How To Solve Conflicts In A Remote Team

We face conflicts every day. We can be either witnesses or “participators”. In career field conflicts may cause lots of problems. Talking about remote teams, conflicts could lead to permanent dissidence, loss of productive communication between members, loss of clients and job offers and, the worst, breakup of the team. That’s why it seems essential to us to help you solve conflicts in your team. So, let’s talk about that!

Avoiding

To start with, the best way is to try to avoid the conflict if possible. It doesn’t mean you should avoid problems always. Some problems need to be discussed in order not to turn into a huge controversy. But, for example, if you have different views with members on doing a particular task, find a compromise - the method that’ll make satisfied (or at least partly satisfied) every member.

Solving

We’ll divide this part into 2 : leadership and actions.

1. Leadership

As a leader you must be the first person who avoid and solve the conflicts. Being a good leader, especially, in hard times, is not easy. Pay attention to such character features:

• Stubbornness

Don’t be the leader who will always be saying : “I am the leader, so I am right.” Such slant to solving difficulties in your remote team will never lead to success. Team members should know they are the same important part of the team as you, they should understand their responsibility in cracking the problems. Being stubborn - you don’t show your authority, being stubborn - you show your apathy to the team’s opinion and suppress the feeling of responsibility in your members.

• Haste makes waste 

Don’t try to gloss over the problem to “solve” as fast as possible. Even a small disagreement could cause the huge trouble. So, while your discussion, don’t hasten, make sure you viewed every detail and each of the members had a say. Be attentive and serious.

• Reliability

The leader ought to build trust in the team. And that’s true. But another thing is that the leader ought to be reliable for his team. Build understanding and honest relations inside the team. And then you will definitely be sure that any member will tell you the truth and be open with you and everyone. So that in case troubles you all will come to the right solution.

2. Actions

1) Educe a conflict

It’s important to learn how to notice first signs of the conflict. Working atmosphere stops being comfortable, tension grows. As a result, work effectiveness declines.It is important to find out a reason. There could be personal ambitions of members, professional contradictions or wrong distribution of duties.

2) Get it right

Take a role of a “squire”. Arrange a meeting, give everyone a possibility to express their thoughts (calmly, with a cold heart). Do not take sides, ask questions, listen to the answers and draw conclusions.

3) Find a codecision

This is the same about finding a compromise. The main point of making-up is not just in solving the conflict but in finding the best solution.

4) Recall your main aim and values

Every team has its own aim - the thing they work for. In difficult times you also should concentrate on something positive, f.e. on your aim and values. Paying attention to them will help you to make the decision which will bump you to future growth. We mean that you better don’t forget about why you do it for. Don’t ruin everything or go against the ideas you set as the most significant for your team.  

To end this article, we want to give you some conclusive advices:

• At first, solve the conflict, then - work with clients. Clients should see a united and a productive team.
• Lay down clear rules and follow them. Work without the rules will become a chaos. 
• Encourage open communication. If the members could communicate with each other honestly, there won’t be a problem with “tiny problems turning into a controversy”.
• Keep calm. Deciding something being too emotional is the worst you could do. 

Eventually, it is important to say - don’t be afraid of conflicts. Overcoming them leads to personal and professional breakthrough for each member and for the team entirely.