Wherever people work together, conflicts are inevitable. However, if these persist in the working life of an organization over a longer period of time, the team can slow down its performance. With good conflict management, however, managers can counteract this in a targeted manner.
What is conflict management? A definition.
The aim of conflict management is to prevent the spread and escalation of conflicts. Anyone who understands good conflict management as a leader or manager knows the essential techniques that lead to never allowing conflicts within a company to escalate. To this end, the manager mediates, for example, between the disputing parties and works with them to find a compromise that everyone can accept.
#2 Personnel management
The whole thing has an important background. Because in the long run, conflicts and disputes between colleagues or teams have a negative impact on the company’s success:
1. Colleagues can be so distracted from their actual work that they can no longer concentrate properly on it. As a result, their performance decreases.
2. In the worst case, they even affect the health of workers. They take the arguments home with them, can no longer switch off, or they may even become depressed. This can result in significant absenteeism due to illness.
2. In the worst case, they even affect the health of workers. They take the arguments home with them, can no longer switch off, or they may even become depressed. This can result in significant absenteeism due to illness.
3. They also have a negative effect on the working atmosphere, which can lead to increased fluctuation within the workforce.
4. At the same time, the company’s attractiveness to new employees decreases. Because in the digital age, word of a negative working atmosphere quickly gets around, for example via employer rating platforms, and damages the company’s image.
5. Last but not least: Customers also notice the internal disputes, feel uncomfortable and wander off more quickly.
For all of these reasons, it is essential to resolve conflicts as sustainably as possible. It is about enabling managers with the necessary knowledge to recognize and resolve disputes and tensions in their departments and teams as early as possible. The big question is: how? Do not worry! There is a solution for that! Leaders can carry out this important task in a tailor-made training course on the topic conflict management learn.
#3 Change Management
Here they learn, for example, to differentiate between different types of conflict. For example, there are factual conflicts that result from different opinions and views.
Other forms of conflict appear in the following areas of life:
- Relationships: These arise when the chemistry between employees is not right.
- Communication: These are often based on misunderstandings – colleagues mean the same thing, but talk past one another.
- Distribution: Sometimes disputes arise within a department or between departments in cases where the distribution of the company’s own budget is concerned.
- Values: These are conflicts between employees that arise due to different values and morals.
Power: This happens when two employees argue, for example, about a vacant management position.
#4 Communication in personnel management
But how can managers in the everyday working world now deal with an existing conflict? Above all, it is important to analyze disputes first: What type of conflict is it? In this way, the right course of action can be precisely selected to resolve the dispute.
Intervention options: Simple communication conflicts can, for example, be resolved in a mediating conversation. Here the manager appears as a neutral person and mediates between the conflicting parties. It is important during the implementation to remain objective and not to make any personal reproaches.
Conflict management in relationships, on the other hand, can be implemented, for example, using special instruments such as role-playing games. As a reminder: These conflicts often arise because employees cannot classify and understand the statements and actions of other colleagues. In a role play you can put yourself in the other person’s shoes and get to know and understand him better. That brings them closer together. But there are many other methods of conflict resolution that one Leadership training be thematized.
#5 Presentation techniques
The highest art of conflict management, however, is not to let conflicts arise in the first place. In leadership and management training , executives learn how to recognize an incipient argument at an early stage and prevent it before negative moods set in in the company. In this context, it is particularly important to have a good communication culture between the manager and their team.
Anyone who regularly requests feedback and questions how the individual team members are doing will recognize early on when dark clouds are piling up on the horizon. In addition, employees should have the opportunity to speak openly and honestly in regular one-and-ones. This way, smoldering disputes come to light early and can be resolved quickly.
# 6 Self-management
Conflict is a natural part of life. It is inevitable that we will encounter conflict, and it is important to know how to manage this process effectively. Conflict coaching, also known as mediation, is a form of implementation that helps participating people to find common ground. Conflict coaching can be used to help people in different contexts and situations, e.g. B. in disputes at work or in the family.
Business mediation specialists with mediation skills are trained in communication techniques and psychological knowledge in order to find solutions in conflict management with emotional intelligence. They use a variety of communication methods, including dialogue, listening, exploring perceptions and feelings about the situation, finding solutions and problem-solving skills together to end the argument peacefully. It’s about how to get along well enough with disputes faced between employees in the workplace or issues with team members to effectively complete tasks in the best interests of the company.
Conflict coaching / mediation can make difficult conversations at work easier in order to reach solutions and find common ground. The following five steps describe how to deal with conflicts well.
- Clarify the interests and the problem at hand.
Listen carefully. - Make your needs clear
- Be open-minded and flexible
- Consider all of the options before making a decision.
#7 Team leadership
If managers take all of this to heart, the positive effects of good conflict management will not be long in coming.
This includes:
- A better working atmosphere
- An increased efficiency
- A higher employee loyalty
- Increased employer attractiveness
- Low sick days for employees
- Better business results
So what could be more obvious than dealing with methods of conflict management? Because companies that make it possible to use conflict competence to resolve conflicts in such a way that no losers remain are always on the winning track. Incidentally, this applies not only to differences of opinion with employees, but also with suppliers, partners or customers. Here, too, good conflict management can work wonders.
#2 More independent of time and place
The advanced training “Conflict Management” is one of the core components / modules and offers of leadership training and courses with the Leadership and Management degree from the Swiss Association for Leadership Training (SVF) and the “Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS)”. CAS is understood to mean a further education course within and outside of a Master of Advanced (MAS) course at a Swiss university or university of applied sciences. A CAS course, such as CAS Conflict Management, also known as a certificate course, deals with a specific subject in detail, lasts between 1/2-1 year and the participants acquire the necessary skills for conflict resolution in organizations in different forms of teaching, such as online learning, blended learning , presence).
