Team conflict resolution

Here are some techniques for healthy conflict resolution:

• Encourage the parties to try and resolve the issue by themselves before you intervene
• The discussion is kept to a factual basis, with verifiable facts over subjective opinions
• Multiple alternative solutions are considered
• Highlight the common goals and areas of agreement
• Use humour to diffuse tension
• Avoid letting one person dominate the conversation, ensure all views are heard
• Reach resolution through mutual agreement

Steps for arbitration

1. Ask both parties to document their issues, assumptions made, and proposed solutions
2. Schedule a meeting where the parties can meet face-to-face
3. Have both parties state their case and their understanding of the other side’s case
4. Ensure both parties agree on the facts and viewpoints
5. Facilitate a discussion and ensure a solution is found
6. If the parties cannot find a solution together, you may need to force a solution

Tips

• Solve conflicts before they arise
• At the outset of the team, have everyone agree on a conflict resolution system, such as
  • majority rule
  • consensus
  • team leader makes decision
  • boss resolves it
  • arbiter resolves it
• This will make conflicts faster to resolve

The team deals with the team.

Johanna Rothman suggests that, as a team member with a grievance, you try to resolve things at a team level before involving managers.

Lean into it

R. Campbell says to lean into it. If you feel like someone is being abrasive, have a 1on1 conversation with them to clear it up. If you don’t, it weighs on you and feels icky. If you don’t feel comfortable, reach out to a leader. “Go to the source.”

Techniques

Use any of the following techniques when appropriate:

• Postpone to deal with it when you are better prepared
• Accommodate to stabilize the situation and maintain relations
• Compromise on a satisfactory solution to both parties
• Force a solution to resolve the issue in an emergency
• Collaborate on a solution that is optimal for both parties

Ideally, every conflict should end with collaborating on a solution.

Adaptive approaches

• Don’t let some people become “heroes” and take difficult tasks away from other team members because it will stifle team development
• Encouraging team members to resolve conflicts themselves will improve working relationships long-term and help them develop team skills, which benefits the entire organization

If a team member is reluctant to confront someone they have a conflict with, try the three-step intervention path, developed by agile coach Lyssa Adkins:

1. If the team member hasn’t shared the issue with the other party, encourage them to do so
2. Offer to accompany the team member as they discuss the conflict with the other party, but make it clear your role is to provide moral support, not to present the issue yourself
3. If the team member is still reluctant to approach the other party, you can alert the other party to the conflict so that they can come together to address the conflict directly.
   1. Explain that you must reveal their identity, because receiving an anonymous complaint is unfair and doesn’t help resolve the issue

If these options are unacceptable, let the matter drop. If both parties do not see the issue as a mutual problem and are willing to explore options together, then you will not be able to impose a solution on them.

Guidelines

• Separate the problem from the personalities involved
  • Suggest uncovering the root cause of the problem
• Avoid letting the participants use negative labels or names for the other party
  • Even positive labels are a problem because they imply that one party has the authority to judge the other
• Don’t allow participants to present assumptions about the other party’s intentions
  • Let both sides explain themselves

If the conflict cannot be resolved, you may need to bring in a neutral mediator.