How can supervisors effectively mediate conflict resolution?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Sometimes a supervisor is not personally involved in a conflict, but the parties ask the supervisor to help resolve it. If the parties to the conflict are peers of the supervisor, getting involved can be risky, and the supervisor might be wiser to tactfully refer the peers to a higher-level manager. If the parties to the conflict are the supervisor's employees, then mediating the conflict is part of the supervisor's job and an important way to keep the department functioning as it should.

To mediate a conflict, a supervisor should follow these steps:
1. Begin by establishing a constructive environment. If the employees are calling one another names, have them focus on the issue instead of such destructive behavior.
2. Ask each person to explain what the problem is. Get each person to be specific and to respond to the others' charges.
3. When all parties understand what the problem is, have them state individually what they want to accomplish or what will satisfy them.
4. Restate in your own words what each person's position is. Ask the employees if you have understood them correctly.
5. Have all participants suggest as many solutions as they can. Begin to focus on the future.
6. Encourage the employees to select a solution that benefits all of them. They may want to combine or modify some of the ideas suggested.
7. Summarize what has been discussed and agreed on. Make sure all participants know what they are supposed to do in carrying out the solution and ask for their cooperation.

Throughout this process, continue your efforts to maintain a constructive environment. Keep the emphasis off personalities and blame; keep it on your mutual desire to find a solution.

L. Randolph Lowry, an expert in dispute resolution, emphasizes that people tend to handle the emotions of a conflict better if they can see there is a process in place so they can have a voice in the matter. Even if the process is as simple as the meeting where the supervisor has each person state his or her concerns and plan a solution together, the participants will be likely to respond to the fairness of the opportunity to air both sides of the conflict. People want to be treated with respect, and they want to be heard. Meeting those desires sometimes dispels the emotions behind a conflict even if the parties to the conflict cannot have everything they want.