Build and Lead an Excellent Team!
	Learn the 44 skills you need to select, direct, manage and energize an exceptional - and highly successful - team. More>>

Resolving Team Conflict

Building Stronger Teams by Facing Your Differences

Conflict can be pretty much inevitable when you work with others. People have different viewpoints and under the right set of circumstances, those differences escalate to conflict. How you handle that conflict determines whether it works to the team's advantage or contributes to its demise.

You can choose to ignore it, complain about it, blame someone for it, or try to deal with it through hints and suggestions; or you can be direct, clarify what is going on, and attempt to reach a resolution through common techniques like negotiation or compromise. It's clear that conflict has to be dealt with, but the question is how: It has to be dealt with constructively and with a plan, otherwise it's too easy to get pulled into the argument and create an even larger mess.

Conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. Healthy and constructive conflict is a component of high functioning teams. Conflict arises from differences between people; the same differences that often make diverse teams more effective than those made up of people with similar experience. When people with varying viewpoints, experiences, skills, and opinions are tasked with a project or challenge, the combined effort can far surpass what any group of similar individual could achieve. Team members must be open to these differences and not let them rise into full-blown disputes.

Understanding and appreciating the various viewpoints involved in conflict are key factors in its resolution. These are key skills for all team members to develop. The important thing is to maintain a healthy balance of constructive difference of opinion, and avoid negative conflict that's destructive and disruptive.

Getting to, and maintaining, that balance requires well-developed team skills, particularly the ability to resolve conflict when it does happens, and the ability to keep it healthy and avoid conflict in the day-to-day course of team working. Let's look at conflict resolution first, then at preventing it.

Resolving Conflict

When a team oversteps the mark of healthy difference of opinion, resolving conflict requires respect and patience. The human experience of conflict involves our emotions, perceptions, and actions; we experience it on all three levels, and we need to address all three levels to resolve it. We must replace the negative experiences with... (Sign in to read more.)

Full text of this article is available to members of the Mind Tools Career Excellence Club. If you're a member, please click here for full text, or sign in below.

Where to go from here:		Join Mind Tools		Free Newsletter
		Download & Print		Next Article

New Articles (Not included in the Mind Tools E-book.)
* Shows articles available in full only to Career Excellence Club members

How to Be a Good Team Player - Maximizing your contribution
Team Management Skills - The core skills needed to manage your team
Reducing Sick Leave - Decreasing absenteeism... and its costs
Benne and Sheats' Group Roles - Identifying positive and negative group roles
Cog's Ladder - Understanding and accelerating group formation*
Team Charters - Getting your teams off to a great start
Team-Building Exercises - Planning activities that actually work
Building the Trust of Your New Team - Getting real and living the "we" in team*
Hiring People: Questions to Ask- Know what to ask to find the right person*
Management By Wandering Around (MBWA) - Staying in touch with your team*
DILO (Day In the Life Of) - Improving team effectiveness by analyzing daily activity*

A full list of Mind Tools articles is available here.

return to top

Learn to manage the stress in your life with our sister site, stress.mindtools.com.

Online Training
Mind Tools Store: Mind Tools Ebook, Make Time for Success
 Stress Management Masterclass, How to Lead
 Relaxation MP3s

© Mind Tools Ltd, 1995-2010, All Rights Reserved

We welcome appropriate reprinting and reuse of Mind Tools material,
however, you must get our permission first!
To do this, please visit our Permissions Center.

Newsletter · Store · Corporate Services · Search · Advertisers

MindTools.com is one of the Internet's most-visited career skills resources.
Click here to see analysis.