You can’t escape conflicts at work unless you work alone - forever. As soon as two or more people are collaborating, disagreements and conflicts are inevitable. Stephen Covey’s philosophy of “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” will bring you far, but not far enough.
Your team members may bring their conflicts to you. You may find yourself in a situation where you simply disagree with someone else, yet they feel that they are experiencing a stressful conflict with you. Below you will find my favorite resources in spotting, mentally preparing, and effectively managing disagreements and conflicts at work.
Recommended Resources
Lessons Learned from a Conflict: How to Disagree and Avoid Conflict: Arnoldas Gudas writeup on disagreements and conflicts is short but insightful. His examples for asking questions with more curiosity and less judgement have helped me many times before. (5 min read)
To have better disagreements, change your words: Julia Minson shares a simple H.E.A.R. technique that serves as a reminder to hedge your claims, emphasize agreement, acknowledge the opposing prespective, and reframe (your message) to the positive. (6 min read)
Resolving Conflict: Manager Tools lays out their guidance on what to do when two of your direct reports are fighting about something. This is specifically about conflicts and not about simple disagreements. (38 min listen)
How To Handle Conflict With A High D: Scientific validity of DiSC aside, this Manager Tools podcast shares various helpful examples and tactics to overcome conflicts with a dominant person according to the DiSC model. “i”, “S”, and “C” are covered separately in other episodes. (32 min listen)
ℹ️ Manager Tools lists over 20 podcasts on Conflicts so have at it!