We have all experienced conflict. Conflicts happen all the time whether you are in a group project for school arguing over an assignment or arguing with your family over who picks the TV show to watch that evening, so here are some helpful tips to resolve conflict within the workplace.
When in the role of a project/program manager, come into your project and set guidelines for your team to follow, creating a healthy work environment and appropriate boundaries. By setting universal guidelines right away, your team will understand your day-to-day expectations. Additionally, each team member will have the same expectations despite having differing personalities, Core Values Indexes™ (CVIs), and work ethics.
Another tip is to get to know each of their team members’ CVIs. The four CVI personalities include Builder, Merchant, Banker, and Innovator, which comprises of a core value, a core value support, team contribution type, conflict strategy, and learning style. By understanding each team member’s CVI, a project/program manager can better understand how and why conflict may arise between team members and how to resolve it in the best way possible.
Although you can take the necessary steps to avoid conflict by setting office guidelines and boundaries and learn their teams’ CVI personality type, conflict will inevitably occur from time to time. When conflicts between team members arise, as the project/program manager, you can do the following to resolve the issue(s):
- Meet privately with each team member
Meeting privately will allow each team member to be in a safe space to voice concerns freely.
- Practice active listening
You should practice active listening without interrupting and consider the team member’s CVI personality type.
- Seek fair solutions
Ask each team member for solutions to the conflict. After you meet privately with all team members, bring the team together, present the solutions, and come to a reasonable and fair solution for the team as a whole.
Try these helpful tips to prevent or resolve conflict when it happens, and it will allow a better work environment with team members working together to create fair solutions.
