HR Toolkit – Booklets to help you solve your HR issues.

Dealing with Challenge and Conflict

Challenge and conflict are common in cultural organizations, given multiple demands for severely limited resources, underpaid and overworked employees, disagreements over administrative and artistic priorities and the potential strains of board/management relations.

We rarely stop to examine exactly how we handle conflict. The reason it is important to look closely at how you manage conflict in your work is that these conflicts present opportunities to innovate and create extremely productive environments.

Challenge and conflict can enrich relationships and open up creativity or, if badly handled, can destroy both personal and working relationships.

Table of Contents

• Dealing with Challenge and Conflict
  • Conflict Styles
• Using Different Conflict Styles
  • The “Avoid” Style
  • The “Accommodate” Style
  • The “Compete” Style
  • The “Compromise” Style
  • The “Collaborate” Style
• Should We Always Collaborate?
  • Making Collaboration Work
  • A Format for Creating a Collaborative Environment
  • Choosing the Best Style
• Communication Skills: The Keys to Successful Conflict-Resolution
  • Maintain a Supportive Atmosphere
  • Stay Assertive
  • Actively Listen
  • Continually Probe for More Information
  • Be Sensitive to Nonverbal Cues
• Handling Conflict with a Difficult Person

See the complete HR Toolkit.