How to Resolve Conflict in Remote Teams

If you have ever worked in a remote team, or are managing one now, you will know that virtual teams are far more prone to conflict. The reason for this is simple. It is a lot easier to disregard people’s personal feelings in a conflict when we don’t see our opponent. 

You only have to look at the terrifyingly aggressive and harsh comments on Facebook left by strangers to one another for proof. It shows us that conflicts are more severe when we don’t have facial expressions and immediate feedback from our recipient to take into account. 

The lack of human, personal interaction in virtual teams, means that we have to take extra measures to ensure that when conflicts do arise, we can deal with them efficiently. 

This blog will give you three tips when it comes to resolving conflict in remote teams so you can ensure a happier, more productive virtual workforce.

Let’s begin! 

1. Pre-empt the conflict from occurring, or escalating. 

A core goal, surrounded by many moving parts

The first tip for you is based around making sure you are doing whatever you can to stop the conflicting happening in the first place. It all starts with setting out goals. From my perspective, you should always set the purpose of a team as precisely that, a team. 

It shouldn’t be cascaded down from you as a manager, but start from the bottom up. A team is composed of a core goal, surrounded by many moving parts – like an atom.

These various particles are like your team members all flying towards the team purpose and goal – the nucleus. Therefore it is key that you, as a manager, set the team goals from the bottom up to make sure each little particle is moving in sync. Doing this will allow you to keep your team focused on the common goal. If everyone is clear on what they need to do, we can start to pre-empt any conflicts that might arise from a lack of clarity or engagement.

Leaders speak last

However, should a conflict arise, you as a leader have to be ready to step in and lead by example. Just copying everyone into an email about a potential problem and allowing people to comment isn’t enough. It will look like you are hiding and will only serve to escalate the situation further. 

Be ready to make video calls and get interactive with whoever may have a problem, and try to refrain from stating your opinion on the matter early on too. Ask open questions and get your team to speak up first. 

By doing this, you will be able to better distinguish between peoples positions, interests and deeper needs. This part requires some skill, but if you can drill down on what the underlying need is during a budding conflict, you will have a much better chance at pre-empting it.

2. Communication and regular update

Provide a safe space

Effective communication is a powerful tool when it comes to resolving conflict in remote teams. By having regular updates with your team online, you can have people share some personal highlights and give them a chance to open up. It doesn’t have to be long, two or three minutes is sufficient, but what it creates is a much stronger bond in your team, which will discourage harsh comments or conflicts from escalating. Check out my blog for more on this.

But aside from the pre-emptive phase, communication can also help us resolve conflicts when they arise. One way of doing this is to provide space for people to share their concerns and encourage people to ask for help. Sometimes conflict appears because we are not asking for the help we need so its key that you as a manager are providing a safe space for concerns.

Conflict resolution in different cultures

For those of you managing more global, multinational teams, conflict resolutions can vary in different cultures. Some cultures may take an aggressive approach (like debating) more personally than others.

In France, for example, they raise students from a very early age to provide healthy debates, so adopting a more confrontational management style might suit teams there. On the other hand, east Asian culture is more rooted in respecting the harmony of the individual, so having an aggressive approach may not work as well there. 

So you must find that optimal position on this scale to prevent conflicts, but also to deal with them effectively when they come up. 

3. Celebrate success – a culture of praise

Usually in teams, people will naturally find ways to celebrate milestones or successes. The team may throw an office party, or all go out for a beer after work, and in remote teams, it’s just as important. As a manager, you must make a conscious effort to instigate these celebrations. If you can, this will create an entirely different feeling where conflicts can be tackled much earlier on. People who have celebrated their successes together will always be more willing to settle their disputes when they arise.

Another crucial element which I discussed in more detail in a previous blog, “The Top 3 Skills You Need To Effectively Lead Virtual Teams” is creating a culture of recognition and praise. Feel free to check that out here.

Conflict resolution in action. 

Let me finish this blog with a little story that illustrates how we can handle conflict.

I worked with a big fast-moving consumer goods company not long ago who had to manage a 1 billion euro project. Essentially, Chinese traders were buying their goods in six different countries and putting them on Alibaba. The conflict here was that there was not enough engagement or commitment from the other countries to get this done. Pressure built and excuses started to come.

After getting nowhere, Dave (VP Global Business Development), realised that he needed to build a strong team culture and vision if he was to finish this project. We ran a one day workshop in Amsterdam and focused on the key, shared vision then introduced them to these three scales to define the team culture.

The first one was the leadership scale. Firstly, the managers appointed a position on the egalitarian side so that there was almost no difference between managers and employees to act proactively. This meant that smaller, individual projects could be completed proactively without spending time asking for permission or waiting to be told what to do. Then, once we reached the main project, the team chose a more hierarchical position, the brief was set, and everyone could deliberate on it. 

The second scale was decision making. This was consensus versus top-down decision making with a conflict scale leaning towards the more confrontation, debating style. In a meeting of 12 people, three Chinese and nine other different nationalities finding this scale was key and worked well for the Chinese too. They found they could debate this highly political project on the supplier side as well and ended up picking a culture that suited them. 

Then we had each person reflect on the scales and ask themselves, What can we do to support this chosen team culture? and What can either leader do to support it? By reflecting in this way they validate the culture themselves and later on when there was a brief, they held themselves accountable

Remember, micro management in a virtual team is not an option.

Only by creating a space that let them choose, empowered them, and held them accountable for their choices, allowed their project to be completed on time and with great success. 

I hope these tips were useful. You can find many more tips like these in my new book.

Alternatively, for more useful tips please feel free to subscribe to my blog by clicking the link here. 

I wish you luck in implementing these steps and building your virtual power teams.

(Sending you virtual hugs!)  

 More next week!

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Peter Ivanov is Virtual Teams Expert, Keynote Speaker, and Executive Coach. 

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