Mitigating Conflicts at the Workplace.

1. Practice attentive listening: Ensure that all parties involved in the conflict are heard. Encourage everyone to listen carefully and understand the speaker’s point of view before responding. Good listening is the foundation of effective conflict resolution.
2. Use the word ‘I’: It teaches employees to express their feelings and thoughts in ‘I’ language. This technique helps avoid blame and reduces defensiveness in others by maintaining focus on feelings and experiences.
3. Know Essential Questions: Conflicts often arise from hidden problems that have not yet been resolved. Encourage employees to look beyond the conflict and understand its root cause. This can lead to more complete and lasting results.
4. Add comments: Help others involved in conflict see the situation. Compromise can promote empathy and understanding and provide a path to mutual respect and resolution.
5. Find common causes: Encourage employees to find common ground even when there are disagreements. Finding common ground can be the basis for creating a common solution.
6. Use neutral language: Ask your employees and train them to express their opinions without using accusatory or accusatory language. Neutral language facilitates objective, unemotional conversations.
7. Create clear protocols: Develop and distribute clear guidelines for respectful communication. Understanding expectations for conflict resolution can help employees resolve disagreements constructively.
8. Follow a step-by-step dispute resolution process: Provide employees with a clear, step-by-step process for resolving disputes. This may include initial private conversations, consultation with another person if necessary, and follow-up to resolve any issues.
9. Encouraged to solve problems focusing on: Change focus from past questions to future answers. Encourage employees to share ideas on how to resolve conflicts and prevent similar problems in the future.
10. Provide training and resources: Provide ongoing training in conflict resolution and provide self-study materials. This may include workshops, online courses, and access to books on effective communication and advocacy strategies.

source: www.creativeeducation.co.uk

@wemafrika1