From the course: Adapting Leadership to Behavioral Styles

Improving conflict management

From the course: Adapting Leadership to Behavioral Styles

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Improving conflict management

- Several years ago, I got brought into work with a team of four grad students that were working on a consulting project together. Their faculty mentor told me they'd fallen into disarray and the conflict was out of hand and asked if I could help. The first meeting I observed I was shocked when one team member pointed out a problem which caused another team member to point at him and call him an idiot. And then a third one to laugh about that. Well, I said that has to stop right now. But in talking to them individually and looking at their behavioral style assessments, I realized that it was easy to see what had been happening. The person that spoke up about the issue was a processor and needed to think things through before sharing his thoughts. The other two were a motivator and a producer. So what had been happening in meeting after meeting was the motivator would pose an idea, the producer would agree so that they could move forward, and then a day or two later the processor would point out an issue. So the motivator and the producer mistakenly thought the processor was not bright, that he was slow rather than thorough. No, I wasn't able to make this team like each other, but we did put in a really simple rule that helped minimize future conflicts. The 24-hour decision rule. Come up with an idea and then wait 24 hours before making a final decision. That way the processor has time to analyze and weigh in, then after that, the group could agree and move forward. It ended up with the team making pretty great decisions and great progress. There are two points at which knowledge of differences in personality or behavioral style can help you manage conflict. I want to talk you through them so that you can use this knowledge to better manage conflict in your own relationships and on your own team. The first point is to understand where conflict is coming from. When you and someone else see work as differently, literally a totally different perspective on what work is and the way you're supposed to interact, of course, there's going to be more consistent conflict. If one person sees work as a place that needs social components and the other sees work as a place of strictly of task accomplishment, boom, you've got conflict. There are innumerable cases like this and no matter what behavior assessment you're using, you can generally look at opposite ends of a spectrum to see where natural conflict can occur. One way to mitigate this is to focus on the benefits that the other style brings rather than the aspects that can be frustrating. One thing I always do in IDI team building workshops is to start by helping people see the strengths of the different styles. so then when we map the team onto those styles, it's easier to see the individuals positively. The second aspect of conflict management is to understand how to help. You can look for the base of it and then try to find middle ground. Maybe that's a matter of setting up rules for interaction. If you've got somebody on your team that rarely voices their opinion and feels walked over, put an agenda item in your meetings where everybody has to voice an opinion. You can offer anonymous feedback options like surveys or question boxes. If it's a matter of people feeling like their feelings are being hurt, set up ways that people can compliment each other and interact with each other in open forums. Wherever the conflict is coming from, remember that there's no right or wrong personality. And remember too that personality is just one component of conflict, a lack of resources could be an outside factor that's actually causing two people who normally get along to clash. Look for ways to bring different perspectives and personalities into harmony. Create a culture that celebrates differences and champions diversity of thought. Growing and improving from conflict is going to lead to a stronger, more resilient team.

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