Thursday, October 07, 2010

HR Talk: Resolve Workplace Conflict for Improved Profit

by Darrin Coon   Edited Thursday, December 02, 2010

Originally Published in Biz to Biz NW Arkansas

Close In our fast paced work world it is virtually certain we will run into workplace conflict. Just the shear number of hours we spend working makes it probable we will experience a bump, or worse, in the workplace. In fact, it’s been observed that many supervisors spend the equivalent of two days, out of a typical five-day work week, addressing workplace conflict. While conflict may ultimately be good or bad, it’s seldom profitable in and of its self.

So, if you want to improve profits, it’s time to become masterful at minimizing unnecessary conflict, and extracting any good that may come from the unavoidable.

Here are some quick tips on how to deal with workplace conflict:

  • Recognize the opportunity cost of unresolved workplace conflict. The time and emotional energy spent on interpersonal conflict represents lost resources that could have been invested into value-added pursuits like branding, sales, marketing, product development, and recruiting.
  • Separate personal issues from substantive business issues. It’s not really important that you work with your “best friend.” Keeping things in the workplace businesslike will often work to your advantage. As a workplace mentor of mine once said, “You do not necessarily have to like the people you work with, but it is absolutely essential that you develop effective working relationships with them.”
  • Become an active listener. Seek to understand others before expecting to be understood. From my experience coaching others encountering workplace conflict, I would estimate that close to 90% of the issues come to the fact that someone does not really feel understood. Ask open-ended questions, and then just listen. Summarize what you think you heard back to the other person. Do this again, and again. I promise you will learn something.
  • Use conflict to your advantage by seeing it as an opportunity to clarify roles, identify expectations, and build a deeper understanding of how others see things. Confusion over expected roles is one of many reasons that human resource professionals like written job descriptions. A great deal of unproductive, unnecessary conflict can be avoided by simply defining expected roles in a written job description.
  • Build trust in others by becoming known as a truth teller. Conflict flourishes in the absence of trust, and mistrust thrives when people are not honest with one another. Be tactful and always tell the truth, even when it hurts. In the long run, you will gain back whatever credibility you have temporarily lost by admitting your mistakes or tactfully confronting others.
  • Practice “keeping short accounts.” In other words, don’t let something that needs to be addressed fester to the point that it becomes unmanageable. Avoiding issues can become as problematic as being in attack mode all the time.
  • Be willing to recognize the need for a skilled third party should a serious conflict remain unresolved and escalation is likely. The risk of escalating a conflict into a legal dispute is seldom worth it. Suppose you filed a suit and won? The working relationship is now over, and you likely damaged a lot of third-party relationships in the process. Consult an experienced mediator who can work with both sides, and move toward a voluntary agreement.

Darrin Coon, M.S., SPHR, is President-Elect of the Northwest Arkansas Human Resource Association (NOARK). For information email info@noark.org.