5 Conflict Resolution Techniques for the Agile Coach

Most people see conflict as a negative. But in new teams, conflict signals a move from the forming to the storming phase. In those cases, conflict is caused by members driving a change that they will like to see in the team.

We can use conflicts as opportunities to help the team mature, and become more effective. Mediating a dispute is not as simple as getting everybody to agree on one of many outcomes. In a team conflict, the sides usually involved have a firm position and may be in an emotional state. The skills outlined in this post will help you move the team from a win/loss attitude to a solution building mindset.

1. Recognizing Conflicts vs. Disputes

The website “Beyond Intractability” identifies intractable conflicts as:

“ones that remain unresolved for long periods of time and then become stuck at a high level of intensity and destructiveness.”

These conflicts originate from differences in values, or worldviews and involved non-negotiable issues. Disputes are usually short-term and involve disagreements over a particular approach, outcome or solution.

As coaches, we often find ourselves having to mediate difficult conversations amongst team members. In those situations, we need to know how to assess the situation. We must be clear on whether we are facing is a short-term dispute or a deeper conflict. More importantly, we must be clear on whether the issue is beyond our ability to intervene.

Questions that can help you identify a dispute vs. a conflict

• Is the disagreement over a particular outcome or approach?
• Are the parties personally invested in the results of the conflict?
• Do they use a language of fundamental values or moral beliefs?
• Do the parties express a personal judgment against the other parties as part of the conflict?
• Is there a power struggle or a mismatch between goals at the root of the conflict?

The answers to these questions will help you check if an intervention is viable. You must also take into consideration your experience and rapport with the parties involved.

2. Establish the Coaching Stance

One of the more powerful tools for mediating a conflict is the coaching stance. As a coach you need to make sure that you can fully participate in the conversation, while remaining detached from any particular outcome. By stepping into the coaching stance, you gain awareness of the whole situation. This stance lets you value all parties, and support them on moving the conversation forward.

It is especially important that you separate yourself from your points of view. Avoid having a preferred outcome. Instead, focus on supporting the team so that they can resolve the dispute in a healthy way.

How to get into a the coaching stance?

Ritual: Develop a physical and mental routine. Some people find may use a mantra. Others visualize themselves putting on a hat of some kind. It’s important that your routine is comfortable for you. It also needs to create a clear break between your typical mindset and your coach position.
Acknowledgment: Before starting the conversation evaluate the situation. Acknowledge to yourself any existing bias towards any position, outcome or individuals. Biases and preferences are a natural part of being humans. The important thing is to recognize them and abandon any attachment to them.
Check Yourself: During the conversation, check your attitude and mindset. Make sure that you focus on driving the process and serving all the parties. Avoid building a narrative of an ideal outcome.

3. “I” statements

All parties need to be heard and acknowledged to have a healthy conversation. “I” statements are useful when a dispute relates to behaviors or previous actions. With “I” statements, participants can express their point of view without forcing the other parties to defend their positions.

When we state something as a fact, we create a win/loss situation. We need to avoid stating disagreements on terms of right or wrong. “I” statements help the parties take ownership of their position. This significant shift in perception will open the door to options for a satisfactory solution. The following recipe can help the parties to express their position as ‘I” statements:

When (behavior that triggers the disagreement)
I feel (Individual perception)
and what I will like is (expressed as the outcome rather than behavior)

4. Re-framing the conflict

Once we have moved the parties away from a win/loss mentality, we can bring in a solution building process. The first step is to get all the parties to look at a dispute in a different light. Rather than being a win/loss, right/wrong, we/they issue, we want to present the dispute as a common problem. Agreeing that all positions are inherently valid and not negate each other, they can see the dispute as something that affects them all. From there they can collaborate on a solution that further the objectives of everyone involved.

It’s important to be honest and transparent about this process. Inform the parties that you are going to attempt to re-express the dispute in a way that reflects everyone needs goals and perceptions. Neither party should feel that is an attempt to diminish their point of view or to re-position the dispute to the advantage of either side. Ideally, the parties will collaborate on re-framing the dispute in a way that is more conducive to a solution building process.

How to re-frame a dispute?

The most important factors when re-framing a dispute is to move away from stating potential solutions. Instead, focus on acknowledging the feeling of everyone involved. Clarify all the needs and bring up artificial constraints that limit the solution space. Once the team has built a problem statement that reflects the needs, fears, and limitations on all sides, you need to get them to buy into this new framing of the situation. They need to be willing to move forward using it as a base to find a joint solution.

5. Solution focused conversations

The Solution-focused approach teaches us that when it comes to human issues, we don’t need to understand fully the problem to arrive at a solution. We can instead define what the situation, environment or process looks like once we remove the issue. A solution-focused conversation helps the parties move away from confrontation and into a collaborative space where they can build a solution together.

You start by building agreement on the characteristics of an ideal solution. Does the a solution need to be easy to implement? Does it have to be in a cost range? Is future maintenance important? This step will avoid an early confrontation around a preferred solution. It’s useful at this point to involve more than just the original parties. Se out the help of other team members, stakeholders of the outcome, etc. Once we have worked on all sides to define the characteristics or constraints of the solution, we can move on to a solution building process. Here you can use your preferred solution generation technique, Brainstorming, ideation techniques, etc. The primary goal is to have the team validate potential solutions against the characteristics defined in the previous step. This approach helps the team collaborates around the candidates rather than looking at them as competing solutions that they need to defend.

Conflicts are Opportunities

Conflicts inside a team are a natural consequence of working as a group. They can be an excellent opportunity to help the team mature and grow on their path to high performance. We can use these situations as teachable moments, and drive the team to collaborate. We need to be mindful of the type and level of difficulty of the conflict before we decide to step in and try to mediate a solution.

The dispute resolution techniques mentioned will help you navigate those difficult conversations. Start by practicing those techniques on smaller problems at first. You need to be comfortable using them before you need them on a complicated dispute.