PM Challenges -Work Conflict

Team Conflict: Strategies for resolving Workplace Conflict.

Types of Professional Disagreements

 Different Approaches: When people have different perspectives or different
backgrounds, they can often irritate one another.

 Unmet Expectations: If you expect something and don’t get it, you’re going to likely
be upset.

 Changing Priorities: When priorities change midstream in a project or on assigned

tasks, the potential to ruffle some feathers can increase.

 Another Time Zone: If people are not on the same schedule, but working on the
same project, even if on different tasks, that can cause trouble.
 Egos, Egos, Egos: Sometimes it can be as simple as a personality that expects more
from you or creates unrealistic demands.
7 Basic Strategies to Resolve Conflict
1. Diffuse the Situation: This could be considered triage. You want to stop the bleeding,
so to speak, and in so doing acknowledge each person involved in the conflict. Don’t
pick sides, just listen, and bring the temperature down to a level that you can work
with.

2. Define the Conflict: You’re not going to solve something until you know what it is.
Hear from all sides and determine what it is that is causing the problem.

3. Identify the Root of the Conflict: This is like putting the problem in a crucible and
bearing down on it until you’ve reached its elemental base. By peeling away what
isn’t needed, you can now see the problem in historic context and note how it had
been dealt with in the past.

4. Find the Common Goal: If there is something to which all parties can carry upon,
then you’re halfway there to resolving the problem. Use that common ground on
which to build an equitable solution for all.

5. Create a Common Vision: Once you have people agreeing on a goal, it’s your job to
help them envision how they can all work together to achieve that goal.

6. Define Options: How can they work through conflict? By offering them a set of
options. When they have choice, they feel more in control of the situation, and that
ownership is going to give them the strength to unite and succeed.

7. Create a Path: Now that you’ve got the warring parties to make peace and get on
board a common solution, you must plan out the way they’ll get there. Whether that’s
just reverting to the old plan, now clear to everyone, or devising an alternative route,
the path to peace requires clear goal-setting.