Tip of the Week 7/14/09

Tip of the Week

First, ask yourself...
Do you ever find that conflicts you are in escalate too quickly, from a small issue to a big problem?

One of the major causes of conflict in the workplace is lack of communication. The unfortunate thing is that most of the time, the conflict could (and should) have been avoided in the first place. Unfortunately too often one or both parties involved are either too angry, in too much of a hurry to get it resolved, or too convinced that they are 100% right - and an effective dialogue is inevitably skipped.

If you look closely, many "conflicts" are not conflicts at all - they are misunderstandings or perceived conflicts because people had different information and saw only isolated pieces of the whole situation.

If both sides will take time to sit down and share what they know about the situation, their feelings, and what they feel the issues to be, they will often find the problem is not as big as they thought and there is a logical solution available- therefore avoiding a full-blown conflict.
This tip was taken from Resolving Conflict Successfully which is the September session of The Compass Program. Click Here to view the schedule of all 12 sessions for The Compass Program.