First published on LinkedIn
By Debbie Mrazek

No matter how experienced you are in sales, there is always going to be conflict. Whether it is with the customer or within your internal organization; conflict should be expected. However, if you are able to recognize them and resolve them in a short period of time, you help keep that conflict from becoming a much larger issue.
The Causes of Conflict and How to Resolve Them

The Causes of Conflict

The majority of conflict that is experienced at work is often the result of opposing positions, power struggles, competitiveness or just the result of someone having a bad day. However, it has been shown that the primary root cause of conflict is either poor communication or not being able to control one’s emotions. Whatever the cause behind the conflict may be, it is simply not productive to business. To help you understand and resolve conflict, I have listed some helpful information.

Poor Communication

Poor communication is the leading cause of conflict. It is often the result of poor information, lack of information, misinformation or simply no information. To avoid communication problems within your business and with clients, it is important that you communicate in a concise, clear, timely and accurate manner. This will help reduce the amount of uncertainty and avoid the majority of conflicts.

Emotions

Our emotions play a large part on how we react to people and situations. When we allow our emotions to drive our decisions, we will often cause conflict. Allowing our emotions to drive our decisions can often lead to the creation of situations that can dramatically affect our future. The best way to get a handle on our emotions and keep them pushing us into an unacceptable manner of action, we simply need to walk away. Take a few minutes to gain your composure and take another look at the situation. You may discover that your initial reaction was over the top and you can now see the proper way to address the situation. Not only will this help you avoid an embarrassing situation, it will also keep you from saying or acting in a way that could affect your position.

Preventing Conflict

While preventing conflict cannot always be done, you may be able to resolve that conflict before it escalates. This can be done by intervening in a decisive manner to prevent the conflict from escalating. Dealing with conflict quickly will help prevent it from escalating into a problem that becomes more of a distraction to those involved. When you step in and take control of the situation, it demonstrates to your employees, and those involved, that you are not going to put up with that type of behavior. Conflict is not only detrimental to the morale and effectiveness of your business, it can also damage your reputation.

What strategies do you use to resolve or even prevent conflicts in your business?