Managing conflict in the workplace

Today’s workplace is more charged with emotion than ever, and many individuals deal with the pressure by bottling up their feelings until they explode in anger or sadness. In school, cooperating with fellow workers is challenging. There’s always someone who’s making your life harder, who can’t seem to finish his or her part of a project on time, or who constantly asks for help doing the same task, week after week. For teachers, working with difficult people is not something teacher training programs prepare them for.

Handling these office conflicts can be bewildering. We can't apply strategies that might work when we're fighting with a friend, like simply avoiding them and hoping the problem will blow over. And since this conflict is going down in a professional setting, we have to be extra watchful with our words, attitude and general handling of the situation.

If trouble has been brewing between you and a coworker for a while, don't wait until you both feel completely hostile towards one another. Don't let the problem marinate any longer than you have to; schedule a face-to-face meeting in a private setting with your coworker, and block off plenty of time so that both of you can express where you're coming from. Addressing the issue early will prevent it from snowballing into an even bigger problem — especially if the problem actually turns out to be a misunderstanding or a relatively small issue.

It may be tempting to solve things via text messaging, especially if the idea of conflict makes you cringe. But trying to resolve a disagreement in that manner is inefficient and can potentially make the situation worse — it's really easy to misunderstand someone's thoughts when they're not accompanied by things like a tone of voice or facial expressions. And this is especially true when both parties are feeling defensive. So muster your courage and talk in person — sometimes, this gesture alone is enough to