Facilitating through Conflict

Accepting conflict in group meetings is inevitable – and dealing with it is a fact of life for every facilitator.

Understanding the differences between debate and argument is critical. Healthy debate is essential. A group that doesn’t express differences of opinion is incapable of making effective decisions. Unhealthy arguments however lead to disaster!

Use these 5 Tips to facilitate through conflict:

1. Debate v argument?

In Healthy Debates, participants…

Are open to hearing each other’s ideas
Listen and respond to ideas, even if they don’t agree
Try to understand the views of the other person
Stay objective and focus on the facts
Adopt a systematic approach to analysing the situation and looking for solutions

In Unhealthy Arguments, participants…

Assume they’re right
State their own ideas without responding to the ideas of others
Are not interested in how the other person sees the situation
Get personally blamed and attacked
Thrash out hot topics in an ad-hoc and unstructured way

2. Facilitator techniques

Facilitator techniques… that create healthy debate

Stay totally neutral
Point out differences so they are understood
Insist that people listen to each other
Have ground rules – use them politely
Ask people to paraphrase each other’s ideas
Check for concerns
Make sure people focus on facts
Problem solve concerns
Invite and face feedback
Facilitate assertively
Get closure and move on

Facilitator techniques… that allow for unhealthy arguments

Join the argument
Ignore differences – hoping they’ll go away
Ignore that no one is listening to anyone
Let people be rude
Allow people to make assumptions
Sidestep hot issues
Let people get personal
Get defensive
Squash dissent
Stand by passively or react aggressively
Let it drag on

3. Two steps in managing conflict

Facilitating conflict has two distinct steps:

Step 1: Venting Emotions

This involves listening to people so they feel that they are heard and any built-up emotions are diffused. People are rarely ready to move on to solutions until their emotional blocks have been removed!

Step 2: Resolving Issues

This involves the facilitator choosing the right approach to work through the conflict.

The approach can be:

Avoiding (Tip 5)
Accommodating (Tip 6)
Competing (Tip 7)
Compromising (Tip 8)
Collaborating (Tip 9)

4. Venting Emotions

It’s the facilitator’s job to properly handle negative emotions as soon as they emerge, so that they don’t poison the dynamics of the group.

Strategies the facilitator can use include:

Slow things down – get people to start over and repeat key ideas
Stay totally neutral – never take sides
Stay calm and composed – speak slowly and don’t raise your voice
Revisit the ground rules – ask them to review progress against agreed norms
Be assertive – insist that people speak one at a time
Raise awareness – remind them of differences between debate and argument (Tip 1)
Intervene – step in don’t let people fight or be rude to each other
Emphasise listening – paraphrase key points and ask others to do the same
Call time out – stop the action if discussion is spinning in circles
Create closure – make sure the discussion is really going somewhere, clarify actions