Strategies for Workplace Conflicts
Practical and Effective Conflict Resolution Skills for Managing Everyday Workplace Disputes
3 CREDITS
LEARNING MODEL: IN-PERSON & VIRTUAL
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Every workplace experiences conflicts. How we respond to and handle these issues is an important measure of our effectiveness as managers and leaders.
Strategies for Workplace Conflicts focuses on how managers and leaders approach common workplace disputes in a constructive and effective way. Using case studies, hands-on exercises and small group work, you will learn how to anticipate and better understand the dynamics of workplace conflicts. This highly interactive program features practical tools and multiple exercises that build on one another as well as extended opportunities to practice different intervention strategies and conflict resolution skills in the context of common everyday workplace interactions. You will leave with a number of tools and techniques to assist you to deal with challenging situations.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Analyze conflicts to determine root causes, opportunities, and appropriate options/responses
- Respond to different types of organizational, interpersonal, intra-team, and inter-team conflicts
- Increase the types of strategies and responses available for conflict situations
- Factor in the many organizational dynamics that impact conflict (e.g. power, gender, culture etc.)
- Manage conversations with people demonstrating high emotion or difficult behaviours
- Identify specific implications of different types of conflict
- Understand, prevent and de-escalate digital media conflicts
- Handle spontaneous conflictual interactions
- Analyze whether your organizational structure is contributing to conflict
- Improve your own reflective and self-care practices
ORGANIZATIONAL BENEFITS
- An enhanced capacity to deal with everyday work conflicts using proven strategies
- Increase in skills to understand, prevent and de-escalate in-person and digital media conflicts
- Coaching tips for guiding team members to take a constructive approach to conflict
- Approaches for analyzing conflictual situations and raising difficult issues
- Skills and tools for handling spontaneous conflict situations
- Tools and processes for working with team conflicts, and developing an effective response
- Analysis to help you assess whether organizational structures may be contributing to conflict in your workplace
TAKEAWAY TOOLS
- Conflict manual with toolkit
- Dynamics of Conflict by Bernard Mayer
- Action and analysis worksheets
- Tools for analyzing potential and actual conflict
- Tools for dealing with high emotion and difficult behaviours
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
- HR and LR professionals; managers/supervisors at all levels; labour leaders; lawyers and mediators and employees who would like to learn how to deal with conflict more productively.
Download a brochure
PROGRAM DETAILS
Our program includes discussions, case studies, role play, tools, and reflective exercises to develop skills that you can apply directly in your workplace.
a) Understanding Conflict
Learn about how conflict can lead to positive learning and growth, how our brains respond in conflict, how to distinguish between different sources of conflict, how to leverage positive features of conflict and what motivates people in conflict through discussion, interactive presentations and simulation exercises. We’ll discuss interpersonal conflict and the impact of power, gender, culture and generational dynamics. Additionally, we will address a wide range of intervention tools and how to select an appropriate option. You’ll also learn about the conflict triggers that result in escalation, tools to identify root causes of conflicts and ways to improve interpersonal communication both in person and using digital communication
b) Difficult Conversations, Difficult Behaviours
Conflict avoidance is sometimes a viable and strategic option. However, it can also lead to never-ending festering problems or even escalated conflicts. We need to know how to raise difficult issues and to respond effectively when others challenge or confront us. We’ll examine why certain types of conflict are challenging and discuss different approaches for engaging difficult conversations, especially with people exhibiting difficult behaviours.
c) Coaching
Conflict coaching is about learning and growth. It helps a person to build capacity to prepare for and deal more effectively with a wide range of conflicts. We’ll teach you when to use coaching, how to use powerful questions to prepare people to engage in conflict more effectively, and how to prompt others to take constructive approaches to resolving conflicts. Part of being a great manager and leader is empowering and teaching others to engage in a conflict on their own, rather than handling it for them, and we will prepare you to do just that.
d) Group Conflict
Some of the most difficult conflicts arise within teams, and sometimes between teams or units. We’ll talk about how to identify early problems with team collaboration, and how to evaluate the source of the problem which could be a particularly difficult individual, a lack of direction and leadership, interpersonal conflict, or an organizational issue. You’ll learn and practice effective facilitation skills among people with varied issues, needs, and wants. You’ll also learn how group dynamics in team meetings can both work to escalate and de-escalate organizational conflict in order for the team to work better together and improve decision making.
e) Structural Conflict
Your organization’s structure may be unintentionally contributing to conflict dynamics. We’ll review several potential structure sources of conflict – for example, how decisions are made, or how co-ordination takes place between two units or teams, and discuss how to focus on what can and cannot be changed.
f) Self Care
Dealing with conflict in the workplace is stressful. We will discuss and practice reflective strategies and techniques to improve how you respond and react to conflictual situations.