My six-month internship has been one of the coolest experiences I’ve had so far in terms of my professional life. Getting the chance to work so closely with so many different people in varying fields and getting to use everything I learnt throughout university in practice has been an immensely valuable lesson for me. However, my internship also equipped me with the skills I need to resolve conflict in the workplace. Working alongside only one other person, my supervisor, made it so that we were in constant contact for every project and task I was assigned. Speaking to someone 5 days out of the week every single week meant that there were some things we disagreed upon and some conflict that occasionally arose. However, as the internship progressed, I started to learn how to deal with this conflict and I have broken down my approach here.
Step one – Take a breath.
When you start to notice that a conversation with a colleague or multiple colleagues begins to escalate it is important that you are able to acknowledge the situation and just take a breath. Since my communication with my supervisor was mainly through teams, this meant that every time I sensed a disagreement, I took a second to look away from my laptop and go for a quick walk. This was a very beneficial way for me to calm myself down before responding. This helped me remove my emotions form the situation and look at the disagreement as purely related to work and helped me to not take it to heart. So, whatever it is that you need to do briefly to try to remove yourself emotionally from the situation, it is important to do so before getting involved in any conflict in the workplace.
Step two – Understand your colleague’s perspective.
The second step to handling conflict is to try to sympathise with whoever you are in conflict with and try to understand their perspective on the situation. Doing this can really help you understand their concerns and motivations. This will also ensure that you avoid jumping to any conclusions or making haste assumptions. Additionally, if you know your colleague has had a busy week or had a personally rough week, it is important to keep this mind to better tackle the conflict that may arise. Keeping these things in mind will allow you to tackle the conflict with empathy and grace. In the case of my internship, there were times my supervisor did act out on me due to her work and personal life stress. Although this was not her intention, me acknowledging the other stress inducing elements in her life helped me better tackle my disagreement with her and prevented the conflicts we had from escalating.
Step three – Find common ground.
The final step to conflict resolution as I have come to learn and understand it is finding common ground with your colleague. This helps you bridge the gap between what the both of you want and how you can work together to achieve it. This for me often required taking a step back from the conflict and reiterating the goals that the both of you are working towards. Re-establishing common goals allows you to put into perspective the aim that both of you are working towards. While re-establishing these goals it can also help to acknowledge the contributions of your colleague and express the commitment you have for achieving your shared goals. This helps reinstate that neither of you are trying to hurt the other and are actually working towards reaching the same end goal. This in my case really helped diffuse the situation altogether and resolve the conflict.