Conflict management and Prevention

What do conflicts mean?

Conflicts are omnipresent in companies, institutions and local authorities. If they are not recognised and dealt with professionally in good time, they can cause considerable conflict costs.

These include loss of productivity, motivation problems, increased sick leave and employee turnover. Legal disputes or reputational damage can also be the result.

Systematic conflict management and targeted conflict prevention help to avoid such negative effects. They promote a constructive working atmosphere, strengthen cooperation and ensure sustainable solutions in dealing with tensions and differences of opinion.

Conflict prevention

Conflict prevention goes one step further than conflict management: it starts before conflicts arise in order to defuse tensions at an early stage or, ideally, to prevent them from arising in the first place. This is achieved through targeted measures that promote constructive and respectful co-operation.

Examples of conflict prevention:

• Communication training in a company: A company organises regular workshops on non-violent communication to reduce misunderstandings within the team.
• Management coaching in an organisation: Managers receive training in dealing with difficult conversations in order to recognise conflicts at an early stage and act in a de-escalating manner.
• Team development in a public authority: Targeted team-building measures and regular feedback meetings improve the working atmosphere and prevent conflicts.
• Citizen participation in a municipality: A city introduces regular dialogue forums with citizens in order to consider different perspectives on controversial issues at an early stage and avoid escalation.

The most important approaches to conflict prevention include

• Communication training: Clear, respectful communication reduces misunderstandings and promotes an open culture of conflict.
• Management training: Managers learn to recognise conflicts at an early stage and to act in a de-escalating manner.
• Team development: Working together in a spirit of trust prevents conflicts and improves the ability to cooperate.
• Conflict-preventive organisational structures: Transparent processes and clear responsibilities minimise frictional losses and prevent the potential for conflict.

In the long term, a systematic conflict prevention programme leads to a positive corporate culture in which differences of opinion are resolved constructively. It not only saves time and resources, but also contributes to the satisfaction and productivity of everyone involved.