At some point in your career as a manager, you’re going to have to resolve conflict between members of your team. Hopefully, it won’t happen very often, but when it does happen, you need to have a solid process to call upon.
Below, I’ll share a process for resolving conflict, along with some steps that you can take when holding a conversation with your team members.
Before that, I want to cover a few tips for prevention of conflict, as well some context to keep in mind when working through the process.
Be clear on the goals of this process
The obvious goal of this process is to work with your team to agree on a resolution to the conflict. This should enable them to focus on their work more effectively and to be happier and more engaged with their roles.
But a more subtle goal of this process is for them to feel heard and understood.
Oftentimes, people don’t mind being disagreed with or finding common ground with someone as long as they feel like they’ve “said their bit” and that they are understood.
Below, you’ll see how this is an early and important step in the process of resolving conflict. I wouldn’t underestimate this step. Just the process of feeling heard and understood can open up even the most resolute of people to finding common ground and being open to a resolution that works for everyone.
Seek to understand the cause of the conflict
Before moving into a conversation or even getting involved, you need to understand what is causing the conflict and use this information to decide how to handle things.
Speak to each team member individually
The first step is to speak to each team member on their own and acknowledge that you’re aware of some issues and that you’d like to understand what’s happening. At this point, you’re not trying to solve the problem, you’re simply trying to get as much information as possible from each person so that you can decide what to do next.
Ask them what’s happening, why there is conflict and get their perspective. You can also take the chance to ask them what they think the other person is thinking and feeling. This will set the tone early for the idea that at some point, they’ll need to empathise with the other person if a conversation does happen between all of you.
Speak to other team members
Use this one with caution. If necessary, speak with other team members who may be able to provide a bit more information about what they’ve observed from their colleagues who are in conflict with each other.
You need to use caution here because you don’t want to end up escalating the problem and having team members “taking sides” against each other. So only do this if:
- You absolutely need to in order to get more context and information,
- You absolutely trust the individuals who you speak with to not share the conversation with the wider team and to give you their view with honesty.
At this point, you should have all of the information that you need to move to the next step of the process.
Decide how severe the conflict is
After speaking with the relevant people, you may realise that the conflict isn’t actually as bad as you thought it was. Or on the other end of the scale, it may be much worse.
Whichever it is, you need to know how severe things are so that you can:
- Decide whether you need to directly intervene or not.
- If you do need to intervene, the extent to which you need to i.e. do you need to mediate a conversation or simply tell them to sort this out between them?
- If the conflict is severe, do you need to get extra support from your own manager or your HR advisor?
If you decide that you do need extra support from your own manager or HR function, then they may well have their own process and approach for resolving the conflict. So you should be aware that things may get taken out of your hands a bit.
At the same time, this support may be necessary, especially if the conflict is serious and especially if you’re concerned about the conflict leaning towards bullying, harassment or personal issues.
If things aren’t this severe, but still require some kind of intervention from you, then you can use the following process to hold a conversation and move towards a resolution.
A process for resolving conflict between two employees
The starting point for any conflict resolution is actually pretty simple: it’s enabling effective communication. This entire process revolves around effective communication and whilst you’ll get fairly hands on with the process, the focus should be on enabling communication between your team members.
Tell each team member that you’ll all be having a conversation
Firstly, tell the team members who are in conflict that you’re scheduling a conversation between the three of you and tell them the reason for the meeting. Give them a heads up that you’ll be talking to them explicitly about the conflict and that you’d like to hear them talk openly with each other about it, then help them move towards a resolution.
It’s important to hold this conversation as quickly as possible. You don’t want to leave a huge gap between giving them the heads up about the conversation and the conversation actually happening. This could cause unnecessary stress and anxiety from one or both of them.
You set the tone of the conversation and the goals
When you start the conversation, you should make a few things clear, especially what the goals of the conversation are. These are likely to be:
- For each of them to share their thoughts and feelings, so that they each feel like they’re being heard by the other person.
- For each of them to actively listen and seek to understand the other person’s perspective.
- For them to agree on how they can work together towards a resolution.
- For them to agree on the first steps that they can take towards a resolution.
You should also set the tone for the conversation by talking slowly and calmly, whilst being clear that listening to each other and letting each other speak freely without interruptions is important.
Each person talks whilst the other person just listens
You then ask each person to share their perspective on the conflict, encouraging them to share things such as:
- How the conflict is making them feel and the effect it’s having on them,
- Why they feel that the conflict exists and what may be causing it.
- What an ideal outcome is here to resolve the conflict from their perspective.
It’s important to let them talk so that they feel heard. The other person in the conversation should actively listen and not interrupt. You should also watch for physical responses that may indicate frustration or disagreement, such as rolling their eyes or shaking their head. If you see this, remind them to be respectful and listen to the other person fully and that they will get a chance to share their views shortly.
Each person then shares their summary of what they’ve heard to confirm understanding
After one person has shared their views, you ask the other person to summarise what they’ve heard and to confirm their understanding of what’s been said.
The goal here isn’t for them to start defending themselves or to share their viewpoint yet. It’s simply to ensure that they’ve heard and understood the other person correctly. If they haven’t, then you should seek to clarify things.
You want to end this part of the conversation with both people having said what they need to say and both of them have understood everything correctly.
Ask them to summarise where the misalignment lies based on what they’ve said
Now, ask each of them to summarise what they feel the core cause of the conflict and misalignment is. They may not fully agree here i.e. they may have different causes that relate to their perspectives. This is okay – the goal is simply for them to openly share what they think the cause of the conflict is.
Remind them of the goals of the conversation
At this point, you may well have been talking for a little while and you may want to ground things a bit by reminding them why you’re having this conversation in the first place. So go back and reiterate the goals that you discussed at the start of the meeting.
This helps keep the conversation positive and focused on the right outcomes.
Remind them that no matter what, they both need to take ownership of fixing issues
Before moving forward and talking about the steps that need to be taken in order to resolve the conflict, you should take the chance to remind them that the ownership of the resolution is in their hands.
It can be easy for them to look at you and think that you’re the one who is going to fix things. Of course, you’re here to help them, but you’re not ultimately the one who can fix the problems – they both need to take ownership of this themselves.
Move towards how to move forward and fix the misalignment
Now it’s time to talk about how the conflict can be resolved on both sides. Go back to the part of the conversation where each person talked about the root cause of the conflict and what an ideal outcome looks like to them.
Ask each person to suggest ways to move forward and what is needed in order to resolve the conflict.
At this point, you should be encouraging them both to agree on common ground and to talk about their ideas for fixing things.
You may need to highlight the common ground to them if they’re not seeing it themselves. But generally, try to encourage them to do most of the talking here.
You’ve told them that ownership of fixing the issues lies with them, so you don’t want to accidentally go against this by suddenly dominating the part of the conversation where you talk about fixing issues.
Agree on next steps (break them down)
The chances are that their ideas for resolution aren’t going to be things that you can just tick off quickly and easily. So work with them to break things down into smaller steps and make them as concrete as possible.
Tell them that things will take time to resolve and whilst you want to fix things quickly, that they should expect to work through a few steps before things are actually fixed. This helps them understand that this will take a bit of time.
Agree on when to next check in and what you’ll check in about
You can’t simply leave this meeting and then trust that everything will be completely fine. You’ll almost certainly need to check in again and this is when you should set this expectation.
Before wrapping up, agree on a time when the three of you will meet again and choose an appropriate timeline – perhaps a week or two. Tell them that you’ll check in to see how they’re getting on with the agreed next steps and to agree on anything that needs to happen next.
Encourage them to speak to each other directly without you in the room if they need to.
