Sometimes managers tell me that the biggest challenge they face is conflict between and among employees on their team. Employees don't get along or they have personal conflicts or they don't cooperate with each other; they don't like each other. Almost always, I find when there are conflicts between and among employees in a workplace that occurs in a power vacuum. If you have conflicts on your team there is a good chance that you are not a strong enough leader for that team. Show me a self-managed team; there's no such thing as a self-managed team. You give me five minutes with a so-called self-managed team and I'll tell you who's in charge of that team. The only question is, is it someone who should be in charge or is it a ring leader who has emerged and seized control, or are there competing ring leaders who have emerged and formed cliques?

If that's going on, then you've left a power vacuum and the number one thing you can do to reduce conflict in that situation is assert yourself as a strong leader. That doesn't mean coming in one day and putting your foot down. That doesn't mean pulling the team together and announcing that, "There will be no more conflict." It means you've got to start working one-on-one with every employee to get every individual focused on the work that needs to get done. If they've got time for interpersonal conflict in the workplace, they're not busy enough. That means you need to work with every person to get that person focused on getting lots of work done very well, very fast, all day long. And if you keep people focused on their tasks and responsibilities, the good news is then they're also focused on what they actually have in common which is all that work they need to get done, and then they won't have time for conflicts. If you assert yourself as a strong leader you make yourself the most important relationship to every individual on that team. When they're focused on their relationship with you and that relationship is focused on all the work they need to get done every day, then pretty soon you find that the conflicts between and among individuals start to fade away. And the conflicts that are left, they stick out like sore thumbs. Then there is something wrong and either you've got a trouble maker on your hands and you need to deal with that person accordingly, or maybe there's just such lingering bad feeling that you need to do something to clear the air. That's when you pull the team together. Maybe you need to pull everybody together off-site and sit down in a room together for a form of what I call corporate group therapy. You've got to get everybody talking.

We sometimes facilitate what we call a Team Summit or a clearing the air session where you let everybody take turns talking and Round One everybody goes around the table and says, "Here's something I appreciate about each person on this team" and you mention individuals by name and say something you appreciate about that person. Round Two, you go around the table and say, "Here's something about each individual that I think that person really should improve." Round Three, "Here's something about myself that I think I should improve." Round Four, "Here's something about the team that I think could be better and here's what I am willing to contribute to that improvement." And when you do this, everybody starts opening up. And I think if you're in a position where you have lingering bad feeling and you need to clear the air, you'll be amazed at how much an afternoon of corporate group therapy can do for you. People might even cry.

BONUS MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICE
Document performance every step of the way: Try writing things down before each one-on-one, during each one-on-one, and after each one-on-one. In between one-on-one meetings, make sure to write down everything of consequence related to that employee's performance. If you think of something you want to mention in your next meeting with the person, write that down. Showing the employee your notes as you take them will also create an opportunity to correct any misunderstandings up front. Some of the best managers encourage their employees to create their own parallel notebooks. As the manager writes things down, she can say, "I'm writing this down. What are you writing down? Are we on the same page?"