{"id":8657,"date":"2020-04-14T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=8657"},"modified":"2020-06-04T15:25:11","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T14:25:11","slug":"how-to-manage-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/2020\/04\/how-to-manage-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading teams in learning and teaching: how to manage conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

In this blogpost, Mari Cruz Garc\u00eda explores how to transform conflict, when it arises in learning and teaching teams, into opportunities to verbalize needs and find common ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My colleague Dave Baskill and I had the pleasure to deliver a webinar for ALT on ‘Leading Teams on Teaching and Learning’ and whose recording you can find here<\/a>. In the webinar, we reflected on what constitutes a ‘good manager’ and how to use different leadership styles to support different team members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But leading teams also involves managing conflict within the team. From the different techniques and approaches used to handle conflict, I use the approach of considering management as coaching. Following this approach, we need to understand first what conflict means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conflict is, above all, a perception in peoples’ minds. As defined by great change facilitator and motivational speaker Sherry Campbell, “conflict is a friction or opposition resulting from actual or perceived differences or incompatibilities”. If someone’s perception of a situation or person is negative, their outlook will be negative and their ability to find a solution together will be negative too. Luckily, perceptions can be changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From my experience leading teams in learning and teaching, the majority of conflicts are caused due to the lack of trust or personality clashes. One conflict has the potential to introduce others. That is why it is important to address conflict when the first signs of friction are visible, rather than avoiding it. Introverted managers may find this difficult but, from a coaching perspective, conflict is not always negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conflict can also be an opportunity to review if the existing structures or agreements are still working or if something new needs to be introduced. Conflict teaches us to listen and to identify patterns of behaviour and what is behind those patterns. On the bright side, conflict can help managers to become better managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think of a possible situation of conflict at work (or somewhere else) that you want to overcome. The first step will be to explore the so-called ‘Iceberg of Conflict’ – the visible part of the iceberg of conflict are behaviours and attitudes, but they are only the symptoms, not the causes. When a team member is showing signs of a conflictive behaviour or attitude, you need to dig into the hidden parts of the iceberg: the assumptions and the hierarchy of beliefs and values that shape that team member’s perception of reality, as shown below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Conflict Iceberg model<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first step is, therefore, exploring the whole conflict iceberg with the individual in a mindful conversation in which you can use the following tips:<\/p>\n\n\n\n