The services that any organization may request of it’s supervisory personnel can be quite varied. Often times Supervisors/Commanders are called upon to assist in an on-going conflict within the work place. These conflicts can take various forms including conflicts between two coworkers, - a coworker and a supervisor, and on occasion a coworker and a citizen. The use of Supervisory individuals to resolve these conflicts appears a logical decision many times by the appropriate management authority, however it can lead to a good supervisory individual very quickly “getting in over their head”. This requires the Supervisory employee to appreciate the basic difference between mediating a conflict and providing support services to employees effected by a conflict. One is primarily a counselor role, that of helping people deal with their thoughts and feelings about a conflict and attempting to minimize the emotional dysfunction that can be a product of a workplace conflict. The other role is that of mediator.

The mediator’s role is to create a process whereby the conflict is eliminated and the effected parties learn functional conflict resolution skills in addition to solving the present problem at hand. Although the role of both counselor and mediator have similar appearance at first glance they are essentially different processes with different outcomes and means to obtain their respective goals.

Supervisors/Commanders must clearly appreciate the differences and at all times be quite certain of which “hat they are wearing”. It is also imperative that the supervisory person wears only “one hat”. An individual cannot begin a relationship with an individual as a counselor-type, discover a conflict and begin assuming the role of a mediator. A mediator has no vested interest in the benefit to either party in a conflict. A mediator’s role is for the benefit of both individuals by creating conflict resolution. The mediator is neither negotiator, which would be attempting to benefit one side in a resolution, nor arbitrator, which is to weight the evidence by both sides and impose a solution. The mediator creates a setting whereby the parties resolve their own conflict with a mutually agreed upon solution.

Studies have demonstrated that the majority of Americans feel that the number one ranked source of emotional stress in their life is created by conflicts in their individual workplace. Providing a process whereby these conflicts are handled appropriately and effectively not only creates significantly more productive workplaces, but if the studies on stress are accurate, it produces personal lives that are more fulfilled and less reflective of strain and distress carried home from the work environment. The organization and all individual parties concerned benefit from conflict mediation.

Supervisors/Commanders functioning as a mediator need to realize that conflict within a work group in and of itself is not necessarily destructive or dysfunctional. Conflict if handled correctly can be quite constructive. It can signify a need for healthy change and can be the empetus for growth of the organization. It can be an opportunity for the parties involved to directly and truthfully communicate expectations they hold for each other which in the past often times had not been directly expressed. This non-direct or less than candid communication between parties in the workplace is often times the source of many conflicts that grow far beyond the initiating cause. Competent mediation of conflict can assist in the creation of a positive work environment where creative problem solving can take place and emotional investment in the unit productivity can be emotionally safe. Conflict that goes unaddressed or is poorly managed can rapidly create an environment of distrust, covert conflict, clique development, and a generalized air of passive hostility that can destroy the working atmosphere. Dysfunctional conflict can have a work unit feeling at risk emotionally, producing only minimal output and on occasion exploding into uncontrollable emotional or physical rage. When coworkers are aware of an unaddressed conflict in the workplace they can be forced to “take sides” in the issue or spend critical work time attempting to avoid the conflict; time that should be spent attempting to increase the functioning of the work organization.

The mediator needs to remember that conflict between people is in itself inevitable. It is not good or bad. The question is whether or not the conflict is competently mediated to become a functional situation or left to remain a dysfunctional entity within the workplace. ”Good “ workplaces like “Good” relationships or marriages are not determined by the presence or absence of conflicts, but by the presence or absence of good conflict resolution and problem solving skills.

Supervisors/Commanders would need to remember that the goal of conflict mediation is quite different than the goal of other crisis intervention types of procedures. In crisis intervention the goal typically is to resolve an emotional issue by permitting ventilation of emotions and expression of perceptions. In conflict mediation, although some of the same goals appear to exist, the major goal is to resolve the conflict by having the conflicting parties engage in a process whereby each party hears the perception of the other party in clear, uninterrupted, behavioral terms. Unlike the counselor or crisis intervention role of the supervisor, the mediator role requires a structured authority based format. The mediator must create the setting where the conflict can be resolved by each party being “Structured” to hear the perceptions of the individuals with whom they are having the dispute.

Many times, conflicting parties, once they reach the point in the conflict of being more focused on the conflict than the workplace goals, lack the necessary communication tools to take the conflict one step further and bring it to resolution without assistance. The workers involved in a dysfunctional conflict begin going to great lengths to avoid the individuals with whom they have the conflict. This avoidance between the conflicting parties can grow to extreme isolation between the parties and facilitate the rapid development of an atmosphere of distrust and blame. The parties avoiding each other many times will take their perceived grievance to coworkers that are uninvolved in the dispute in a hope to create allies or receive support for their respective position in the conflict. Parties in dysfunctional conflicts are highly motivated to have coworkers perceive them as the reasonable individual who is basically a “victim” of the unreasonableness of the other disputant. Unaddressed, this type of conflict can leave coworkers feeling like they have to choose sides in a conflict situation. Although the conflict does not impact the uninvolved coworkers initially, as a dysfunctional conflict grows, the division in a work force can destroy the morale of a unit and increase feeling of burn-out, detachment, and overall apathy to the unit goals. Conflicts that have gone unresolved in a workplace have created situations that have ranged from economic destruction of a company or enterprise to the tragedy of episodes of workplace violence.

Workers many times lack the necessary communication skills to address emotional issues in the workplace. Reacting emotionally to work issues can be seen as inappropriate for the work place. Workers and supervisors can both believe than any emotional interaction at work is inappropriate. “That’s a personal issue, keep it out of the workplace”, this thinking does not permit the situation many times to be self-resolving and subsequently suppressed feelings can lead to a continuum of emotionally driven conflict behaviors. The goal of the mediator is the creation of a setting, whereby each party hears the other conflicting party in it’s entirety and at the same time has the opportunity to express their own beliefs, thoughts, and perceptions about the conflict situation.

The mediator’s ultimate goal however, is to have the parties involved generate a mutually agreed solution to the problem. The solution is one generated by the conflicting parties and not one suggested or imposed upon the disputing parties by the mediator. The solution is created by the conflicting parties, the environment that permits the solution to be generated by the conflicting parties is created by the mediator. The mediation process is different at this point from other interventions with which the supervisors/commanders might be familiar. It is not the mediator’s role to make suggestions, provide emotional interpretations, or generally to “Solve the Problem”. The mediator is basically a structurer of a situation and an instructor in providing the disputants a problem-solving format, which is potentially available for future conflict situations.

Mediation intervention basically revolves around a two-staged process. In the first stage the mediator has to obtain a thorough understanding of the issues and positions involved in the conflict. The second stage is the creation of a mutually agreed upon solution by the conflicting parties and the implementation of the agreed upon strategy for resolution.

In attempting to obtain a thorough understanding of the conflict, the mediator needs to know not only what is taking place, but the degree of emotional intensity and subsequent dysfunctional behaviors that are being generated as a function of the conflict.

To someone not personally involved in a long-term dysfunctional conflict in the workplace, the issues may seem petty, however the emotional energy invested in such a conflict can have major implications. The mediator must obtain as much information concerning the situation as possible. The mediator at this point can be at an extreme disadvantage. Where can the mediator obtain information about the conflict? How does the mediator know if the “independent or neutral” sources of the information about the conflict are themselves not involved or influenced by the conflict or by their own beliefs about the conflict? The mediator that forms preconceived beliefs or projects his/her own values into a conflict situation places in jeopardy their effectiveness as neutral uninvolved facilitators of conflict resolution.

Contamination by background information can impact a mediator through many sources. The mediator needs to remember in many organizations the informal pipeline or the formal chain or command both can be impacted by a conflict situation and have already chosen sides in the conflict. The information provided by these “Independent” parties may really only be an attempt consciously or unconsciously to communicate to the mediator the beliefs supporting their chosen side in the conflict. If a conflict situation is of a magnitude significant enough to require the services of a mediator, the chances are quite good the agency head requesting the mediation has already drawn some conclusions concerning the conflict and quite possible is providing a biased background appraisal of the situation.

The best source of information about a conflict is obtained directly from the conflicting parties. Hearing the beliefs, thoughts, and perceptions about a conflict can best be understood when the mediator hears them directly from the individual or individuals that hold the beliefs. The idea of speaking to the involved parties themselves is generally agreed with by the agency requesting the mediation with one caveat; “as long as they are seen separately”. This is a time for extreme caution by the mediator. The mediator must create a setting, whereby each party can express their entire “side of the story” without being interrupted or drawn into a debate with their disputing coworker about the accuracy of any given point. The mediator has a choice to make at this point in the information gathering stage of an intervention. How does the mediator hear the complete “Side of the story” from each party? Commonsense would dictate that if the ultimate goal of the mediator were only to obtain the information about a conflict, the least difficult course of action would be to interview each party separately. This decision, although easiest in the short-term, usually creates an atmosphere destructive to the ultimate goal of the mediation. It is here that the mediator needs to appreciate that the ultimate goal of the intervention is the creation by the conflicting parties of a mutually agreed upon solution to the conflict. The mediator is not merely an investigator of the facts and beliefs, but an architect of the setting that permits the conflicting parties to resolve the conflict.

In virtually every case the mediator makes a serious mistake by interviewing the conflicting parties separately. Usually the decision to “Interview” the conflicting parties separately is rationalized using the logic of the crisis interventionist, who has different goals than the mediator of a conflict. The decision for separate interviewing is often times made for reasons, such as, it creates a less threatening environment, it permits each party a chance to speak their mind without fear of attack, it lets the interventionist create rapport with each party thus ultimately leading to a facilitated resolution. These beliefs, in support of the decision for separate interviewing of the conflicting parties, might very well be valid and accurate for the investigator trying to capture independent recollections and statements of a conflict, but actually can spell disaster to the mediator. The course of action for the mediator in almost every situation is to bring the conflicting parties together and to conduct all mediation relevant business in the presence of all involved principals. Structuring the mediation such that both parties must come together runs against the logic or game plan of most dysfunctional interactions. Those involved in a conflict many times would prefer to “speak about” the other party, as opposed to “speak with” the other party.

The decision to interview the conflicting parties at the same time and in each other’s presence creates the most significant initial challenge to the mediator and is in reality the central difference between mediational information gathering and that of an investigator or crisis interventionist.

The mediator, in bringing the parties together, takes the “path of most resistance” initially, but is establishing a setting, whereby the ultimate resolution can occur. The decision to bring the parties together at the same time is based on an understanding of the dynamics behind dysfunctional conflict. The conflicting parties have been, in all likelihood, speaking about the conflict to everybody, but the party with whom they are having the conflict. The conflicting parties possibly have become proficient in portraying themselves as the “victims “ of the behavior of their adversary in the conflict. If the conflicting parties had the communication skills to approach each other and respectfully articulate their individual concerns while simultaneously respectfully listening to the concerns of the other party, by definition dysfunctional conflict would not exist. Respectful disagreement might possibly be present, but each party would speak and listen to the other party utilizing communication skills. That environment is self-correcting of disagreements and possesses none of the traits of the long-term dysfunctional conflict typified by avoidance, distrust, and solicitation of coworkers as allies to one respective side of the conflict or the other.

By interviewing the conflicting parties separately the mediator permits the conflicting parties to continue to potentially engage in the dysfunctional behavior of trying to “win over” the mediator to their “side” of the conflict. Independent interviewing also ignores the fact that the conflicting parties distrust each other, possibly intensely, and are left to draw the conclusion that the mediator is “taking sides” particularly by the party not interviewed first. Separate interviewing or speaking with one party in a dispute without the other present puts the mediator at significant risk of being perceived as compromised in terms of neutrality. It also permits the parties to continue utilizing the dysfunctional communication style that permitted the conflict to be created and maintained without previous resolution. Creating an environment of direct and truthful communication that permits resolution is the goal of the mediator.

Each party can “assume” that everyone must have a position in the conflict. If a conflict is quite intense, parties can become so emotionally invested in their respective position that isolation from communication with the opposite party can assume paranoid degrees of distrust. The mediator by bringing the parties together possibly is creating the setting, whereby the conflict is being discussed directly between the parties involved for the first time.

The mediator must not be naïve in terms of the appreciating the potential demands created by bringing the parties together. Often times, it can be these very demands that cause an inexperienced individual attempting a mediation to speak with each party separately. It truly is emotionally safer and less challenging, but infinitely less effective. Interviewing the parties separately also permits the belief to be created from the initial intervention that somehow the mediator is going to “Solve” the problem. The “Solution” comes from the disputants not from the mediator.

By bringing the parties together from the onset of the intervention a stage can be created that permits the conflicting parties to begin actively practicing the behaviors that will ultimately lead to resolution, as opposed to passively waiting for the mediator to solve the problem. The mediator, by definition, cannot solve the problem. Unless the “Solution” is generated and agreed upon by both parties, whatever the mediator might have suggested would only be rejected, sabotaged, and undermined by the conflicting parties and not embraced as their own solution. It is at this point a mediator must continue to appreciate it is not their role to assume responsibility to solve the problem. It is the responsibility of the conflicting parties to solve the problem. The mediator is creating and structuring an environment and facilitating the utilization of functional communication skills that permit the parties to move past their dysfunctional communication styles and work towards mutual solution. The mediator cannot assume responsibility to solve the problem. The mediator cannot solve the problem, regardless of their skill or wisdom. Only the involved parties can generate a mutually agreed upon solution, support it, and implement it.

With both parties together, the mediator must create a functional problem solving setting. Failure to control the setting can create a failed mediation from the outset.

The mediator must control the setting by advising the parties from the outset what the “Ground Rules” are and what behavior is expected during the mediation.

A mediator is wise to assume the authority role of an unbiased party with interest in helping find the solution to the conflict and no interest in declaring one party a winner over the other party in the conflict. A mediator is wise to assume a somewhat detached, formal authority status-based stature in the mediation setting. It is not the mediator’s responsibility to appear cordial, informal, warm or sociable. The somewhat emotionally distant stature by the mediator facilitates the development of the setting and maintaining the control needed to perform the resolution intervention.

It is imperative for the mediator to advise both parties at the outset what the rules are:

“I am going to ask each of you in turn to tell me your perspective on this issue. I am going to speak with each of you beginning with Party A and then I am going to speak with Party B. I will listen to both parties and I am going to insist that while the other party is speaking to me about their side of the issue that you not interrupt or challenge what the other party is saying”

This “Ground Rule”, although easy to articulate, is an ever-present challenge for the mediator to enforce during the mediation process. Each party will in all likelihood continue to practice the dysfunctional communication techniques that helped create the conflict. The mediator can expect statements by one party to be met with interrupted challenges to the accuracy, intent and factual basis of the conflicting parties articulation of their respective “Side of the story”. The mediator must be prepared to immediately respond by regaining control of the situation.

Control can be regained by restatement of the ground rules or by the utilization of more subtle responses, such as ignoring the statement of the interrupting party and continuing to interview the appropriate party who is giving their respective “side”.

One example of a restatement of ground rules by the mediator can be:

“I am listening to Party A right now I will listen to you when they have finished”

The injection of structure is absolutely necessary to create a resolution-generating environment. The conflicting parties have the capacity to manipulate, distort, and undermine the mediation process if the mediator fails to create and maintain structured control of the setting. It is at this point the mediator must fully appreciate the defined goal of providing the structured situation. Many times disputing parties will challenge the format and attempt almost rebelliously to not permit a rational structured process to exist.

Each party in a dysfunctional conflict wants to be the “winner” and see their opponent as the loser. It is the role of the mediator to create a win-win situation by facilitating a mutually agreed upon solution.

Something as simple as the room arrangement needs to be considered. Some individuals attempting to create an intervention may want the conflicting parties “face to face” to air their differences. Typically this would not be an advisable strategy, as much as the conflicting parties potentially can begin arguing “at” each other, as opposed to, speaking “with” the mediator. It is advisable for the mediator to arrange seating that takes proximity and eye contact of the conflicting parties into consideration.

The parties in the mediation intervention are to speak to the mediator not to each other.

This can be the most common loss of control by a mediator. The parties fail to abide by the ground rules and the mediator lacks assertiveness or skill to control the situation. Having the mediator sit between the parties is often an advisable strategy not across the table from each other. Obviously the setting also would need to be private and free from intrusions.

The mediator must be ever vigilant to maintain the structure and integrity of the ground rules and operating premises. A mediator must be prepared for the more subtle manipulations or distractions to the intervention. Ploys, such as parties involved in a mediation asking questions of the mediator during the intervention can put the mediation under the control of the conflicting party by attempting to change the course of the process, as opposed to, under the control of the mediator.

The mediator has no responsibility to abide by the expectations of normal social conversation and to respond to questions politely. The mediator can assert control and authority by either ignoring questions directly or if needed by responding “I am asking you what your thoughts about this are, my thoughts are not the issue we are dealing with”. A rather direct detached professional restructuring early on in an intervention can shape and maintain the necessary setting for conflict resolution.

One of the first goals of the mediator is to understand thoroughly, each disputant’s beliefs and perceptions concerning the conflict situation. It is not the mediator’s role to determine the accuracy of the beliefs. The mediator is not a fact-finder. The mediator is the developer of a problem resolving setting with the disputing parties generating the solution.

A thorough understanding of each parties’ beliefs does not signify either agreement or disagreement with the beliefs by the mediator.

It is important for the mediator to remember in a great number of conflicts the difficulties lie not in the facts of the situation, but in the beliefs about the situation held and not directly communicated by each party to the conflict. By creating a setting that has each party hearing the conflicting party express their individual beliefs about the conflict many times is an end in itself.

The techniques of dysfunctional communication, such as, isolation and avoidance many times have the disputing parties unaware of what actually the other party believes. In creating a setting with each party “hearing out” the other party “uninterrupted” can at times greatly facilitate a resolution in itself. It may actually be the first time one party has heard what the other party believes and can rapidly lead to communicating where the conflicting parties “got at odds” over misunderstanding of simple behaviors.

Dysfunctional communication techniques lead to projection of intent onto the other party without any feedback loop for reality checks or “checking it out directly”. The results of such a communication style are often distrust, anger, projection of blame onto the other party, and intense isolation from any functional problem solving techniques.

It is of paramount importance for the mediator to understand in detail each party’s position on the issue. It is best that each party be interviewed one at a time until the complete story is given before moving on to the second party. Moving point by point between parties at this time does not permit the mediator to either maintain control or gain a full understanding of what the are central issues involved. Parties, in turn, can begin by “putting on the table” superficial or superfluous” issues to test the waters and see what happens before they “risk” saying how they really feel about an issue. These tests by the conflicting parties can be to determine if the mediator is going to take sides on the issues or is going to be injecting what the mediator thinks is “fair” and imposing that on the parties. Each party is given a structured and facilitated opportunity to express completely “their side of the story”.

It is the skill of the mediator that creates the setting, whereby emotionally charged mistrust is transformed into articulated perceptions by each party in behavioral terms. Behavioral terms means describing “what” the other party is doing specifically not describing how the party “feels” about their disputant’s actions.

As the mediator develops the setting for each party to discuss their perceptions of the issues, careful attention continues to be needed to prevent loss of structure and control. The mediator must assist each party in being able to express their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in behavioral terms. This can be one of the biggest challenges to the mediator who is working with party’s many times who are only reacting to their own emotional feelings about the situation and have long since abandoned any effort at attempting to articulate their thoughts clearly and as objectively as possible.

It continues to be of paramount importance that the mediator focuses the conversations to him/her and not let the dialog deteriorate to eyeball-to-eyeball exchanges of accusations between disputants directly.

The facilitator must generate non-leading open ended questions that facilitate the speaking party in defining “what and how” is going on in the conflict situation from their perspective. The mediator is wise to steer clear of the “why” of events taking place. “Why” leads to projection of emotions, values, and judgments into the situation with each disputing party attempting to vilify their adversary and put themselves forth as the reasonable “victim”. Using “What-How-When-Where” as prompts forces each party to articulate behavior and not respond with emotional tirades and accusations.

It is important that the mediator not permit the parties to discuss events from the long-term past, but to keep the parties focused on the “here and now”. Many times conflicting parties will attempt to “muddy the waters” by forcing numerous potentially irrelevant issues into the mediation process. The facilitator needs to deal with one major issue at a time. The mediator, however, must not decide prematurely what the major issue is, but permit the parties involved to define the problem from their perspective. It is at this point many times mental health professionals performing mediation confuse mediation with psychotherapy by interjecting their interpretation of what is transpiring between the parties. Whether the interpretation is accurate or not, is basically irrelevant to mediation. All that counts is that each party is given the structured and facilitated opportunity to express completely their story. It is only important what the disputants say and hear from each other in a mediation because they are the parties that will generate the mutually agreed upon solution to the issue.

One of the biggest challenges for the mediator is assisting each party with expressing emotionally laden thoughts into behavioral terms. “He just does it to make me mad” would need to be responded to by the mediator with the prompting question “What is he/she doing that you believe he is doing to make you mad?” The question forces the speaker away from their own interpretations of the opposing parties intentions and forces them to speak in terms of objective clearly defined behaviors, “What is the other Party doing”?

People often times can not agree with “why” someone is doing something, but they normally can agree with “What” they are doing. The facilitator must accept each party’s perceptions nonjudgmentally. The mediator is not a judge or problem solver, but rather a facilitator of a structured process. If a given parties version of the events in question is inaccurate the mediator can rest assured that the disputing party will point out their beliefs about the inaccuracy when they are permitted to articulate their own statement of the events.

By utilizing active listening skills and reflection techniques the mediator has each party in turn, clearly and in behavioral terms, complete their respective version of the events. This process has the mediator utilizing communication skills, such as, reflection of content, summarization of events, and reflection of emotion. The mediator can put the summarization to test by reviewing what the respective disputants believe about the conflict. One example of this might be:

“John, am I correct that you are angry at Joe because you believe he intentionally leaves the equipment dirty after he uses it?”

The mediator should reflect back each major point of the disputants “side of the story” before moving onto the next party. The mediator can test that each party has finished expressing their version of the situation when they respond to the question “Is their anything else you would like to add? in a negative mode. A “No” response by each party in turn lets the mediator know that each side in the conflict has had the opportunity to fully articulate their thoughts to the point of completion. The mediator would at this point reflect the summary content back to each party to assure individual agreement.

Once each party has agreed with the mediator’s summary of their respective problems in behavioral terms, the facilitation of the mutually agreed upon solution begins. It is important that the mediator not play problem solver and make suggestions. The mediator must elicit remedies point by point from the disputants. At this juncture the mediator begins moving between parties after each specific point of the problem is addressed. This is unlike the initial information-gathering phase where the mediator remains with one party through to completion of their respective statement of the issue.

The resolution is reached point by point in specific terms. Generalized statements of agreement by each party such as, “we’ll get along from now on” are not mutually agreed solutions but rather generalized “feel good” platitudes often times utilized as a means of avoiding the more behaviorally specific problem solution.

The basic question the mediator utilizes at this phase is:

“What do you suggest to remedy this issue?”

If either party reverts to accusations or projection of emotion onto the other party the facilitator brings the person back to behavioral terms and focuses on the solution. At this point the problem has already been defined and the parties are being asked to put forth solutions to remedy the specific aspects of the situation. “What do you suggest”, can be repeated after each negative response by either party. It forces the individuals into the solution phase and away from remaining in the dysfunctional non-productive re-articulation of projection of blame onto the other party for the problem.

The mediator must remain neutral and not project their own solutions or feelings into the situation. If the mutually agreed upon solution appears one-sided to the mediator, it is of no importance. It is not the mediator’s perceptions that count, but rather the perceptions of the conflicting parties. If a mutually agreed upon solution of behavioral changes is arrived at by the disputing parties, the mediator has completed his/her major work.

Once the “solution “ has been arrived at by each party, the mediator would need to get each side to “sign off” on the specific behavioral changes they have agreed to perform. “Signing off” can be taken quite literally. Many situations benefit by the mediator putting in writing the specific agreed upon behaviors that constitute the solution. Having each party read their agreed upon behavioral changes and sign the agreement reinforces the idea of contractual commitment to the behavioral change.

For some parties involved in a dysfunctional conflict the structured communication process of competent mediation is a new experience. In order to see that the solutions are actually being put into use, it is important that the mediator follow-up with the disputing parties after a reasonable period of time has past. This is to determine if each party is in fact producing the behavioral change they agreed upon. This follow-up session not only determines if the agreed upon changes are taking place and reviews the accountability of each party, but also reinforces the concept of functional problem solving.

The mediator must remember that problem solving is a skill and that many of the parties involved in protracted disputes or dysfunctional conflict lack the necessary skills for functional problem solving. If the mediator has been successful in providing the structured setting and process to reach resolution by the parties involved, an important training and skills development process has also taken place. Both parties in the conflict have learned how to approach the other involved individuals directly and to communicate, in behavioral terms, thoughts, expectations, and perceptions about an event while at the same time, respectfully permitting the other parties involved the same privilege. Workforces that communicate and problem solve with these traits rarely find themselves unable to move past a conflict situation. Conflict begins to signify the potential for growth not the need to create angry fragmented groups of coworkers.