9 Things To Do When There Is Conflict in Your Meeting Conflict can kill progress. And for my students, conflict is one of their biggest worries. Here is what you can do to transform conflict into cooperation in your next meeting. 1. Get your mind in the right frame of mind . I like to reframe the meaning of conflict by asking myself, is this conflict a symptom that the status quo is not working?  If there is good faith in the room, then consider asking meeting participants to talk about what is the unmet need that is behind the conflict. Usually, a simple, open-ended question will open this discovery conversation; a question like, “Hold off advocating for a moment. Tell me what is behind your concern.  What’s not working now that if resolved could let you agree to the course of action we are talking about in this meeting?” 2. Diagnose first, intervene second. When that discovery conversation gets going, do your best ‘active listening’ to see if you can name the underlying...

  Three types of conflict are common; task conflict, relationship conflict, and values conflict. Here is how to recognize these and tactics anyone can use to deal with them. Task Conflict Task conflict often involves concrete issues related to work assignments or promises about who will do what. They can include disputes about how to divide up resources, differences of opinion on procedures and policies, differing expectations about work, judgments and interpretation of facts, and different opinions about the quality standards. Task conflict is usually the simplest to resolve. Two interventions are worth trying. First is to facilitate a negotiation between the parties to ‘write’ a new, unambiguous list of agreements about the points in conflict. This can be done through active listening, which involves asking questions, repeating back what you hear to confirm your understanding, and asking even deeper questions aimed at probing for deeper concerns. Try to engage the parties in a c...