Preventing & managing conflicts in the employee group

It can sometimes be difficult for the line manager to fully understand what persistent colleague conflicts are really about, and not least what you as a manager can do to best support a real solution to the problem.

The typical coworker conflicts are often about:

• That some experience a too harsh tone in general or from individual colleagues
• That some experience conflictual and confrontational behavior in disagreements
• That some experience a culture of talking about and not with
• That one colleague is perceived to act as a kind of informal leader.

Challenges or friction usually arise when colleagues need to collaborate in a busy environment. Whether friction develops often comes down to whether there is:

• A good culture of talking to each other about what's important in a constructive way - on time
• A shared culture of behavioral frameworks and clarity on desired shared behaviors
• A good culture of conflict resolution, both between colleagues and when management is involved

For the manager who has to manage and help solve or resolve active or emerging colleague conflicts, it can often be difficult to deal with the type of conflicts that are about behavior and communication, especially when the manager is often not present when the conflict situations arise. The manager will often be met with "But that's not what I said" or "That's not what I meant" or "Of course I react like that when I'm treated like that" etc.

In this way, minor disagreements and conflicts that are not handled accurately and resolved in practice can develop into larger conflicts that not only affect the immediate parties to the conflict, but can also affect the well-being and climate of cooperation in the rest of the staff group.