G’day, friends! Dr Marcus Clarkson here, and today I want to speak to you about an issue in every workplace in Australia, conflict resolution. Now, before you assume this is going to be some boring lecture about company policies, let me tell you a story that recently happened… just last month.
I was employed in a small engineering firm in Brisbane at the time and I saw something really extraordinary. For weeks, two project managers, Emma and Jake, had locked horns over resources. The atmosphere was thick enough to cut with a knife, the whole team was affected. But instead of allowing the resentment to fester, their manager kept it simple, she got them talking. Really talking. Before long, they realised that their dispute wasn’t about resources and had nothing to do with incivility, but was about feeling silenced and unappreciated. That discussion turned not only their working relationship, but the entire office culture, around.
Why we need to care about workplace conflict
Let me level with you, all The Office jokes aside, workplace conflict is not just a human resources issue, it’s a human issue. I’ve seen great teams unravel because conflicts were allowed to fester, and I’ve watched underperforming departments turn themselves around when people figured out how to address their differences in healthy ways.
Just consider: When individuals spend more of their waking moments at work with their colleagues than at home with their families, then workplace harmony is a concern for everyone’s well being. Bad conflict resolution isn’t just bad for productivity, it’s bad for people. I’ve known superstars who gave up jobs they loved just because they didn’t know how to handle the tensions of the workplace.
But here’s the good news, every conflict is also an opportunity. A chance to get to know one another better, to deepen relationships, and to establish a more resilient team. The trick is learning how to turn those moments into bridges rather than walls.
Getting to The Heart of What Goes wrong at work
During my two decades as a consultant working all over Australia, I’ve observed that there are generally three main causes of conflict in the workplace, and understanding each one can be a game changer for any team.
And Communication Breakdown is the big one. Only last year I was consulting to a marketing agency in Melbourne where two of the departments had been at war for months. The creatives believed the account managers were being too demanding with the timing, and the account people perceived the creatives as not taking the client’s needs seriously. The real issue? They had different project management systems and literally couldn’t see what the other’s workload was. A single afternoon of walking through each other’s processes solved months of struggle.
Competing Values and Beliefs: This is another area of tension. I recall a Perth based family manufacturing business where the older generation appreciated traditional approaches, while younger workers tried to drive a digital mindset. Both sides were reasonable, but they needed help coming together around their common goals to the company’s benefit.
Resource Scarcity and Competition completes the set. Whether it’s budget allocation, who gets that premium office space, or promotion opportunities, competition for scarce assets can make colleagues seem like rivals. The trick is moving off a scarcity mindset and adopting a collaborative and shared success model.
Your Toolkit for Resolving Conflicts
Now let me provide you with some actual tactics that do work. I’m not referring to sound theories here, these are simple, human ways any of us could be.
Active Listening and Empathy are the bedrock of conflict resolution! One of the stories I give is Rebecca, in Adelaide, who’s a team leader, and she changed her team culture by introducing ‘listening rounds’ in meetings. There was no talking over one another, and participants were limited to asking questions of clarification. It was a stunning transformation, people felt heard, and understood, and valued.
An active listener doesn’t just sit there being quiet while someone else talks. It’s just trying to know their perspective, their fears and their feelings. When people feel truly heard, half of the battle often evaporates.
Mediation and Negotiation are also structured to be methods for resolving disagreements. I do believe it’s important for conflicts to be worked out and, frankly, some times we all need someone to listen and provide feedback so the discussion can go in a respectful direction where people listen more and throw less barbs and bottles. Sometimes that’s a manager, sometimes it’s an HR representative, and sometimes it’s just a trusted colleague.
The idea isn’t to decide who’s right and who’s wrong, but to forge a way ahead that everyone can live with. What I’ve noticed is that when people cease defending their position and begin searching for solutions together, magic can happen.
Compromise and Collaboration might seems similar, but they are indeed some very different things. It’s a “meet in the middle” calculus, which means often everyone is a bit dissatisfied with the result of a compromise: You get some of what you want, but at the price of some of what they want. On the other hand, cooperation is about finding solutions that truly serve everyone. It’s a bit more work, but it pays off.
I was at a tech startup in Sydney and we had two developers who used to fight all the time about coding standards. Rather than making them compromise, we facilitated them working to create a single set of coding standards would use the best of both of their methods. They transformed from rivals into the company’s most powerful development partnership.
Positioning Your Team for Success
As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. I would say Setting Clear Expectations and Guidelines can eliminate many conflicts before they begin. This isn’t about making hard and fast rules that are contra innovative, but making sure that everyone knows what his or her role is, and how judgements are made.
I worked at a consulting firm where these meeting conflicts with no clear decision maker kept popping up all the time, because no one knew who had the final say on a client proposal. After they explained the decision process, 90% of their arguments went away overnight.
The best Conflict Resolution Training is worth the time and money. When I propose this to business owners, some fear they won’t have the time or money. But think about it, how much is your organisation losing in time and money when conflict goes unresolved? It’s like teaching someone how to swim before they jump in the water.
Building Harmony with the Leader
It’s leadership that determines everything that comes next. I have worked with managers that unwittingly created conflicts simply by being unclear about what they were trying to accomplish, likewise, I’ve had leaders who transformed potential battlefields into places of collaboration by the way they approached the situation.
Building a Constructive Environment. Modelling the behaviours you want to see is the first place to start. Leaders willing to acknowledge errors, seek feedback and treat everyone with respect create psychological safety for their teams. In such a world, teams manage each others conflicts rather than keeping quiet.
Encouraging Open Communication Comes in the Form of Giving People Ways to Sound Off and Share Problems and Epiphanies. Regular one on ones, team meetings with time for structured feedback or even anonymous suggestion systems. It comes down to consistency and follow through.
I spent some time with a territory manager who introduced “Coffee and Concerns” meetings in Darwin, monthly informal sessions where staff could bring up issues or ideas. It’s simple enough, but allowed many fights to be averted by providing a comfortable space for people to bring concerns forward early.
Your Next Steps
As we finish our chat today, I want you to consider your own workplace. Are there deep conflicts that you have that you might need to pay attention to? Relationships that could be healthier with a little better communication?
And remember, you don’t need to have a title of leadership to make a difference. Some of the best conflict resolution I have ever seen happen was just by team members deciding to do conflict differently.
Start small. The next time you find yourself in a workplace dispute, maybe try to truly listen to the other person’s argument. Question to learn, not just to support your stance. Search for common ground and common goals.
Workplace conflict is all but unavoidable, we are only human, after all. But what we do with those conflicts is the difference between their being negative or destructive and positive or constructive.
And the decision, my friends, is ours. And I believe that, with patience, understanding and the right tools, we can all help create more harmonious, productive workplaces in Australia.
Keep building those bridges!
