Conflicts: how to prevent and manage them effectively

Within a team at work, can a conflict actually prove to be positive?

This is a question we regularly ask when we address this theme during our training workshops with managers and team leaders. The answer is "yes"!

Conflict within a professional team means that you have committed people who want to defend ideas, opinions or values. Conflict prompts debate; it challenges established habits. It may seem paradoxical, but conflicts can offer opportunities for growth, learning and improving the team's performance.

For all these reasons, conflict is positive. So do not feel guilty if conflicts emerge within your team; it can be a sign that you are working with people who are committed to their responsibilities.

Of course, it still needs to be properly identified and managed. Conflict is to be regarded as a natural stage within a group. Your role will be to manage it as well as possible and to draw the necessary benefits from it.

How can conflicts be prevented?

Conflict prevention is beneficial at all levels, from employees to the organisation as a whole. By investing in conflict prevention, organisations can create a positive working culture, improve collaboration and productivity, and foster long-term success.

This is a major challenge for the manager: to prevent conflict before it reaches a scale that becomes unmanageable.

Here are 3 actions we encourage you to put in place. These actions may seem basic. They are nevertheless essential in prevention.

1. Observe; I know my team, I detect warning signs (such as jibes, changes in attitude, people being sidelined, etc.).

2. Listen; I regularly take the pulse of my team, both individually and collectively, I take into consideration what my team tells me, and I check where necessary.

3. Assess; I take stock (who, what, since when, etc.) and I try to determine the seriousness of the situation. Finally, I decide on the intervention scenarios, drawing on my peers (colleagues, HR, etc.).

How should you act when a conflict emerges?

As we have just seen, conflict can be positive if it is managed appropriately.

The main key to ensuring that a conflict does not have harmful consequences for the team is to defuse it as quickly as possible.

Do you have a doubt, are you observing tensions between certain members of your team? Then do not hesitate any longer; react! Discuss it with your employees. Of course, the regular one-to-ones you may have put in place with the members of your team will be an ideal space for dialogue in which to dare to raise such sensitive subjects. This exercise may prove complicated for some managers. Managers with a highly developed "empathetic streak" will probably find it more difficult to put contentious subjects on the table. Without necessarily being confrontational or too direct, it is nevertheless the manager's responsibility to bring up these subjects.

What is the right approach to adopt when dealing with conflict?

The manager's approach will differ depending on the protagonists involved in the conflict. Between two members of their team, they will adopt the attitude of a mediator, even if this is not easy for them. If they are involved in the conflict, closely or otherwise, it will be necessary to call on an internal resource person (HR or a peer who is not involved in the conflict) or an external one (a mediator or a workplace confidant). If tensions are apparent between two different teams, organising a team-building day is an excellent way to say things openly and to move the situation forward.

It is in this type of situation that Valeur Plus is regularly called upon to intervene in organisations. During these team-building days, our role is to help each person get to know themselves better, to learn about the people they work with, and to encourage workplace expectations and communication needs to be expressed.

Thanks to in-house skills in mediation and conciliation, Valeur Plus can also step in when a conflict situation requires the intervention of an external person. In this context, our role will be to organise a mediation session, allowing the people in conflict to have a neutral space to speak and then to jointly build a solution that makes it possible to resume a working collaboration that is appropriate and acceptable.

As you will have understood, it is therefore important for a team leader to have the right tools to prevent, identify, defuse and deal with conflicts. It is in this spirit that we regularly offer this theme during our workshop-training days. Do not hesitate to contact us so that we can best calibrate your needs in this area.

Written by Christophe Guy, trainer and coach