Managing Conflict in Meetings

1. Real professional differences – Conflict can arise from very real differences in professional opinions. In many cases, these differences don't develop into open conflict. But conflict is more likely when the outcome is extremely important, when the decision being made is irreversible, or when the impact of making the wrong decision will reflect badly on those involved. When this type of conflict is left unresolved, it can rapidly spoil relationships.
2. Power struggles and personality issues – Conflict can arise when individuals or groups dislike one-another, or feel that their positions are being threatened. This type of conflict tends to be more about people's personalities than about "facts" or decisions being made. The techniques we'll discuss below still apply, but you may also need to resolve the underlying problem. For more on this, see our articles on Conflict Resolution (in particular, Thomas and Kilmann's conflict styles) and on Resolving Team Conflict .

Reducing the Opportunity for Conflict

The best defenses against conflict often involve good preparation and strong leadership. If you develop a reputation for running tightly structured meetings, there's less chance that attendees will try to pursue their own agendas. See Running Effective Meetings for practical tips on how to do this.

Send out the agenda in advance, and make it clear when the meeting has started. Then follow your agenda closely, but don't be overly rigid. If a conflict arises, a good agenda makes it easier to recognize that the group is going off course. And if people agree to the meeting's goals, interruptions that lead to conflict aren't as likely to occur.

You should also be alert for meetings where the atmosphere and dynamics of the people involved make it more likely for conflict to arise. These include gatherings where "known troublemakers" – individuals or groups with a history of causing conflict – are present. They also include meetings of new teams that have reached the "storming" stage of their team development – when individuals begin to struggle for influence, but the team hasn't yet established effective ways of working. Read more about this in Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing.

In these situations, state the meeting rules in advance. For example, meeting rules might be as follows:

• Individuals will be allowed to speak after raising their hands – and only one person may speak at a time.
• The chair may summarize what has been said to make sure everyone understands.
• Everyone will be invited to contribute, so that one person cannot take over the discussion.

As chair, you must be firm about managing and enforcing these rules! If the team needs to make decisions, you may also want to establish the decision making process, and ask all participants to agree to this.

Spotting Potential Conflicts Early

If the conflict is mostly due to professional differences, rather than personality differences, the sooner you allow people to make their points, the better. Make sure that people have the opportunity to express disagreement as soon as possible, so that issues can be resolved and the discussion can proceed.

So, how do you know if someone is frustrated? Look at their body language:

• Making facial expressions of amazement or disagreement, such as shaking their head or rolling their eyes. The person may also fidget, or move around in a restless or nervous manner.
• Looking at other people to see if anyone else's body language or facial expressions reveal their disagreement with the speaker.
• Whispering or writing notes to another person. This may indicate that the frustrated person is checking on their position or trying to gather support for a confrontation. This can apply to both types of conflict.
• Staring, possibly in an intimidating way, at the speaker or potential target of confrontation.

When you spot the signs of conflict brewing, use the resolution approaches set out in the next section proactively rather than reactively. And nipping the problem in the bud is usually better, because then no one will have to live with the memory of "what was said at that meeting".

How to Resolve Conflict

So, what if you follow these suggestions, and an unexpected conflict still occurs? What do you do then? Here are some approaches and techniques you can use.

Depersonalization

When meetings become too heated it's easy for the conflict to become personal. Instead, try wording issues so that they focus on what one party doesn't like rather than the person who is proposing the unpalatable option. So, how does this work in practice? Take the following statement, for example:

"Well, I can see your arguments for appointing Alison. But I just think James would be better, and you're not going to convince me otherwise."

As the chair of the meeting, you need to pick this up and rephrase the statement:

"So what you're saying is that while Alison clearly has strengths, James' strengths may well be better suited."

From here, you can steer the meeting into an objective analysis of the relative importance of different qualities.

Questioning

Another approach is to switch your team's focus from conflict to "research." Encourage attendees to provide information, rather than state that they're angry or disagree with something.

To achieve this, use some carefully phrased questions. Don't just ask yes-or-no questions – try to clarify what people are thinking. Ask for specific examples, and perhaps suggestions for how the "disagreeable" idea would need to be changed to make it acceptable to them. In some cases, the alterations they want may be quite small.

Remove or Reduce the Perceived Threat

A key cause of anger or conflict is that people may perceive that they, or things they hold dear, are threatened. Perhaps they feel that something being discussed threatens their reputation, judgment, chances of leading a successful project, or chances of getting a bonus. Or perhaps they perceive a threat to a project they've worked hard to promote, or believe in strongly.

There are two parts to this: the perception of threat, and the threat itself.

This is where you need to explore the issue and fully understand what it is. It's possible that the perception may be wrong – perhaps based on faulty or incomplete information. Here you need to supply the correct information. Or it may be that the perception is correct, and the person is right to feel threatened. Here you need to address the situation.

Another thing you can do is make sure that you clear up unknowns, because the unknown is often treated as a threat. Going back to our example of the Alison versus James hiring decision, you might ask the supporters of each to talk about what benefits their non-preferred candidate would bring to the team, and what areas for development they'd need to work on.

Take Things "Off Line"

There are times when you can't resolve a situation in a meeting: this is particularly the case where problems involve sensitive personal issues, which shouldn't be discussed "in public."

In this case, you'll need to acknowledge the disagreement, and arrange a specific meeting to address the issue later on.

Finally, remember that sometimes it simply isn't possible for everyone to be happy with an outcome. If you've given everyone a fair chance to express their opinions, and you've gone through a fair decision-making process (where appropriate), don't take it personally when people are unhappy. This also applies to you – if you're the one who's unhappy with a decision.

Benefiting From Conflict in Meetings

Have you ever attended a meeting in which a conflict – probably the "real professional disagreement" type – was successfully resolved? If so, you can appreciate the benefits of working through your differences to a satisfactory conclusion.

Conflict is not, therefore, something you need to avoid at all costs. In fact, conflict can sometimes be the quickest and best way to make creative progress. You certainly don't want everyone to automatically say "yes" to everything without proper discussion!