If you are the sort of person to try to avoid conflicts within your team at all costs, perhaps it is time for you to think again. Conflicts, after all, needn’t always be a bad thing – quite the opposite in fact. Conflicts crop up in all relationships, including those at work, and it is up to you alone whether to ignore them or to use them to achieve better results in your work together.
Try to look at the positive side of conflicts, because:
They bring new perspectives
Conflicts start the process of creative deliberation and help find better solutions to problems. If you learn to value differences of opinion and talk about them, you will see that your potential is far greater than when everyone agrees with everyone else just to avoid conflict.
They allow for changes for the better
If you don’t talk about problems, the best you can hope for is that they won’t get any worse, and they probably will anyway. As soon as you start talking, however, you are half way to sorting them out. Your people need to see that they can contribute towards changes and that it is therefore worthwhile saying what they think.
They strengthen the performance and dedication of the team
When members of the team begin dealing with their conflicts, they also start becoming more productive. No longer will they spend hours on the conflict itself, instead moving ahead with the solution right away. Be an example to them in this. When everyone sees that they can have their own input, this will strengthen their feeling of dedication to the team and to achieving the best results as a team.
They help achieve objectives
The fact that a team can overcome its conflicts allows it to achieve its objectives. This is true for individual parts of particular projects and for the aim of becoming a stronger and more uniform team that understands problems as a challenge.
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