conflict prevention and resolution

What is Conflict Prevention and Resolution?

Conflict prevention and resolution are core missions of the Program on Negotiation. Not only can conflicts be prevented with a thorough understanding of the issues that underlie conflict, but also future conflicts can be avoided using this method.

In the business world, workplace disputes are all too common, and many organizations lack an integrated system for business conflict prevention and resolution. This leads to low morale and high turnover. 

Intervening quickly in cases of conflict can dramatically reduce the costs and time associated with dispute resolution. However, for managers, it’s important to recognize how your own assumptions and behaviors can help create and perpetuate negotiation dynamics you desperately want to avoid. Conflict prevention and resolution are more successful when you learn how to modify even deeply held assumptions and enact new behaviors more likely to foster successful negotiations.

There are two frequent types of conflict in business negotiations, both internally and externally. 

In inter­national negotiation, background research on your counterpart’s culture is important, but it’s probably even more important for you to get to know him or her as an individual.

Within a business, task conflict may appear to be a simple conflict to resolve. But task conflict often turns out to have deeper roots and more complexity than it appears to have at first glance. 

Try to engage the parties in a collaborative problem-solving process in which they brainstorm possible solutions. When parties develop solutions together, rather than having an outcome imposed on them, future conflict prevention and resolution are also more likely.

In our special free report – The New Conflict Management: Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies to Avoid Litigation – renowned negotiation experts uncover unconventional approaches to conflict management that can turn adversaries into partners. Download your copy right now, and we’ll notify you by email when we post new conflict resolution advice and information.

The following items are tagged conflict prevention and resolution: