Business owners, entrepreneurs, managers – anyone in charge of a team – will need to play a mediating role at some point in their career. Even if this is rare and you have excellent team relations, there will come a time when two or more colleagues cannot see each other.
Related: 5 tips to end workplace conflict for good
Mediation is not a responsibility that can be taken lightly. Unresolved conflicts don't just affect the parties involved, they affect the whole team. Without proper mediation, these conflicts can lead to a hostile work environment that can have a huge impact on productivity.
When you have an invaluable group of great employees, you need to find a way to make them all happy. Here are the three most important steps to take when colleagues cannot work together:
1. Collect reliable information.
Depending on how you learned of the disagreement, one of the first steps in any mediation will be to gather information to ensure you understand the point of view of everyone involved. This may mean sitting together as a group or touching base with each employee separately.
It is important to be sensitive when gathering information about a conflict. If an employee has shared their grievances with you confidentially, it is obviously not appropriate to pass those grievances on to another employee. Use your best judgment to decide how best to understand the problem at hand.
In addition, it is important to ensure that your information is reliable. Consider biases when listening to each side of the disagreement and be careful to separate facts from opinions.
2. Identify potential solutions.
A common mistake made in mediation is to identify general solutions rather than specific those. Ask each party involved to clearly identify what would make them more satisfied. While these solutions often don't line up immediately, they will offer a starting point for finding a workable solution that everyone will enjoy.
Be sure to avoid "Band-Aid" solutions. If two employees are having trouble working together on a project, a “Band-Aid” solution would be to separate them. While this fixes a symptom of the problem, it does not fix the problem itself, which is that these two employees are having trouble interacting with each other. Find out why and fix it. You can't spend valuable time trying to separate two of your employees.
Related: 6 Do's and Don'ts of Managing Conflict
Also consider how the work environment or division of responsibilities may contribute to conflict. For example, these employees may be under a tight deadline that creates tension. By extending this timeframe or identifying smaller milestones for each project employee, you can eliminate some of this tension. As a supervisor, you may be able to contribute directly to the solution by restructuring the work environment.
3. Always revisit.
While you should trust your employees to take the actions they agreed to during mediation, you should never assume it happened. A conflict must always be reviewed. Not only will going back to the problem let you know if the solution was effective, but it will also allow you to discuss how to avoid future disagreements.
If someone is still having trouble, they might be more willing to raise their concerns with you privately than at the group check-in.
After agreeing on a solution with the parties involved, schedule a time for a progress report. Touch base individually with each person in the following days or weeks, between the mediation and the progress report meeting. If anyone is still having trouble, they might be more willing to raise their concerns with you privately than group check-in.
If your solution doesn't seem to work, delete it and try something else thing. Once you monitor the disagreement, it may become easier for you to identify a single factor – or a single person – that is most contributing to the problem. If so, it is your responsibility to address it accordingly.
Mediation should be rare.
Although it is not healthy to let bad feelings simmer within your team, sometimes the best solution is to do nothing. One of the hallmarks of leadership is knowing when to step in and when to step back.
This should be a rare event that you need to mediate. Although inevitable, this should not be trivial. Your employees should be mature and professional enough to compromise and settle disputes on their own most of the time. Your participation should only be required after the parties involved have exhausted their attempts at settlement.
But when it comes time to put yourself in the shoes of mediation, follow these three steps to ensure you get there quickly. to a solution.
Related: How do you handle conflict?
