If you put people together long enough, there will be conflicts. Things like personal beliefs, management styles, goals, and views of power can all cause conflict. Trust and productivity will decline if conflicts are not managed and resolved quickly. Small businesses will especially be damaged by this. There are a few different conflict management strategies that can help you minimize the damage done to your business when people don't agree.
You can use the accommodating strategy if one side of the conflict wants to keep the peace more than they want to win the argument. It can be effective to give one side what it wants in order to keep the peace. It is only a good idea if one side of the conflict sees it as a minor issue. Keeping workers happy by giving them casual Friday is an example of this. If one side always has to give up what they want they can grow resentful, so it shouldn't be used all the time. Here are some activities you must check out: http://www.ehow.com/list_6947146_conflict-resolution-activities.html.
You may also want to consider avoidance. This essentially is just avoiding the conflict for as long as possible. Sometimes the conflict will resolve itself if it is given some time to breathe. An example of this is hiring a productive replacement for a popular but unproductive worker. Once people see the work load even out, they aren't angry about the person being fired anymore.
Strategic improvement takes ideas from several different people and works them together in a way that makes everyone happy. This won't work on all conflicts and will take a longer amount of time to implement. The manager and business owner aren't going to waste time collaborating on office supplies, but they will work together on enacting policies in the business. If collaboration doesn't work, you may want to try compromising. Compromising happens when both people give up things they want in order to meet on middle ground. This is an excellent strategy to use if both sides will lose something if an agreement isn't met.
A competition can be used in rare situations. You don't want to use this very often because it can cause a rift. Pay cuts, layoffs, or other extreme situations could benefit from this strategy. It is vital the well-being of your business for you to learn conflict prevention in your company. You will have to assess the different conflicts that arise in your workplace and decide which strategy i going to work the best to resolve it quickly.
