, while of course respecting individuals’ confidences.

9. Provide support

Offer practical help to managers when asked, and check on the progress of any individuals who may continue to feel aggrieved once an attempt to resolve a dispute has broken down.

10.  Keep a solutions focus – work at what works, stop doing what doesn’t

Focus on achieving positive outcomes rather than getting bogged down with procedure.  Conversation styles, expectations of what may be realistic to achieve and mediation approaches may all need to be adapted to suit the personalities and circumstances involved.

Not all disputes may be stopped as quickly and effectively as others, but taking relatively simple steps such as these can put the brakes on many conflagrations that might otherwise take on  acrimonious and unproductive lives of their own.

Clive Johnson and Jackie Keddy are co-founders of the International conflict management forum, an organization dedicated to sharing knowledge about workplace conflict, partners of the conflict specialist The Janus Partnership and co-authors of Managing Conflict at Work (just published by Kogan Page).