One of the best things about coalition work is working with people. One of the most challenging things about coalition work is working with people. 🙂 Although conflict is often an area that many of us would prefer to avoid, when we address it well, we can enhance our relationships and work better with others. Conflict can be helpful, healthy and can aid the coalition in making better collective decisions. Unresolved conflict can be very destructive to a coalition and can erode trust and engagement. Join me this week as I provide three recommendations on how to navigate conflict in your coalition.
Acknowledge.
If we are going to navigate conflict successfully, we have to recognize when it happens. Although you may not want to believe there is going to be conflict in your coalition or among your team members, conflict is inevitable because we are people working with other people. Common conflict areas include: coalition decision-making, priority setting, sharing credit, organizational competition, resource allocation and differences in culture, personality and perspectives. Sometimes conflict is easily recognizable because two or more people are actively disagreeing about a topic or an issue. Other times, it is more subtle and can be observed by facial expressions and a lack of words. If no one is willing to talk openly about the conflict, you likely have unresolved conflict (a.k.a. the elephant in the room).
Address.
As difficult as it can be to address conflict, as coalition leaders, it is essential if you are going to be able to make a positive impact by working together. When we see it, it is often uncomfortable. We may not want to talk about it and we don’t want things to be awkward, but not addressing it makes it worse. Conflict may be focused on just two people in the coalition or it may include multiple coalition members. The way you address the conflict depends upon the nature of the conflict and the people involved. If it’s one-on-one, then the best way to address it is one-on-one. If the conflict only includes a few members of the coalition or workgroup, create an opportunity to convene those involved in the conflict. If the conflict is in a coalition or workgroup meeting and involves most of the participants, it needs to be addressed as a group. Find the right person to mediate the discussion recognizing that you may need to enlist outside support for this role.
When addressing the conflict, two practices will support resolving the conflict well. First, apply Stephen Covey’s principle, Seek first to understand, then be understoodⓇ and the second is to believe the best. Most of the time people are not trying to create conflict, but we are different people with different perspectives, cultures, backgrounds and opinions. When conflict happens, bravely address it with the goal of resolution and relationship repair.
Assess.
Once you have resolved the conflict (as best you can), take time to reflect on the potential reasons for the conflict and how the approach to resolve the conflict worked. In my coalition experience, one of the most common reasons for conflict is a lack of expectation setting. This can happen among staff, workgroups or the entire coalition. Consider the aspects of conflict resolution that worked well or did not work well for this particular situation. What would you like to do similarly in the future? What would you like to do differently? Are the relationships restored? Is there anything else that needs to be addressed? When we take time to assess both during and after we have addressed conflict in our coalition, we are more prepared and skilled to handle conflict well in the future.
As you reflect on your coalition context, do you have conflict that needs to be acknowledged, addressed or assessed? What are you going to do next?
If you want to explore additional resources on this, I recommend checking out my free resource on Emotional Intelligence and Coalition Building as well as information highlighting Tuckman’s stages of group development.
Photo by Obie Fernandez on Unsplash
