Relationships in the team do not always develop the way both employees and their leader would like. We are all different, with our own characters and habits, we have our own outlook on life and work, and, unfortunately, we are not always able to negotiate with each other or separate personal and work relationships. And therefore, the disagreements that arise in the work team are a given that must be accepted and learn how to resolve conflict situations so that the efficiency of the unit does not decrease.
Types of conflicts
A conflict is a confrontation, a clash of interests between two opposing sides, and not always open. That is why, in psychology, there is the concept of a latent or hidden conflict, which already exists, but has not yet passed into the phase of open confrontation.
The classification of conflicts is extensive.
For example, according to the number of participants, they can be divided into:
- intrapersonal, when a person is in conflict with himself;
- interpersonal, in which there are two participants, for example, two employees, or an employee and him;
- a conflict between one person and a group of people, for example, a boss may collide with the whole team at once;
- between one employee and the organization as a whole, if labor conflicts arise, in which employees can make claims to the organization in which they work;
- between several groups, for example, warehouse employees quarrel with sales managers.
By direction, conflicts that arise in the workforce are:
- horizontal in which employees of the same official status participate, who are not subordinate to each other: an accountant and a manager or managers of the same unit;
- vertical, the participants of which are managers and their subordinates;
- mixed when employees who are not subordinate to them can also enter into a confrontation, for example, a logistician of a company can enter into a quarrel with the head of the sales department.
According to the source of occurrence are divided into:
- objective and subjective;
- business and personal conflicts.
By duration:
- short-term;
- protracted, lengthy.
And, finally, according to the results, conflicts in the team are divided into:
- destructive, destructive, since the parties failed to reach a positive decision, and none of the participants as a result of the collision won anything;
- positive and constructive, since the result of the conflict is positive changes in the work of the unit or the entire organization as a whole.
Conflict situations: causes
Understanding the cause of disagreement is the first step to resolving it. Everyone formulates the reasons in their own way, but in fact, if all the options are grouped, it turns out that their diversity will be reduced to a small number of options.
The main causes of conflicts in the team can be grouped into three main groups.
- Organization of work processes.
- Features of the emerging human relationships between employees.
- Personal characteristics of employees
Organization as a process control mechanism
The organization of work in the company is a complex process that determines the clarity and organization of the interaction of employees and departments with each other.
The presence of work rules, specific requirements for expected results, criteria for evaluating these results reduces the likelihood of disputes.
The fewer rules in the enterprise and formal requirements the more confusion and reasons for employees to collide with each other.
For example, the lack of job descriptions leads to the fact that managers and subordinates cannot agree on who and what should do what, what employees are responsible for, what rights they have and to what extent the boss has the right to require them to fulfill their duties. Vaguely written criteria for evaluating work and the associated vague rules for calculating bonuses and bonuses lead to skirmishes over the fairness of pay.
At work, employees not only perform their work tasks, they are living people who cannot be forbidden to communicate on non-work topics or forbidden to have their own personal opinions about each other.
That's why may arise on the basis of disagreements in the assessment of events occurring outside the workspace: attitude towards children, political views, hobbies outside of working hours. Including the lack of personal sympathy of colleagues for each other can cause discord in the workplace.
For example, someone considers their colleague to be irresponsible or not well-mannered, as a result of which conflict may arise when performing work tasks together.
Let's get personal
The personal characteristics of employees are a common reason why a clash between employees can arise at any time.
This happens especially often if people do not know how to control their emotions. When discussing a work situation, formally, they may be completely right in its assessment, but it may be too emotional. A leader in his angry speech turning into a shout or an insult, alas, is not such a rare situation. Some of the employees can be: aggressive, curious, shameless. But the most difficult employees are those who have conflict - this is a personality trait that is constantly manifested, they themselves, by their behavior, provoke a clash with their colleagues and are in constant confrontation with them.
Consequences of conflicts at work
What conflicts have a negative impact on the work of the company, is a proven fact. Employees who do not know how, cannot perform the task efficiently, and by their behavior resemble the characters of Krylov's fable about the swan, cancer and pike. In this case, there is no need to talk about a qualitative result. As a result, the company may not meet its goals, fail to achieve the required indicators, employees may leave the company, and even the image of the company as an employer may be damaged.
But some of the disputes can really change the working situation for the better and even accelerate the development of the organization. If colleagues in the company constantly quarrel about their responsibilities, then development of business processes of the organization with the definition of the powers, rights and responsibilities of employees, specification of their functionality, will significantly change the quality of the company's work.
Human psychology is such that the emotional tension that accumulates as a disputable situation develops in the team must get its way out. If employees show their negative emotions, then an emotional discharge occurs, which can be attributed to the positive aspects of the conflict.
In any company, the staff of which consists of more than one person, sooner or later conflicts arise, which are one of the main enemies of effective work. The task of a competent leader is to reduce the number of conflicts to a minimum and resolve all disputes as quickly as possible.
The manager must consider conflicts between employees objectively, not rush to take one of the sides, and not show their own emotions.
It will be a big mistake to “turn a blind eye” to the dispute that has arisen and postpone its resolution until later.
A number of factors lead to the emergence of disagreements in the team, which may be of internal or external origin. For example, disputes between employees can arise both because of the ways of solving production problems, and, say, with different political views, which is especially important at the present time.
There is a whole theory that studies conflicts, according to which the following types are distinguished:
— Disagreements about achieving the overall goals of the company;
— Obstacles in achieving personal goals of individual employees. This is career growth, incorrect, from the point of view of the parties to the conflict, the distribution of tasks, and the like;
- Conflicts on the basis of personal hostility and rejection of the norms of behavior of some members of the team by others.
Methods for resolving disputes in a team are also well known. This is avoidance of conflict, smoothing, compromise and coercion.
Most leaders resolve disputes precisely by coercion, hard forcing one of the parties to accept the opinion of the other in the form of an order and without any argument. On the one hand, this really removes the external manifestations of the conflict. But, on the other hand, it translates the relationship between the participants into the category of "time bombs".
The actions of the leader in the event of a conflict in the team should be based on objectivity and listening to the position of each and the parties. In the event that the dispute that has arisen is constructive, it is necessary to look for a solution that would, to a greater or lesser extent, suit each of the parties.
Any conflict is easier to prevent in advance. This is facilitated by the leadership style and the introduction of corporate ethics, which in the best way prevents the emergence of any personal conflicts that are not related to direct labor activity.
Actions of the leader in case of conflict in the team
Talk frankly tete-a-tete with each side
Diplomatically talk to each of the parties and be sure to individually. Listen to claims, grievances, the history of the conflict, refrain from voicing your assessment of what happened.
Try to smooth out sharp corners, get out of a stressful situation, normalize the psycho-emotional state of the employee, switch to other topics.
Look for motives on both sides
Try to understand the motives of each side. Put yourself in the place of your colleagues and think about what could be the real cause of the offense.
Show Kindness and Sympathy
One of the simple and effective ways to relieve stress is to show kindness and mutual understanding to colleagues. Therefore, try to be friendly to each side of the conflict, especially if the conflict occurs in front of the entire team.
Be open to communication with colleagues
Your employees must be confident in you that they can always talk to you about topics and problems that concern them, and not keep them to themselves. Each employee must be sure that you keep personal information confidential.
Do not add fuel to the fire of conflict
Avoid behavior that will further incite resentment and hostility in employees. No statements about the participants in the conflict in the team. Do not discuss with other colleagues the identity of the parties to the conflict.
Stop spreading gossip and rumors
Most often, conflicts arise on emotional grounds, when emotions take precedence over logic. Therefore, women are more likely to be exposed to open conflicts, as they are more emotional. If the conflict for some reason has not been resolved to the end, then it can smoothly turn into the spread of gossip and intrigue. Therefore, resolve conflict situations as early and quickly as possible. Identify sources of compromising information and talk to them.
Analyze yourself and circumstances
You must accept responsibility for the emergence of conflict in your team. Analyze conflict situations, adapt your management style, look for an individual approach to your subordinates and colleagues.
3 chose
Few things can so spoil the attitude even to your favorite work as conflicts that arise in a team. When you step into the office not as in your own home, but as on a battlefield, you don’t feel like coming there in the morning. Let's figure it out what causes conflicts in the team and whether they can be avoided.
Work conflicts can be roughly divided into two types: motivated and unmotivated. The first one is controversial cases in which a unified decision must be made. Each employee involved in such a conflict wants to push his point of view and get benefits. The interests of the parties to the dispute intersect, so it is almost impossible to avoid a conflict.
Unmotivated conflicts usually do not have overlapping interests. In fact, These are conflicts that might not exist. They are usually led by different characters of people, different styles of communication, different views on things.
Depending on the type of conflict, the behavior of the people who participate in it changes greatly.
Motivated conflicts
There is no getting away from them, because controversial situations in any team happen quite often. To get out of such conflicts, there are different strategies of behavior.
concession
The essence of the method is that the participant agrees to lose in a controversial situation, if only it is resolved. People usually make concessions in several situations:
- when the subject of the dispute is not of fundamental importance to them, and it is easier for them to give in than to get involved in a conflict;
- when this participant in the dispute is a young inexperienced specialist who does not yet feel very confident in the office, fears conflicts with stronger rivals and tries to avoid them even to the detriment of his own interests.
Anyway, getting involved in a conflict, first carefully evaluate the subject of the dispute. Maybe it doesn't really matter to you? And, maybe, this time it is better to give in, and not to conflict with colleagues? It is quite possible that in a different situation they will make concessions.
Compulsion
In this situation, one of the participants in the conflict forces the others to do as he wants. This is usually possible in two cases: if you are the boss or if you have something to blackmail colleagues with. For example, you refuse to take on a project with them in a form that you do not like. 
But you need to be sure that they won’t be able to cope without you and they will have to follow your lead.
But even when you are vested with full power, you should not use this strategy often. Resort to it only in those cases when you are completely sure that you are right, because no one likes tyrant bosses.
Compromise
The parties to the conflict agree to a "draw". But usually a compromise is not a total victory, but a total loss. Each of the participants in the conflict agrees to some infringement of their own interests so that no one is offended. Moreover, often a compromise is not a way out of the conflict, but a temporary solution to the problem. After all, all participants remember that this decision infringed on their interests.
Cooperation
When we argue and defend our interests, it can be very difficult for us to hear and understand the opponent. But in vain: maybe his proposals are not so bad, and maybe they do not infringe on your interests at all. The essence of this strategy is to try to find a solution that suits all parties to the conflict.. To do this, you need to understand what your interests really are and what your opponent really wants. It may turn out that your true interests do not intersect, and you will calmly find a way out that suits both of you.
Unmotivated conflicts
Unmotivated conflicts arise in the team very often, although it would be much easier to prevent them. They can appear literally from scratch in certain circumstances.
Third wheel
One surefire way to create conflict at work is to get into an argument that doesn't concern you at all.. For example, a person sees that his colleagues are hotly discussing some problem and, out of the kindness of his soul, expresses his opinion on this matter. Or even the opponents themselves involve him in the dispute as an independent arbitrator. In any case, this is fraught with the fact that his independent opinion will not suit one of the participants in the dispute, or even both, and someday they will remember this insult to him.
Therefore, it is better not to get involved in other people's conflicts at work: you still have enough. If you are being forced to decide who is right and who is wrong, laugh it off, evade the answer, or list the strong arguments of each side, leaving the final decision to the opponents themselves.
Mismatch of psychological roles
Another one the cause of unreasonable conflicts is the mismatch of the roles that we play in the work team. Usually people in communication with others choose one of three roles: adult, parent or child. "Adults" treat people as equals "parents" talk from a position on top, all the time trying to teach and control others, "children", on the contrary, from a position from below - they always complain about their problems and are sure that everyone around them should rush to their aid.
Let's imagine a situation when a young girl comes to the team, and an older employee begins to teach and instruct her in everything. The girl turns out to be especially self-confident, and even with an innate habit of arguing, and instead of nodding gratefully and listening, she begins to argue and disagree. As a result, quite a long conflict can grow out of nothing, because the older employee behaves like a parent in relation to the child, and the young one refuses to pretend to be a child. But it was worth it just a little bit to play along. Thank you for your help, ask for advice a couple of times, and a senior colleague from an enemy would turn into a great ally, always ready to help.
It is usually very easy to determine from what position a particular colleague is addressing you. Of course, you don’t need to change for each employee, but you can play along with him a little, especially if it helps to avoid conflicts.
Attention, provocateur!
Much worse when there are professional aggressors and provocateurs in the team. For only one known reason, they find fault with employees, try to piss them off, provoke conflicts or weave intrigues, which ultimately also lead to conflicts. If you know such individuals in your team, the main thing is not to fall into their network.
If the aggressor directly finds fault with you and tries to piss you off, in no case do not follow his lead. They offend those who are offended, they quarrel with those who easily lose their temper. And if you respond to all provocations with calm indifference, at some point this person will get tired of messing with you, and he will have no choice but to say (think): "Well, I don't play like that anymore!" - and go "play" your games in "another sandbox" - to your emotionally more malleable colleagues.
It is much more difficult when a provocateur does not directly participate in conflicts, but with the help of intrigues pushes other people together. But in any case, at some point it will be easy to understand "Where do the legs come from", do not succumb to provocations and persuade colleagues to also ignore this person.
Do you often face conflicts at work? How do you prevent or get out of them?
Conflict- a clash in the field of communication caused by conflicting goals, attitudes, and behavior of people.
Conflict is not an anomaly or dysfunction for the organization. This is the norm in people's relations, a necessary element of production life, which contributes to the release of socio-psychological tension accumulated in the team, forms a new idea of promising areas of activity, helps in finding the right solution ...
Conflict always has a specific goal. Consequently, only those who are capable of expedient, conscious behavior (ie, planning their actions, using available resources ... to achieve the goal) can be recognized as conflicting parties. Thus, the real participants in the conflict are separated from those individuals and groups that are tools, instruments of any subjects of conflict interaction.
It is necessary to distinguish between the subject and the object of the conflict.
The subject of the conflict- an objectively existing (or imaginary) problem that serves as the reason for a public analysis of the situation that has arisen between the conflicting parties. The subject of the conflict is the internal cause of the conflict, the main contradiction, because of which and for the sake of resolving which the conflicting parties enter into confrontation. It is very important to determine the subject of the conflict, because due to the accumulated problems, disputes around it, its boundaries are blurred, become illusory. Sometimes the main subject of the conflict breaks up into separate private problems.
The object of the conflict can be any object of the material world or social reality.
Conflicting relationships may turn out to be indifferent to object and just keep on subject conflict.
Distinguish between emotional and business conflicts.
Emotional conflicts arise on the basis of the incompatibility of the personal qualities of opponents, in their psychological incompatibility.
business conflicts are based on very specific objects (procedure for filling a vacant position, distribution of limited resources, division of powers…).
Business and emotional conflicts can develop into each other. Any business conflict or a continuous series of them involving the same opponents tends to develop into an emotional conflict. Sometimes a protracted business conflict, due to the laws operating in it, can lead to the loss of the object of the conflict, i.e. the object itself will lose its significance for opponents, and their relationship to each other will acquire a negative psychological connotation, which is very dangerous for the effectiveness of the organization. Therefore, it is very important to fix the emergence of the conflict in time, to prevent it from growing. When resolving a conflict situation, it is necessary to act on the cause that led to it, i.e. to the object of the conflict.
Conflict, as a rule, is preceded by the formation of a conflict situation and actions by opponents aimed at mastering the object. Such actions are called incident.
Thus, the conflict is preceded by a conflict situation and emerging incidents that give rise to the appearance of opponents in the process of striving to take possession of the object of the conflict.
Any enterprise forms structures both vertical and horizontal. Due to the presence of many departments in the organization, there are always departments, the interactions between which are potentially conflicting. In this case, it is possible vertical conflicts. and organizational conflicts. Sometimes such conflicts (for example, due to a lack of resources) can become positional character.
There are interpersonal, intergroup conflicts and conflicts between the individual and the group (Fig. 17.5).
Examples of some causes of conflicts in the organization, regardless of the type of relationship between employees are given in Table. 17.1.
Table 17.1
Causes of conflicts
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
COLLEGE OF GOVERNANCE AND LAW
Course work
in the subject "Managerial psychology"
Topic: “Removal of conflict in the team”
Introduction
The question “How to resolve conflict” arises sooner or later in any organization. Because all people are different, everyone has different interests, needs, aspirations. And when working together, people have to communicate, decide something, there are constant contacts between them. But sometimes in the process of communication due to misunderstanding, disagreement, psychological incompatibility, dissatisfaction with something, conflicts can arise.
- high emotional costs of participating in the conflict;
Decreased discipline, deterioration of the psychological climate in the team;
Treating opponents like enemies;
Excessive focus on conflict to the detriment of work;
After a conflict, cohesion between team members decreases;
Difficult recovery of business relations.
But it is not always the case. The conflict also has positive aspects:
Obtaining new information about the opponent;
Detention of tension between the conflicting parties;
Unity of each of the conflicting parties;
Stimulation for change and development;
The opportunity to show yourself on the other side;
Opponent Opportunity Diagnosis
You should not immediately resort to strict penalties, reprimands, and dismissals in the event of a conflict. A thorough analysis of the causes of the conflict should be carried out; Are there personal reasons or just business reasons? The future of the organization, the authority of the leader, the presence of previous connections, the psychological climate in the team, etc. depend on how carefully the analysis will be carried out.
What are conflicts and what are they
Before discussing conflict resolution techniques, it is necessary to understand what conflict is. Such unpleasant things as “quarrel”, “scandal”, “dispute”, “showdown”, etc. are associated with the word conflict.
Quarrels and scandals are undoubtedly connected with conflicts. These are the forms and types of manifestation of conflict relations. This is what the conflict relations between people are manifested through (but not always). The conflict exists in the form of a scandal, a quarrel. A quarrel or scandal without conflict does not exist, they are a kind of indicator that there is a conflict. Conflicts without quarrels and scandals can exist. For example, when a person wants to do something, but this desire comes into conflict with the fear of punishment.
Conflict- this is a variant of the development of relations between people, associated with their psychological positions, an acute clash of opposing positions.
This definition fits any conflict. From this definition, signs of any conflict can be deduced. And knowing these signs, you can determine whether there is a conflict in the team, family or soul. If there are signs, there is a conflict.
First sign of conflict- the presence, the existence of opposing positions. Position is what makes a person act: views, point of view, goals, aspirations, etc.
A person can give up his psychological position either voluntarily or under the pressure of circumstances, he can change his psychological position to a more advantageous one, for example, from the position of a “violator of discipline” to the position of a “reformed” and vice versa. And it can do it quite easily. But only if his goals do not suffer, if this does not lead to the need to abandon his views, beliefs, that is, his position. Life positions are more stable than psychological positions, and it is difficult to abandon them. Our aspirations and interests find their expression in positions.
Different members of the team have different aspirations and interests, and, consequently, different positions. The presence of different positions in the team is not a sign of conflict. But when the positions are opposite, mutually exclusive, then a conflict is possible here. In order to be able to say that there is a conflict, it is necessary to fix a clash between these positions. it second sign of conflict.
To determine the presence of a conflict, you need to answer 2 questions:
1. whether there are opposite positions;
2. whether there is a collision between them.
If at least one question does not have a positive answer, it means that there is no conflict. If the answers to both questions are yes, then there is a conflict.
In order to master the conflict, we perform certain actions. They will be effective if as a result of our actions:
a) the clash of opposite positions stops or ceases, or
b) the positions cease to be opposite.
It happens that an unfavorable situation stops developing as a result of actions, and may worsen as a result of our actions. This will happen due to the fact that there are no identical conflicts. They differ from each other in the number of participants, their social status, forms of clashes. And since identical conflicts do not exist, it means that there are no universal ways to resolve them.
Each type of conflict has its own development mechanism. Any conflict in the team develops according to its own structure.
If we want our actions to overcome the conflict to be effective and lead to the desired result, then we must act in strict accordance with the mechanism of this type of conflict. If we act on the basis of the objective psychological mechanism of the conflict, then we will be able to master the situation.
Your actions should in a certain way fit into the operation of the conflict development mechanism, but at the same time they should be independent actions aimed at mastering the conflict.
Group conflict analysis
intergroup conflict leader
The effectiveness of actions to master the conflict will depend on the accuracy of the analysis of the situation. Group conflicts carry the most destructive consequences. Even in a small team, they act as a powerful destructive force. Very often they acquire a “chronic form”, then fading, then flaring up again, unsettling members of the team, distracting them from work, having a negative impact on the psychological state of people.
Many believe that such conflicts are a necessary evil and that it is impossible to do without them at all. There are also subordinates who take pride in their ability to conflict and the ability to stir up conflicts, considering this a great way to increase their “ranking” among colleagues and gain “respect” from superiors. Often they manage to manipulate their own leader, forcing him to make decisions and act in a way that does not cause irritation on the part of this subordinate. Threats of the leader like “Oh, you are so! well, wait, I’ll arrange this for you!”, unfortunately, sometimes come true.
In this situation, the manager obviously finds himself in a disadvantageous, losing psychological position. Because in this case, the leader either begins to act in such a way as not to hurt or offend the “disputant” in order to avoid a possible conflict, in fact, in the interests of the brawler, and not in the interests of the cause. Or it gets a conflict with all the negative consequences for the interests of the case.
Wrong, ill-considered actions of the leader often lead to the fact that, being drawn into a group conflict as one of the participants, he actually loses the ability to control the situation, ceases to be a manager, remaining a leader only formally.
Intergroup conflict- this is a clash of opposite positions in a group of people, when one part of the group supports, expresses one position, and the other part of the group supports the opposite.
Thus, the team, during the conflict, is divided into two groups, between which the conflict occurs.
All actions of the parties to the conflict, even those that seem illogical or random, are in fact quite understandable and logical if they are considered not in isolation from each other, but within the framework of the internal logic of the conflict itself, as concrete manifestations of its general mechanism.
The clash of opposite positions can be either hidden, implicit, or explicit, open.
The conflict begins with a hidden clash. It often happens imperceptibly, it is not easy to detect, reveal. In the event that it cannot be extinguished, after a while the hidden collision turns into an open collision. In its development, the conflict goes through two stages. The first stage - a hidden clash of positions is called a conflict situation, the second stage - an open clash - is called an incident.
The conflict situation is only a part of the conflict, its first stage. A conflict situation and an incident are two different phases of a conflict. In the course of a conflict, an incident cannot occur until the conflict situation has passed all the necessary stages of its own development and until all the necessary prerequisites for the start of an incident have matured within the conflict situation. The conflict is manageable as long as it is at the stage of a conflict situation. At the incident stage, the conflict is almost completely unmanageable.
How does conflict arise?
Any conflict situation develops according to a single logic. Events in any conflict situation occur in the same, strictly defined sequence. Each event, change in the development of a conflict situation is called a stage of a conflict situation. There are two of them in the development of a conflict situation.
The first stage is the stage of appearance of the object (reason) of the conflict.
