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Tools for Resolving Conflict in the Workplace

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Tools for Resolving Conflict in the Workplace

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I really enjoyed this article because it had more to do with what the employee/manager themselves can do to resolve conflict. One of the key points talked about listening to understand. Most of the time when someone comes to us with an issue, our instinct may be to get defensive. However, conflicts can be resolved much quicker when you listen with the intent to understand where the other person is coming from. Another key point is to attack the problem, not the person. As I mentioned before, sometimes people tend to get defensive. More times than not, someone who approaches another employee with an issue really believes that is the best thing to do for the company. Even if that person doesn't approach it in a way you would have liked, focusing on the conflict instead of the person is much more important. Employees should look toward the future instead of focusing on the past, but use the past to avoid issues in the future. These points are all things that an employee can focus on within themselves. If every person in an organization attempted to do this, most conflicts would be able to be resolved more effectively.

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13 Tools for Resolving Conflict in the Workplace, with Customers and in Life

Conflict happens. It is inevitable. It is going to happen whenever you have people with different expectations. This makes conflict management critical, whether avoiding arguments, disputes, lasting conflict or ultimately, litigation. Conflict can be avoided if steps are taken early in a discussion to diffuse anger and facilitate communication, and it can be resolved by applying a series of thoughtfully applied steps. As a full-time mediator and trainer in the fields of negotiation and conflict resolution, I see conflict in its final stages - full blown litigation or on the verge of it in pre-litigation mode. What I have learned in seeing these disputes for 10 years is that most of them could have been resolved in the earliest stages if the people involved applied some of the skills that mediators use to resolve conflict. And wouldn't it be great if companies could resolve these disputes before each side spent hundreds of thousands in litigation costs, before the employee was terminated or before the customer or working relationship was gone forever? Here are some tools for avoiding and resolving disputes in the early stages, before they become full-blown conflicts:

1. Stay Calm.

Thomas Jefferson said, "Nothing gives one so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances." The thing that leads to conflict is escalation. What starts people escalating is their anger. Most of us stop listening to understand as we get angry. Instead, we start listening in order to argue back. Remaining calm is essential for performing these tools. To remain calm, it helps to look at the big picture. If you think about it, most every dispute gets resolved eventually. So when conflict inevitably happens, it is helpful to stop and think that, chances are, it is going to be resolved eventually. As such, why not begin problem solving now? Finally, it is a fact that in our busy lives with rush hour traffic, cell phones, PDAs, overfilled e-mail boxes, too many clients and not enough support, that we are all a little more stressed than we would like to be. When a conflict arises, one of the most beneficial things you can do is to ask yourself, "What might I be bringing to the dispute?" We can usually look at another person and figure that maybe he/she had a conflict at home or that he/she has been under tremendous pressure. However, we are not usually self-aware enough to ask ourselves what we might have going on. It is important in avoiding later embarrassment by checking in with our own personal boiling point before responding.

2. Listen to Understand.

Now, picture a dispute in which you were recently involved. Maybe it was this morning leaving the house, with a co-worker or client or even with a family member. As you replay that experience, ask yourself how much listening was going on. My bet is that any listening was only being done to formulate an argument back to prove your point. When most of us get into a dispute, the first thing we do is stop listening. The only way to settle a dispute or solve any kind of a problem is to listen carefully to what the other person is saying. Perhaps they will surprise you with reason, or their point is actually true. In the mediations that I do, I often learn what people's underlying interests are by letting them go on and on telling their perspective of an issue until they give me the one thing that is standing in the way of them resolving it. They may start out by degrading the product and personalizing it by saying those of us who delivered it are all incompetent, but I find that this is little more than their anger speaking. What they really want is their product fixed, not to insult us personally.

Psychologists tell us that anger is a secondary emotion and that it is usually triggered as a defense mechanism to cover up hurt or fear. When someone is angry, there is usually some hurt or fear that he/she is embarrassed about, or perhaps even unaware of because the anger is so all consuming. In order to diffuse people's anger, you must listen to them. Hear them out. Let them go until they have run out of gas. Let them vent as long as they can until they begin to calm down. You then will see a person start to slow down some, and begin to feel safe enough to finally tell you that what frustrated him or her so much was that the salesperson never returned any phone calls, and/or the customer service person kept trying to place blame elsewhere, rather than taking responsibility and apologizing for the product being unacceptable.

The best thing you can do to get people to the point where they are willing to show some vulnerability and trust you with some of the real reasons why they are upset is to engage in "Active Listening." Active listening means giving them active physical and verbal signs that you are with them and understand what they are saying. Simple things like nodding and saying, "Uh huh" or "OK, go on" can make the speaker feel as if his/her story is welcomed by you and that you want to continue. On the phone, people hear dead silence and cannot read your reaction to their complaints and thoughts. Given that we all sometimes fear the worst, people tend to shut down and stop feeling it is safe to continue telling their story.

My friend and colleague Jim Melamed, a divorce mediator and trainer based in Eugene, Ore., said: "You cannot effectively move toward conflict resolution until each participant experiences him/herself to be fully heard with regard to their perspective - what they want and why." That means, if someone says that the product he/she bought from you is unacceptable, and they are interrupted and asked what would be acceptable before they have finished telling all about the problem, that person gets the message that all you want to do is fix the problem. The impression is that you do not care about them or the problem you had with your product, and that can feel a little like being swept under the carpet. A good customer service person in a situation like this would let the client finish before asking if there were any other problems. This may seem counter-intuitive because it might bring on even more of the same, but this is what you want. People build trust as they are listened to. If they had another problem with the delivery timing or any other facet of the transaction, this is when you need to hear it - at the outset, not later once you feel as if you have met all of their original concerns. The only way to solve a problem is to get all of the broken pieces on the table at once before you begin trying to "glue it back together."

The most useful phrases in this part of the process (what mediators call the "Opening Statement") are questions such as, "Can I ask you - what about that bothered you so much?" or "What about that was so important to you?" These invite people to go deeper into the problem and tell you what the "real" problem is. Usually, this is where you hear that their boss is upset and they are afraid for their job or some underlying concern. This is a problem that might be handled with something as simple as a letter of apology, from you, the salesman or the president of your company, addressed to them with a copy to their boss, taking full responsibility and apologizing for the problem. Then, you will have a customer you might be able to keep.

3. Accentuate the Positive.

It is important to find some commonalities, or create them, between you and the person on the other end. It is helpful and empathetic to say, "Oh boy, I know what you are going through. I've had a similar situation just recently. Let me see what I can do about this." This serves to normalize the situation. It tells someone that he/she is not the only one who has gone through this and that his or her reaction to it is normal. That calms people right away.

4. State Your Case Tactfully.

The key here is to help people understand your perspective on things without making them defensive. To the extent you can disarm them, they will be more able to hear what you are really saying. A couple of tips are to own what is yours - apologize for what you or your team did wrong and do it first. This enables them to hear what you have to say next. Also, try not to state issues of difference as fact. Leave a little benefit of the doubt. Rather than insisting something arrived on schedule, it is better to acknowledge any room for doubt by acknowledging, "My information shows them arriving on schedule. I'll have to take a closer look into this." While you may still be right, clearly you have to gather more information to convince them of that, and if you are not right, then you do not have to apologize for misstating things. It also is helpful to state your position along with your interests. What that means is that instead of maintaining that there is nothing wrong with your product, which is purely argumentative and does not offer any support for your position, it is better to offer something helpful, such as providing another perspective by sending someone over to inspect the product in person. That way, the customer can show and describe exactly why the product is not working as necessary. Your position is the bottom line of what you are willing to do. Your interests are the reasons behind that decision. For example, it might be your position that you cannot take any product back or rescind the contract. However, your reason for that - your interest - may be that your bonus is tied directly to your returns, and that you have every incentive in the world to solve this problem another way. You may also offer what some of those things are, so that you are not just taking away something from them or denying their request, but offering positive alternatives in its place.

One way to do this is to use "I Messages." An "I" message sounds like, "When you didn't come home last night, your father and I got really worried. What we would like you to do next time is call if you're going to be late, so that we know you're OK because we love you and care about you." That is how most of our parents were when we were teenagers, right? Seriously, can you imagine how we would have reacted if they had put it this way instead of the scenario we remember of being grounded for life while stomping off to bed? "I" messages are important because they describe the experience through the speaker's eyes, rather than simply the position (in this case the punishment). That disarms the person you are speaking to, and it takes the fight out of their next statement back to you.

5. Attack the Problem, Not the Person.

Your points will be heard more clearly if you can depersonalize your comments and point only at the issue. Rather than accusing people of "always messing things up," it is better to say, "We'll have to take a closer look at why this keeps happening." In most statements that we make in a dispute, we are fighting with our own anger and are tempted to put a zinger into the point we are trying to get across. You will be heard better and improve your chances of resolving the issue the way you want if you can catch yourself and take the zinger out. Obviously, this is easier with e-mail and requires great concentration when in a face-to-face disagreement.

6. Avoid the Blame Game.

Assigning blame is only helpful in one instance in problem solving - if you assign it to yourself. Generally speaking, figuring out whose fault something is does not do any good if the goal is to fix a problem. It is a diversion and sometimes a costly one because if a person feels blamed, he/she often checks out of a conversation. The trick to resolving clashes is to focus on problem solving, rather than pointing fingers. Focus on what you and the others can do to solve a problem and make it better, and it will be behind you before you know it.

7. Focus on the Future, Not the Past.

In the past tense, we have the purchase order, the contract, the agreement and the deal as it was understood by all involved. The present and future tenses are where the solution ends. Rather than focusing on what went wrong or who should have done what, the secret to dispute resolution is to treat it like problem solving and focus on what can be done to resolve the problem. Once that is done, companies can look to the past tense to analyze what went wrong and how to improve quality control and efficiency. However, when there is a problem that has an angry customer or a disgruntled employee, the solution is all that anyone is interested in.

8. Ask the Right Kind of Questions.

Questions such as "Why is that?" or "What did you think it would be?" make a person who you are talking to defensive. They inherently question the person's judgment or opinion, as well as coming off as curt. More often that not, people ask these short, direct questions, the type that can sound like a police officer's interrogation or a lawyer's cross-examination. These questions are designed to get just what you want from someone, rather than to permit them to tell you what they want you to know about something.If you want someone to answer you with real information, rather than just arguing back, it is best to give them a little information first. For example, "Since I don't have a copy of the P.O. in front of me, it would help me to investigate this if you could tell me more about how the colors on your order are described." Telling them why you are asking, puts your intent first, so they don't have to guess it. This questioning style tells a person that you are trying to do your job and to figure out some facts to get to reach a solution. By delivering your request in a poised and attentive tone, , it makes the person you are asking less defensive and gets you more of what you want. The other type of question that is especially helpful when you are trying to gather information is an open-ended question. These are the opposite of directive questions, and they invite the other person to tell you what he or she thinks is important about the situation. "Can you tell me what happened from the beginning?" or "Sounds as if this was really frustrating for you" can give you information that you might later use to problem solve.

9. Pick Your Battles.

It is also important when asking questions to remember to Pick Your Battles. Human nature makes us want to be right, even to the point of being defensive or arguing points that do not matter in the big picture. It is even fair game to ask the other person, "On a scale of one-to-10, how important is this issue to you?" If an issue is a five to you and a nine to the person you are talking to, it is best to give that point up and use the same scale when an item is really important to you. After all, business relations are, like my brother's future father-in-law once told him about marriage, a "60-60 proposition." Most people think it is supposed to be 50-50, but the truth is, when adjusted for each person's perspective on how much they givevs. how much they receive, it really is a 60-60 proposition. Another marital proposition is also helpful here, do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?

10. Link Offers.

Car salesmen do this all the time. They ask you what you want your monthly payment to be and then set the price of the car and the interest rate on the loan or lease so that they can match your monthly payment. Essentially, it's a way of saying, "I can either do this or that, which would be better for you?" It really is just sales skills - giving people the choice between two positives, so that they feel as if you are trying to help.

11. Be Creative.

Brainstorm. Remember that everything is negotiable. Feel free to think outside of the box in order to expand the pie. Make it so that no idea is too far fetched. Being creative with resolutions takes longer, but can yield a true win-win solution. The best solution to a dispute is to get more business out of it. As such, one common problem-solving technique is to propose that instead of a cash refund, giving clients a deep discount on future orders in order to show what a good job you are capable of doing for them. Many of the lawsuits I settle come away with win-win solutions, where instead of just compromising, we actually collaborate to reach a solution that benefits everyone. This requires listening when asking the open-ended questions and gathering morsels of good information that you will later use to formulate proposals that meet their interests. For example, you might learn about particulars that affected an order. From here, you can propose creative solutions that replace things such as broken items, or instead of using the money to re-do the entire order, you can use less money to ship a few dozen shirts with their logo on them so that your counterpart can look like a hero in front of the boss. These kinds of fixes make clients look good and keep them loyal to you, even after an initial dispute.

12. Be Confident.

You can do this! Many people are afraid of confrontation and shy away from it. I have taught everyone, from housewives and high school grads to named senior partners in law firms and CEOs, how to do these simple steps. The process works. All you have to do is follow the steps.

Furthermore, you must do this. Now that you have these tools, it is imperative that you do something about it. You owe it to your customers and your co-workers.

13. Celebrate Agreement!

This kind of negotiation is a hard process. It requires two people to remain in an uncomfortable, potentially confrontational position for a long time to rebuild trust and be creative while trying to figure out the best, rather than the fastest, solution. Once it is accomplished, both you and the person you are talking to deserve a good pat on the back. There is nothing wrong with going to lunch or dinner to celebrate the resolution of a dispute that could have been destructive, but that ended with a win-win solution where everyone was satisfied. This is an important process for avoiding more serious disputes such as lawsuits and losing hard-earned customers. Congratulate yourself and your partner in this solution. After all, nothing is more important than your company and its survival. Nothing is better for your company's survival than learning to make peace and resolve the inevitable disputes that will arise. Learn to cultivate peace with customers, suppliers, employees, labor and management.

Utilizing these tools takes patience and generally requires changing old behaviors. However, if people on the front lines, in human resources, customer service and client relations, use simple tools such as these, they would resolve most disputes at that level, keeping them out of the legal department and out of the mediator's office.

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13 Tools for Resolving Conflict in the Workplace, with Customers and in Life

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13 Tools for Resolving Conflict in the Workplace, with Customers and in Life Conflict happens. It is inevitable. It is going to happen whenever you have people with different expectations. This makes conflict management critical, whether avoiding arguments, disputes, lasting conflict or ultimately, litigation.

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Organizations should communicate with their employees that their voices will be heard and have procedures set into place for what to do when an employee comes forward with an issue. This will encourage employees to be honest and not to hide issues they feel like are occurring. Employees are on the forefront of every organizations and managers should empower them so that the company can take care of the conflicts and keep the organizations as positive as possible. Organizations should not look at conflict as a negative, but as a natural growth process. It can help an organization learn from mistakes and identify areas of needed improvement.

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Conflict can be viewed negatively or positively.

happy / sad smiley image by drx from <a href='http://www.fotolia.com'>Fotolia.com</a>

Conflict is inevitable in small businesses. Conflict can arise from a variety of sources, and between supervisors and subordinates, between co-workers, and between employees and customers. Managers and organizations can choose to see conflict as inherently negative, acting to suppress it at every opportunity, or as inherently positive, leveraging conflict to affect positive change.

Positive Perspective

Accept conflict as a natural growth process and influence your company culture to view constructive conflict positively. Conflict can be an asset to your small business if it is handled properly. It can help your organization to learn from its mistakes and identify areas of needed improvement. Innovation can be inspired from creative solutions to internal or external conflicts, and new ways of thinking can emerge.

Grievance Procedure

Create a formal grievance procedure for all employees. Let employees at all levels of your organization know that their voices will always be heard, and respond promptly and reasonably to employees&amp;#039; issues. This can prevent bad feelings from festering and growing into resentment and bitterness. Conflict is best handled quickly and openly. If your company culture is sufficiently friendly toward constructive conflict, your staff should see the value of letting their complaints, ideas and issues be heard.

Get to the Cause

Focus on deep-rooted causes rather than superficial effects when assessing conflicts. Parties to a conflict often claim to have issues with the behavior of co-workers or the outcome of company policies and work procedures, but these issues are likely being caused by something deeper. Attempting to resolve the conflict by addressing surface issues will rarely create meaningful change or lasting solutions. Look deeper to address the reasons that incidents occur. As an example, if a supervisor finds himself constantly in conflict with a loyal employee due to falling productivity levels, the supervisor may naturally want to address the employee&amp;#039;s behavior head-on. Upon closer analysis, however, the supervisor may realize that the employee has been increasingly dissatisfied with his job ever since last year&amp;#039;s disappointing performance review. Revisiting the review with the employee may be much more effective than creating incremental performance goals for him.

Equal Voices

Give all parties to a conflict an equal voice, regardless of their position, length of service or political influence. Conflict participants can become defensive if they feel they are being marginalized or are going through a process leading to a predetermined outcome. It can be tempting to take the word of managers over front-line employees, or to take the word of a loyal employee over a new employee, but remember that your most trusted associates are not necessarily infallible. Go beyond simply giving everyone an equal chance to speak; give their arguments an equal weight in your mind when mediating a conflict.

Resolution Participation

Involve all parties, if possible, when drafting conflict resolutions. The theory of Management By Objectives (MBO) states that employees are generally more committed to goals that they have helped to create. The same holds true for conflict resolutions. There is more than one side to every conflict, and all sides should benefit from conflict resolution. Seek resolutions that will prevent the conflict from occurring again, rather than simply delaying a repeat occurrence.

About the Author

David Ingram has written for multiple publications since 2009, including "The Houston Chronicle" and online at Business.com. As a small-business owner, Ingram regularly confronts modern issues in management, marketing, finance and business law. He has earned a Bachelor of Arts in management from Walsh University.

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Ways of Managing Conflict in Organizations

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Conflict is inevitable in small businesses. Conflict can arise from a variety of sources, and between supervisors and subordinates, between co-workers, and between employees and customers. Managers and organizations can choose to see conflict as inherently negative, acting to suppress it at every opportunity, or as inherently positive, leveraging conflict to affect positive change.

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5 Keys  of Dealing with Workplace Conflict

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5 Keys  of Dealing with Workplace Conflict

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It is not a coincidence that leadership and conflict go hand-in-hand. Without efficient leadership that is willing to take control of taking care of conflict, the problems will only get worse. Leaders that shy away from conflict try to avoid it, but there is no escaping conflict. It occurs in every business. Many conflicts results from a lack of information, poor information, no information, or misinformation. A few years ago, the company I work for underwent extensive changes from the ground up. We were kept in the loop during the whole process and it seemed as though we were given proper information during the whole process. However, as soon as it was time for our unit to implement the new systems that were given to us, we realized we didn't know what to do with all of the information. We had plenty of information given to our unit, but we didn't know how to utilize the information. This is still a form of communication problems. The 5 keys of dealing with workplace conflict are:
1. Define acceptable behavior.
2. Hit conflict head-on.
3. Attempt to understand people's motivations.
4. How important is the decision being made about the conflict?
5. View conflict as opportunity.

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Here's the thing - leadership and conflict go hand-in-hand. Leadership is a full-contact sport, and if you cannot or will not address conflict in a healthy, productive fashion, you should not be in a leadership role. From my perspective, the issues surrounding conflict resolution can be best summed-up by adhering to the following ethos; "Don't fear conflict; embrace it - it's your job." While you can try and avoid conflict (bad idea), you cannot escape conflict. The fact of the matter is conflict in the workplace is unavoidable. It will find you whether you look for it (good idea - more later) or not. The ability to recognize conflict, understand the nature of conflict, and to be able to bring swift and just resolution to conflict will serve you well as a leader - the inability to do so may well be your downfall.

How many times over the years have you witnessed otherwise savvy professionals self-destruct because they wouldn't engage out of a fear of conflict? Putting one's head in the sand and hoping that conflict will pass you by is not the most effective methodology for problem solving. Conflict rarely resolves itself - in fact, conflict normally escalates if not dealt with proactively and properly. It is not at all uncommon to see what might have been a non-event manifest itself into a monumental problem if not resolved early on.

One of my favorite examples of what I described in the paragraph above is the weak leader who cannot deal with subordinates who use emotional deceit as a weapon of destruction. Every workplace is plagued with manipulative people who use emotion to create conflict in order to cover-up for their lack of substance. These are the drama queens/kings that when confronted about wrongdoing and/or lack of performance are quick to point the finger in another direction. They are adept at using emotional tirades which often include crocodile tears, blameshifting, little lies, half truths and other trite manipulations to get away with total lack of substance. The only thing worse than what I've just described is leadership that doesn't recognize it and/or does nothing about it. Real leaders don't play favorites, don't get involved in drama, and they certainly don't tolerate manipulative, self-serving behavior.

Developing effective conflict resolution skill sets are an essential component of a building a sustainable business model. Unresolved conflict often results in loss of productivity, the stifling of creativity, and the creation of barriers to cooperation and collaboration. Perhaps most importantly for leaders, good conflict resolution ability equals good employee retention. Leaders who don't deal with conflict will eventually watch their good talent walk out the door in search of a healthier and safer work environment.

While conflict is a normal part of any social and organizational setting, the challenge of conflict lies in how one chooses to deal with it. Concealed, avoided or otherwise ignored, conflict will likely fester only to grow into resentment, create withdrawal or cause factional infighting within an organization.

So, what creates conflict in the workplace? Opposing positions, competitive tensions, power struggles, ego, pride, jealousy, performance discrepancies, compensation issues, just someone having a bad day, etc. While the answer to the previous question would appear to lead to the conclusion that just about anything and everything creates conflict, the reality is that the root of most conflict is either born out of poor communication or the inability to control one's emotions. Let's examine these 2 major causes of conflict:

Communication: If you reflect back upon conflicts you have encountered over the years, you'll quickly recognize many of them resulted from a lack of information, poor information, no information, or misinformation. Let's assume for a moment that you were lucky enough to have received good information, but didn't know what to do with it...That is still a communication problem, which in turn can lead to conflict. Clear, concise, accurate, and timely communication of information will help to ease both the number and severity of conflicts.

Emotions: Another common mistake made in workplace communications which leads to conflict is letting emotions drive decisions. I have witnessed otherwise savvy executives place the need for emotional superiority ahead of achieving their mission (not that they always understood this at the time). Case in point - have you ever witnessed an employee throw a fit of rage and draw the regrettable line in the sand in the heat of the moment? If you have, what you really watched was a person indulging their emotions rather than protecting their future.

The very bane of human existence, which is in fact human nature itself, will always create gaps in thinking & philosophy, and no matter how much we all wish it wasn't so...it is. So the question then becomes how to effectively deal with conflict when it arises. It is essential for organizational health and performance that conflict be accepted and addressed through effective conflict resolution processes. While having a conflict resolution structure is important, effective utilization of conflict resolution processes is ultimately dependant upon the ability of all parties to understand the benefits of conflict resolution, and perhaps more importantly, their desire to resolve the matter. The following tips will help to more effective handle conflicts in the workplace:

1. Define Acceptable Behavior: You know what they say about assuming...Just having a definition for what constitutes acceptable behavior is a positive step in avoiding conflict. Creating a framework for decisioning, using a published delegation of authority statement, encouraging sound business practices in collaboration, team building, leadership development, and talent management will all help avoid conflicts. Having clearly defined job descriptions so that people know what's expected of them, and a well articulated chain of command to allow for effective communication will also help avoid conflicts. Clearly and publicly make it known what will and won't be tolerated.

2. Hit Conflict Head-on: While you can't always prevent conflicts, it has been my experience that the secret to conflict resolution is in fact conflict prevention where possible. By actually seeking out areas of potential conflict and proactively intervening in a just and decisive fashion you will likely prevent certain conflicts from ever arising. If a conflict does flair up, you will likely minimize its severity by dealing with it quickly. Time spent identifying and understanding natural tensions will help to avoid unnecessary conflict.

3. Understanding the WIIFM Factor: Understanding the other professionals WIIFM (What's In It For Me) position is critical. It is absolutely essential to understand other's motivations prior to weighing in. The way to avoid conflict is to help those around you achieve their objectives. If you approach conflict from the perspective of taking the action that will help others best achieve their goals you will find few obstacles will stand in your way with regard to resolving conflict.

4. The Importance Factor: Pick your battles and avoid conflict for the sake of conflict. However if the issue is important enough to create a conflict then it is surely important enough to resolve. If the issue, circumstance, or situation is important enough, and there is enough at stake, people will do what is necessary to open lines of communication and close positional and/or philosophical gaps.

5. View Conflict as Opportunity: Hidden within virtually every conflict is the potential for a tremendous teaching/learning opportunity. Where there is disagreement there is an inherent potential for growth and development. If you're a CEO who doesn't leverage conflict for team building and leadership development purposes you're missing a great opportunity. Divergent positions addressed properly can stimulate innovation and learning in ways like minds can't even imagine. Smart leaders look for the upside in all differing opinions.

Bottom line...I believe resolution can normally be found with conflicts where there is a sincere desire to do so. Turning the other cheek, compromise, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, finding common ground, being an active listener, service above self, and numerous other approaches will always allow one to be successful in building rapport if the underlying desire is strong enough. However, when all else fails and positional gaps cannot be closed, resolve the issue not by playing favorites, but by doing the right thing.

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5 Keys of Dealing with Workplace Conflict

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image credit: DN Nation Here's the thing - leadership and conflict go hand-in-hand. Leadership is a full-contact sport, and if you cannot or will not address conflict in a healthy, productive fashion, you should not be in a leadership role. From my perspective, the issues surrounding conflict resolution can be best summed-up [...]

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Reid Ledgerwood and Laura Helser both contributed to the items on the Padlet.

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http://autosweblog.com/cat/effective-communication-in-the-workplace.html
This diagram; when comparing to workplace communication, allows people who do not focus on communication in the workplace an illustration of the different principles of communication. If a business does not give their employees an environment that promotes employee communication. If a business can learn and adapt to using communication principles; the employees can reason with each other to avoid conflict, give specific details to avoid any confusion when working, allowing the employees to understand the principles associated with the business, and listen to the employees concerns and work with them to work out the issues at hand. Then the business can set up a time frame to accomplish the tasks at hand.

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In a business, employees who communicate well and can deliver promising business relationships can be determined as a business that conducts great business communication, decision making, and reduces conflict. With a strong level of business communication, the business will develop:
1. With a strong level of business communication a the employees can develop a sense of trust and confidence in their team and their own abilities.
2. An employee base that can collaborate with each other to ensure their tasks are accomplished and any errors are corrected will bring more profits and a great review to the name of the business. The employees will collaborate well when they can ask questions and learn when they are apart of the team.
3. The business should also ensure the employees look for an answer through logic and emotion. A business who allows the employees to brainstorm and use their emotions as well as logical approaches will have a great source of business communication.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/martinzwilling/2015/01/20/how-effective-is-your-business-communication-skill/#1664101b6718