Drama between your employees sucks. It’s painful, bad for your culture, and virtually impossible to resolve in a way that makes everyone happy (though there are a few ways worth trying). Some of my worst experiences as a manager came from dealing with bickering employees. No one wants to play parent to grown adults who should know better.

Often, our problem is that we wait for underlying tensions between employees to reach a boiling point before we intervene. Instead, by channeling your inner Smokey The Bear you’ll have a chance to address these problems at their root and save valuable energy and frustration. By keeping a healthy foundational culture for your employees, you’ll minimize the chance for resentment and conflict to fester.

Address your bad apples

One bad apple can ruin the bunch. We’ve all seen workplaces ruined by one or two jerks who boss around the younger or less experienced employees. These problem employees can torpedo an entire culture. By leaving this unaddressed, people will assume you’re endorsing the behavior, which creates a “race to the bottom” for motivation and performance.

How do you pick out employees you should worry about? Look for people everyone avoids or doesn’t want to be partnered with. Take note of those that seem to bring a room’s energy down. Is anyone consistently negative, even when you’re in the room? If someone is toxic in front of you, they’re likely worse when you’re not around. Address these individuals with positive coaching and, if necessary, with progressive discipline.

Relatedly, re-calibrate your hiring to ensure you’re bringing employees on board that reflect the culture and values that you want on your team. What might indicate hiring as part of your problem? What percentage of your current employees would you rehire if you had a chance? Anything above 15% means you need to think about your on-boarding and whether or not you’re properly screening candidates.

Is your team a team?

Silos kill organizations. There’s no “team” if everyone is thinking it’s “us vs. them”. Be careful of conflicts across shifts or specialties. Front of house vs. back of house. Doctors vs. nurses. Cooks vs. servers. Every type of business has it’s natural fault lines where groups can circle the wagons. Be wary of these behaviors and any indicators that there’s tension brooding.

What are you doing to emphasize teamwork in your department? Orient your employees to each other and ensure new team members are welcomed openly. Make interdisciplinary team building a focus of your department meetings by encouraging employees to recognize each other and celebrate the shared successes of the entire team. Depending on your office environment, after-work social events or informal gatherings can be very impactful.

By encouraging your employees to think of the entire group, and not just their discipline, shift, or specialty, you’ll decrease the amount of petty squabbling or infighting. Encourage interdisciplinary teams or rotating people across shifts if you see a negative trend developing.

Talk about conflict resolution proactively

Provide conflict resolution training and healthy examples of how employees can resolve conflicts themselves. At my office, every new employee receives a copy of “The Power of TED”, a book about taking ownership of your mindset and staying solution-oriented. Does every employee read it? No, but the ones that do help contribute to an environment of solution-oriented thinking.

I’m often surprised at how little conflict management experience many employees bring into the workplace. Some employees come from personal backgrounds that are high-drama, so bringing drama into work is natural. Other employees have never had any active disagreements and turn into puddles during active conflict. By talking about common types of conflict and healthy methods of resolving these conflicts, you can give your team a framework to work from when a heated situation presents itself.

Force employees to resolve minor conflicts themselves

“Have you told the other person how you feel?”

These magic words can solve 50% of employee issues on the spot. It’s much easier for your team to seek rescuing from you rather than taking on the uncomfortable work of confronting their problems directly. By refusing to get involved unless your team clears a minimum standard of effort, you’ll set a standard that they’ll eventually follow without needing to be told.

If you struggle with this, you’re not alone. I still have trouble sending employees away without feeling like I’ve helped them directly. This natural desire for nurturing and support benefits you in so many other areas, but risks putting you in the position of feeding employees fish when you should be teaching them to fish.

It’s natural for people to get on each others nerves. Every marriage, family, and friendship has its tense exchanges and sour notes. What’s important is to nurture the kind of healthy relationships that minimize the number and intensity of these conflicts. You’ll save yourself (and your employees) valuable time and energy that could be focused on more productive tasks.

Still skeptical? Message me on Twitter or email me your doubts. Seeing results? Consider sharing this post with someone who could benefit. Good luck out there.

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