Conflict Analyses and Mediation

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Conflict Analyses and Mediation

Introduction
Mediating employees through conflict assists business leaders in building trust with employees. Mediation is based on principles of communication, negotiation, facilitation and problem-solving techniques that emphasize the need and interests of all the participants. Mediation is also based on fairness, procedural flexibility, privacy, confidentiality, full disclosure and self-determination (Wilmot & Hocker, 2011). With mediation, “You have the flexibility of taking time to consider how a decision will affect your future. You can agree to "try out" agreements to see how they work, and make changes as you learn more about how these agreements work in practice” (Common Ground, 2008 par 6). It is important that employees are guided through conflict so that common ground is established and the workplace can operate in a more peaceful environment. This paper will discuss a work related conflict experience and the mediation tools that were utilized to get the employees to overcome the conflict.
The Conflict
A couple of weeks ago conflict erupted in the workplace between two groups. Team A was upset because Team B was not working to their maximum potential causing Team A to work overtime assisting Team B in completing their daily assignments. Regardless, it is the responsibility of every team member to meet productivity requirements, but the initial complaint that was brought to me by the team leader A was that Team B was standing around not doing anything.
Searching for the Reason
The first step to me achieving the truth was interviewing the supervisors to see what they may or may not have heard or seen. This is the best way that I have found to validate a claim that someone is not doing w...

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...ing but one thing that we all have on common ground is we work for a paycheck.
Conclusion
Resolving the conflict in this paper took time and precision to achieve a win-win outcome for all sides. This conflict resolution built trust between the employees and management and preserved a better understanding of both perspectives. Teamwork is a key to every company’s success and building a better team begins with how to prevent conflict and how to overcome conflict when it arises. “It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare” (Lencioni, 2002 par 8). Successful data collection and finding the root cause to the conflict will assist in creating policies that will prevent future conflict in the workplace. This is how mediating employees through conflict assists business leaders in building trust with employees.

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