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Stop Team Drama Fast – 4 Powerful Actions To Prevent Conflict In Teams · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Conflict in teams creates a lot of drama and is a big distraction for everyone.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sharing four powerful actions to prevent conflict in teams.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Conflict sucks up a lot of emotional energy, time and effort of those involved, and you, the manager, dealing with the fallout.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: All the time and energy is then not spent moving the team closer to goals.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Every team and organization suffers conflicts.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: In the best teams, these conflicts are minor and very short-lived.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: In underperforming teams, big conflicts hang around and cause major problems.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Even worse, conflict has a tendency to get worse over time if not resolved.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: The longer the conflict goes on, the harder it is to resolve.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Conflict reduces team performance, and over the long term it really does damage team performance in a very noticeable way.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, no one likes to work in a team with a lot of conflict.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is too exhausting and unpleasant.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: A loss of conflict in the workplace can be prevented.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Managers unwittingly cause a fair amount of conflict by not being clear when setting goals, communicating and designing reward structures.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because a manager's performance is their team's performance, it is 100% in the manager's interest to prevent conflict in teams occurring as much as possible and then reduce and remove conflict within their teams and between teams when it does happen.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Conflict in the workplace rarely resolves itself without outside intervention.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: The first powerful action to prevent conflict in teams is to align what you are asking others to do.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Alignment is one of the best ways managers can prevent conflict in teams ever occurring.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Good alignment of everyone's directions, goals and work also has a very desirable benefit of increasing team performance.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Here are five of the main ways to align the goals and work of your team.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, create three to five very clear team goals and then use these to create individual goals.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure each individual goal is clearly supporting one or more of the team goals.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Make the goals specific and measurable and help team members plan the activities to achieve those goals.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, always explain the context of each goal.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: The more your team knows and understands the reasons for the goals, the more goal-focused their decisions and work will be and remain going forward.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Third, set out clear areas of responsibility for each person in your team.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Agree a method with team members to clarify and resolve any overlap of these responsibilities.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, be really clear in the expectations that you set to the team and make sure they are carefully aligned to achieving team goals.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Productivity, collaboration, teamwork, and supporting each other are all really important behaviors to encourage for team success.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, create job specifications for each team member focused on responsibilities rather than just tasks and share these with all team members.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: The more careful thought you put into designing goals, responsibilities and expectations at team and individual level, the more you'll prevent conflict in teams.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Less conflict means less distractions, better teamwork and better team performance.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are two stages to creating alignment to minimize conflict in your team.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: The first is getting alignment, and the second is maintaining it.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The more time you dedicate to communicating goals, expectations and responsibilities to team members, the more aligned they will become and they will stay over time.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do all of these actions once or twice and expect to create alignment.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Repetition and time is needed.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: I would suggest you communicate goals, expectations and responsibilities at least weekly to prevent conflict in your team.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles, and if you're new to this podcast, enhance.training provides resources, courses, and coaching for you to build management expertise and confidence to lead any team to their best performance.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: To build expertise on resolving people problems and the conflict they cause, type enhance.training backslash 2F2 into a browser and explore all the options we have available for you to build your expertise quickly.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: The second powerful action to prevent conflict in teams is to increase communication and psychological safety.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: A surprising amount of conflict comes from incorrect assumptions and unspoken frustrations.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: A classic example.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: He felt his team member was being difficult, not doing what was being asked of him, and purposely avoiding communicating with his boss.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: The leader felt disrespected, ignored, and very frustrated.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: All the leader wanted to do was to remove this underperforming team member from his team.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I asked the leader how his reactions were affecting his team member.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: He was silent for a while and I could see the light bulbs going off.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: He calmed down and started listening to his team member.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: A few weeks later, all the problems, the conflict had gone.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Their relationship was on a good fitting and getting better.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Understanding each other's position resolved the conflict between them.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is the power of communication and understanding what is behind the emotions of the other party.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is very easy for an individual to become caught up in the emotions of conflict and rational thinking can easily go out of the window.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: The more you can get your team members communicating with each other, the more you reduce conflict in your team.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: When conflict does arise, here are five practical steps to increase communication between the parties in conflict.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, as a manager, speak to each person separately to understand their issues, viewpoints, pressures, position, etc.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Be very careful not to take sides during your discussion.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, then bring both parties together into a private meeting.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Your job is to act as a facilitator and a mediator.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Third, ask questions of each side to help both sides gain a better understanding of the other party's position, feelings and views.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do your best to avoid providing information or sharing opinions as a mediator.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, facilitate both parties reaching a compromise agreement that they think is fair and you think is fair.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And fifth, lastly, help both parties implement their agreed solution or compromise.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: The more psychological safety you can build in your team, the more likely team members will communicate their frustrations and concerns openly and honestly with you and with their colleagues.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Again, increased honest and open communication reduces conflict.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: High levels of psychological safety also mean less protecting oneself and their position, which usually translates into better teamwork, supporting each other and joint solution building.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: All of these reduce conflict in teams.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I will put a link in the description with a lot more tips on increasing psychological safety in teams.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do take a look at this to help reduce conflict between team members.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: The third powerful action to prevent conflicts in teams is to remove sources of unfairness within the team.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Unfairness is a powerful source of conflict.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just think how you would feel if a colleague was working a lot less than you but was still being rewarded the same.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: What emotions would you be feeling?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: How would this change your treatment of them?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: What would be their response?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Removing as much unfairness as practical is a very good way to prevent conflict in teams.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: There are lots of different types of unfairness or problems that create unfairness, some examples being firstly underperforming team members, or disruptive team members or those behaving below expectations and standards of the rest of the team.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Third, a manager being more lenient or giving more praise to those they like compared to those that they don't.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Treat everyone in the team as equally as possible.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, having the same goals and expectations for people at different experience or pay levels.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: For example, an experienced team member versus a new trainee.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Flex the goals and expectations to the abilities and levels of the different team members.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, giving the same rewards for different levels of achievements creates problems with your best performers.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do your best to match the level of rewards to the level of performance or value created.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is essential to encourage better work and development.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't plan out actions and behaviours before taking them, it is very easy for a manager to create unfairness within a team and therefore create conflict.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do your very best to treat each team member as fairly and as equally as possible.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, address problems within the team and conflict within the team as quickly as possible.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Conflict is much much easier to resolve in the early stages when individuals are much less emotionally invested in their position, view, or opinion.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: If building more expertise on how to manage and resolve people problems in your team would help you, type enhance.training backslash 2f2 into your browser for more resources on this subject.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth powerful action to prevent conflicts in teams is to remove organisational problems quickly.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Conflict also happens between teams and individuals in different teams.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: These types of conflict are typically harder to resolve within an organization because more people need to be involved in resolving them.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Some example types of organizational or inter-team conflicts include Firstly, opposing or unaligned team or business goals creating conflict.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: A classic example, the sales team have revenue targets and the finance team have profit targets.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, uncoordinated planning where one team has conflicting tasks or priorities compared to another team.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Third, process conflict, disagreement about roles and responsibilities, procedures or working practices between teams.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, resource conflict.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is very common.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Businesses have limited resources and different teams often want the same resources to reach their team goals.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, conflict over control or authority.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Who is in charge of say a cross-functional project?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, interpersonal conflicts, where two or more people fall into conflict over differences, emotions or misunderstandings.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you spot conflict between teams or individuals in different teams or hear about it, take action to resolve it.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: As a manager, you are in the best position to reduce conflict in the workplace, especially when it is between teams.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: You have a better range of relationships, better knowledge, more persuasion power, better problem solving skills, and the authority that comes with your position.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Work with other managers to reduce conflict at work so your team is able to be more focused on beating their goals and suffer less barriers and roadblocks in their way to achieving great team performance.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, in summary, to prevent conflict in teams and reduce conflict at work, make the time to look out for goals, responsibilities, decisions, and actions that might create conflict.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Keep asking your team about the problems and challenges that they are facing and listen to what they tell you.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Your team is a brilliant source of information about conflicts within the team and around the business.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Proactively work to reduce conflict in your team as early as possible.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: The quicker you tackle conflict, the easier it'll be for you to resolve that conflict.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: To build expertise quickly on resolving people problems and the conflicts they cause, type enhance.training backslash 2F2 into your browser and explore all the options we have available for you to build your expertise quickly.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions on Stop Team Drama Fast for powerful actions to prevent conflict in teams, please email me at support at enhance.training and I'll get back to you.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.