When you’re sat around an oval boardroom table, throwing ideas back and forth, it’s highly likely that there are going to be a few disagreements now and again. The number of disagreements might depend on the number of people within the
collaboration team – the more people, the higher the likelihood!
Despite that, what can you do to try and resolve a collaboration conflict before it turns into something major, potentially affecting office morale?
Every modern office has a range of personalities within it, but the key to dealing with office conflicts of any type is to accept that you cannot be right all the time, and neither can anyone else. If someone comes up with an idea during a brainstorming session, it’s important that everyone else in the team notes down the idea, and doesn’t push it to one side and make that person feel like they have said something stupid. This is either going to cause them to become irate, or cause them to back away and avoid contributing again.
The answer lies in how you deal with suggestions. Everyone within that team should be respectful of every contribution put forward, be mindful of upsetting anyone’s feelings, but also be realistic enough to know that not everyone is going to agree with them either.
It’s about give and take, and it’s also about respecting each other too.
When a collaboration disagreement crops up, it’s best to deal with it immediately, to avoid it festering and becoming a huge problem. Talk about it, apologise if need be, and then move on.
Of course, having collaboration sessions in comfortable surroundings, using modern office lounge furniture perhaps, will also reduce the chances of people becoming irate for random reasons, such as becoming uncomfortable as one example.
Have you had to deal with a collaboration conflict before?