How to Prevent Conflict Before It Starts

Are you in conflict right now? Are you wondering what you could have done to prevent the entire problem? We all have. As leaders, we spend most of our time dealing with conflict. Research from the Center for Creative Leadership shows conflict as one of the top five challenges leaders face. When facing conflict or disagreement, leaders often ask what might have prevented the situation in the first place. Here are some ideas to use at the beginning of a process or meeting that might help:

• Begin and end with transparency and vulnerability. These build trust. When you are transparent with information and vulnerable to uncertainty, you craft open communication and psychological safety. Brené Brown tells us that vulnerability is how we show courage. Be clear about what the task is, open about information, and authentic about the challenges you are facing. According to Amy Edmonson of Harvard University, this is how you build trust in your team and process. You might begin your meeting with “Here is what I can tell you right now. When I have more information that I can share, you will be the first to know.”
• Define Success: Beginning any process, conversation or discussion, leaders ask everyone involved about their definition of success. This dialogue builds respect. Focus on their vision of success, not their goals or their objectives. A fun way to do this is to ask everyone to find a picture on Google Images defining success for them, and then describe their picture. And here is something you can do at every meeting: make the first order of business to ask everyone attending “What would you like to leave with?” Their responses will help you know how to best meet their needs. Their replies also reflect their level of commitment. This opens the conversation to different views, creates transparency, and helps everyone involved gain a better understanding and respect.
• Identify Responsibilities: Now you know what people want to achieve and you need to figure out who handles what, gaining agreement on their role and resources. This creates the boundaries needed for efficiency. Alignment around roles, control, and responsibilities is where most teams stop developing. Bruce Tuchman calls this the “storming” phase, where much of the conflict begins. Without the respect generated earlier, events in your team may take a dark turn. To avoid this, ask your colleagues what role they want to play and what they are willing to take on. When someone volunteers or at least has a say in the process, they tend to quickly internalize and personalize the responsibility. Now the leader must reinforce the responsibility they have taken on and rally the team to support them as well.
• Discuss and align on accountability. Here is where the teamwork really begins. When we were in school, how many of us dreaded the “group project?” I know I did. I did not understand how to hold my classmates accountable for their part of the project. As leaders, avoid this uncertainty by identifying key processes and factors often leading to conflict. First, identify how you will communicate, when, and by what means. Second, discuss both individual and team forms of feedback. As the leader, share how you will give and receive feedback. Be a role model and tell your team the areas where you would appreciate their feedback and when you want feedback. Then ask them to provide it. Finally, finish every meeting with a quick review of the meeting and whether it accomplished the goals they set when defining success.

Let’s end in conflict. No, really. How do these ideas help prevent conflict? First, they take away many of the conflict-generating challenges. When leaders begin with transparency and vulnerability, you are acting authentically with the information you have. Second, identifying responsibilities and aligning around feedback allows the team to know who needs to do what and why. More importantly, the team knows how to approach decision makers, when, and with what method of communication. As important as these are, the combination of these four steps sets a foundation and shared understanding everyone in the group can return to when tensions rise. Going back and reviewing these when tensions occur offers a starting point for resolving any friction. The result is your culture has everyone involved, accountable, and responsible for each other’s success.