Conflict Resolution at Work for Dummies®

Chapter 10. Adapting a Conflict Meeting for the Entire Team

In This Chapter

• Recognizing your role as facilitator

• Using various methods to gather information

• Conducting a group conflict meeting

• Following up with the team

When a conflict gets to the point that it's affecting an entire team or department, it's often necessary, and even beneficial, to include as many people as possible in resolution efforts. This chapter helps you refine your role as a meeting facilitator, walks you through organizing a meeting, and focuses on the art of working with a large group.

Acting as Facilitator

Even if employees have viewed you as the problem solver or go-to person in the past, when you're in a group meeting to address conflict, you take on a different function — that of neutral facilitator. So this isn't the time to gather the troops so you can deliver a lecture, stifle comments or questions, and then send them back to work with their tail between their legs. Rather, you want to create an environment in which the attendees work through problems and build their own solutions. You're the (somewhat) objective guide at this point.

Note

As facilitator, it's important to communicate that the meeting is a safe and positive place where the team is allowed to communicate openly, share perspectives, and work through ideas together. Focus your efforts in two areas: the process (how), and the content (what).

• Process: The process is key to the group's progress. It's the infrastructure that creates an atmosphere ...