Conflict with colleagues
Tension and disagreement is inevitable in the workplace. How you deal with it makes all the difference.
The saying goes that you can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends. But what about colleagues? You also don’t get to choose them, yet you spend a third of your day with them. To a certain extent they become your family away from home, and, as it goes with family, there are clashing personalities and different viewpoints. At work there are also the added pressures of deadlines, demanding bosses and clients. Conflict is bound to happen. How you handle it makes all the difference.
We all deal with conflict in our own way, whether effective or ineffective. The most common responses are:
- Confronting the person
- Avoiding the person
- Accommodating
- Compromising.
However, all of these responses may have their drawbacks, ranging from resentment, frustration, humiliation and being taken advantage of. The best approach is cooperation, in other words finding a solution that leaves you and your colleague feeling satisfied.
So how do you go about it? Here are a few tips:
- Be direct, but kind: Don’t use emotive language or fuzzy adjectives. Say what is bothering you in short and simple, but direct sentences. Speaking in long sentences means that you don’t have a leg to stand on or hope that the person you are talking to doesn’t discover your hidden agenda.
- Don’t be blunt and mean. Use a kind tone of voice and watch your body language. You want to communicate your problem without being hurtful, insulting or critical.
- Give the person you are talking to time to state his/her understanding and feelings about the dispute. Listen what the other person is saying and check that you understand what is being said. Say something like ‘have I understood correctly?’
- Now explore options for solving the problem together. Focus on areas of agreement. Make sure that you and your colleague approve of the final solution.