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Anticipating and preventing conflicts helps maintain a healthy and productive work environment. It’s especially important in small businesses, where team dynamics are often more intimate.
Work discord undermines a team’s overall success, and ultimately the entire organization. Knowing the triggers that most often cause workplace strife is the first step in neutralizing them.
The most common types of personal conflicts at work include individual personality and creative differences and issues employees have with leadership, job duties and work styles.
Preventing employee conflict boils down to better communication and stronger human connections. The following strategies will reduce the risk of conflicts arising and help small business leaders to keep them from escalating when they do.
When you understand employees’ goals and motivations, you’re more likely to achieve a harmonious workplace.
Knowing the personalities, communication styles and sensitivities of everyone on your team allows you to anticipate how they may react in different scenarios and identify potential sources of conflict before they escalate.
That means getting to know employees on a personal level, so you can empathize with each one’s perspectives and help them work through differences with others who have the same goals but come at them from another angle.
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Distance creates communication breakdowns and gaps in trust.
Model a willingness to listen to a broad range of opinions and ask questions to clarify and learn more.
By considering different perspectives, you can proactively address potential sources of conflict and often find mutually beneficial solutions.
When you do set a course that is different from what some or all team members want, explain your reasoning.
Even when employees don’t agree with a decision, they’re usually willing to try working toward a successful outcome alongside you if they feel they’ve been heard and their ideas considered.
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You can leverage the unique strengths of a diverse team when you know where each person excels.
When you create opportunities for employees from different backgrounds to collaborate and learn from one another, you’re fostering a culture where everyone feels valued, respected and appreciated.
Employees benefit from a chance to understand thinking that is different from their own, which will be an advantage to them for their entire careers.
One-on-one meetings with team members give them a chance to talk about the challenges they’re facing. Ask what roadblocks they’re running into and look for ways to remove those obstacles or help them strategize ways the two of you can work through the challenges together.
These discussions alone often will prevent frustration from spiraling into a full-blown conflict.
Group meetings are a place where you can not only strengthen relationships among teammates but also observe their interactions with each other. Tone of voice, body language, stony silence and facial expressions can signal that tensions are brewing.
Awareness of friction between team members gives you a chance to address it appropriately before it escalates.
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A certain number of personality conflicts at work are bound to happen. Some employees simply won’t click. It will always be a struggle for those individuals to get along.
With active listening and facilitation of conversations between those people – which may need to be led by a third party with training in conflict resolution – they can often learn to navigate the issues that vex them most.
They may never be friends, but they can learn to work productively together.
Guest speakers, team-wide personality and strengths tests, communication role-playing, sessions on active listening and other exercises can aid in preventing workplace conflict.
These tools can get employees curious about each other, which opens doors to questions that help them understand why and how their colleagues approach situations differently than they do.
Understanding leads to greater openness and acceptance and is the first step toward employees learning to appreciate that different ways of thinking add value to work outcomes.
No matter how small they seem, employee complaints provide insights into brewing discord and merit immediate attention.
Quickly and proactively address employee concerns, so underlying resentments and anger don’t build and cause conflict.
Be aware when complaints, such as chronic concerns that certain team members regularly miss deadlines or don’t pull their weight, may be spotlighting larger issues that need to be addressed.
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At the root of conflict prevention is clear communication, which minimizes misunderstandings, promotes transparency, facilitates collaboration, encourages feedback, clarifies expectations and builds strong relationships. When everyone embraces clearly communicated, common goals, they will more effectively work together to achieve them.
Preventing conflict at work is essential for maintaining a positive, productive environment where employees can thrive.
By proactively addressing common issues—such as personality conflicts, communication breakdowns and work style differences—you can avoid disruptions that undermine team success and organizational goals.
Axcet HR Solutions employee relations specialists help small businesses prevent and manage conflict in the workplace. From expert guidance on communication strategies to customized conflict resolution training, Axcet offers comprehensive solutions to foster a harmonious work environment.
Schedule a consultation to learn how we can help your team overcome work conflict and thrive.
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