Activities that you can use for conflict resolution

In order for conflict resolution to be effective, you have to have good communication skills. In order to resolve a conflict the lines of communication between all of the parties involved must remain open, this allows people to talk about how they feel and why they are upset. To help improve communication in the workplace it is important to work on communication building exercises.

Here are some activities that you can use for conflict resolution in the workplace.

Number one: Anger Ball Toss
Using a soft ball, you will want to have everybody in the office stand in a circle, if the number of employees is too large you can separate into smaller groups. Have yourself or a manager begin the activity by making and completing the statement "I feel angry when." After you have completed that statement, toss the ball to one of your employees and have them repeat what you just said and then have them complete the sentence for themselves. After they fill in the sentence for themselves, they toss the ball to another employee. This activity continues until all employees have had a chance to fill in the sentence.

Number two: Feelings check in
Gather all of the employees in the meeting room and hand out a square piece of paper or an index card to each employee; you should also pass out pens or markers. Ask each employee to write down how they are felling right now in one word. Once everybody has written down how they feel ask everybody to hold up their responses. The employees will be able to read each other's feelings, make sure you point out how easy it is for different people to feel differently about the same situation. Accepting people's feelings is a huge part of conflict resolution.

Number three: Standing up
Some people have a harder time than others standing up for themselves, so it is important to help teach those skills to employees so that some conflicts can be resolved with the need of conflict resolution. To help teach people how to stand up for themselves you can have various employees stand up and talk about how they stood up for themselves when they were being taken advantage of, be sure to have them talk about the way they were being taking advantage of as well. Knowing what to look for can also help people learn when to stand up for themselves.

Number four: Role-playing
Role-playing how to respond in certain situations can also help your employees learns how to stand up for themselves, but it can also teach them how to deal with conflict. Come up with a variety of situations, based on previous conflicts at work, and have your employees act out how they would respond in those situations. Have other employees offer feedback on what they think could be improved or what else they would try to help resolve each specific type of conflict.

Number five: Putting up a fight
Another great conflict resolution activity is where you ask all of your employees what they would be willing to stand up for, how far they would be willing t go when standing up for something that they do not want to see taking away. Once you have found out what that object is, whether it is a tangible or intangible item, have them explain why the item is so important to them. This will help your other employees get an idea on how much various things mean to different people, and not everybody is going to have the same feelings for the same types of objects. Learning this is important for conflict resolution because it a part of conflict resolution is accepting other people's feelings and validating those feelings.