Understanding Conflict, Building Effective Communication

Conflict is a natural part of life, but effectively resolving conflict is not. Unresolved conflict is one of the “largest reducible costs” in business today (Dana, 1999), but is typically unaddressed. If you start to add up the costs of unresolved conflict – emotional stress, lost creativity, lost productivity, employee turnover, lack of continuity and lost expertise, litigation for disputes that progress to that level - it is easy to see how effectively managed conflict benefits your bottom line.

Conflict resolution training within an organization not only builds capacity to resolve conflict, but builds teamwork by creating a common foundation of shared skill, vocabulary and tools, enabling team members within a department and/or organization to:

• Gain insight into their default responses in a variety of conflict situations – their own as well as their colleagues’,
• Understand their own productive and non-productive contributions to challenges they are experiencing at work,
• Learn new tools for expressing and responding to challenging interactions and situations,
• Build capacity to effectively work with a broader range of people and personalities,
• Identify and articulate their concerns, issues, ideas, and requests in appropriate ways, and,
• Assume greater responsibility for their unique role and responsibilities within the organization.

This work results in:

• Reduction of conflict ,
• Greater productivity ,
• Increased satisfaction with the workplace,
• Articulation/re-articulation and re-alignment around common goals, and
• Movement beyond a narrow self-identified job-related viewpoint to align with a larger perspective that more effectively supports the organization’s mission.

In other words, the ability to be effective with the conflict that inevitably arises in the workplace helps your bottom line – increasing productivity, reducing the high costs of employee conflict, dissatisfaction and turnover, and helping your organization be focused, flexible and committed to your goals for success.

Many people assume that the ability to resolve conflict is as natural as breathing. This is rarely the case. In reality, few of us are truly powerful in the face of conflict, and even fewer are able to utilize the energy of conflict to advance our goals. While every individual has innate wisdom, skills must be cultivated to maximize an individual’s effectiveness. Skills that need to be consciously learned, applied, and utilized include being able to:

• Notice their own responses to difficult situations, problems and conflict,
• Communicate clearly and effectively,
• Respond effectively to others who are experiencing conflict or expressing dissatisfaction,
• Keep one’s attention focused on their stated goals, and,
• Powerfully move through the situation in a way that leaves everyone satisfied and present to the purpose of their work.

Conflict resolution training within an organization can be fun, offering easy to learn and use tools that drastically reduce the experience of conflict, enabling people to be more effective communicators.

Many kinds of conflict resolution trainings are available. The most effective ones have the following components:

• Building Awareness in ways that enable individuals to:
• Recognize their default responses,
• Understand how they contribute to challenging situations, and
• Cultivate a greater understanding of others.
• Learning Tools that are practical and can be used on a daily basis.
• Practical Application in the form of role-plays and scenarios that explore present-day conflicts and challenging dynamics.
• Debrief and further support that includes:
• Ongoing coaching that explores what did and didn’t work well in real-life situations after the training,
• Building one’s “conflict resolution muscle” to better prepare individuals for challenging dynamics and conflict,
• Learning more tools to build on an individual’s foundation so that they grow more and more confident in handling conflict.

Additional conflict resolution work can include:

• Designing conflict management systems, including redesigning dispute resolution procedures and codifying systems in employee manuals,
• Training management to work effectively with employee conflict,
• Addressing employer/union relations,
• Applying conflict resolution skills to customer service issues,
• Training key employees in the mediation process, and
• Bringing in outside mediators, and/or adding mediation with outside mediators to your Employee Assistance Program for more serious conflict situations.

 Conflict resolution training is a powerful experience, offering practical communication tools. Individuals leave inspired and empowered to continue utilizing the tools in their daily lives. Like any skill, ongoing support is necessary to maximize the desired shift. Muscles aren’t built by one visit to the gym. Communication tools aren’t flawlessly absorbed after one seminar. The more investment an organization makes in offering their employees concrete tools, through ongoing seminars and practice sessions, the more return on the investment the organization will receive.

back to index