The term “conflict” is pretty much a four-letter word in any agency, business, or organization, mainly because it’s usually associated with disagreements, misalignment, or even worse, bullying and harassment.
However, workplace conflict can also be beneficial to your team, and there are numbers to back that up. According to a survey, 50% of professionals surveyed claim that conflict led to improved working relationships, better understanding of colleagues, and more creative solutions.
And at the top of the list of conflicts that can help your team grow are task conflicts. Check out the article below and learn what task conflicts are, why they happen, and how to use them to your advantage once they arise in your organization.
What is a task conflict?
A task conflict is a misalignment or disagreement among teams or individual team members about the way tasks should be completed.
Unlike relationship conflicts, which revolve around interpersonal disagreements, task conflicts are related to concrete work issues, such as resources, varying interpretations of facts, competing goals, or policies, just to name a few.
Even though the term “task conflict” may appear to have a negative connotation at first glance, these differences can result in tangible benefits if handled constructively, such as better understanding of work, improved decision-making, and generation of fresh ideas.
The most common causes of task conflicts
Given the number of task conflict causes, they can literally come from anywhere. However, we have narrowed down the list to include the most common and realistic task conflict causes.
Here is what it looks like:
Workload distribution: If the work is shared unevenly among team members, it creates a task conflict that can lead to disagreement, inefficiency, or even resentment.
Conflicting priorities: This usually happens when different stakeholders have conflicting ideas, goals, and deadlines for the same, similar, or related tasks.
Ambiguous roles and responsibilities: Without clearly defined roles, several people, or none, take ownership of the same task, resulting in misunderstandings, finger-pointing, and delays.
Personality clashes: Friction among team members can also be caused by different values, opinions, and preferences.
Different working styles: Some team members prefer structure, while others thrive when given free rein. This can sometimes lead to inefficiencies and confusion.
Limited resources: In almost every agency or business, resources like people, time, money, or work equipment are finite, which can generate stress, unhealthy competition, and pressure among team members.
Task dependencies: Task conflict also happens when some tasks cannot be done until other ones are completed, which leads to delays for the entire team.
Overlapping deadlines: In case there are multiple high-priority tasks that need to be delivered at the same time, managing the workload can be stressful.
Now, knowing the most common causes of task conflicts is only half the battle. The other half involves solutions on how to handle and resolve them.
8 ways to manage and resolve task conflicts
As you can probably tell by now, task conflicts are pretty much inevitable, but they don’t necessarily have to become a pattern for how you do things.
Here are 8 effective strategies to avoid, manage, and resolve task conflicts in your agency or business:
Adopt a strategic approach to task prioritization
If task conflicts make recurring appearances within your team despite your best efforts, perhaps it’s time to adopt a more structured approach by using one of the popular task prioritization frameworks, including:
- Eisenhower matrix: Helps you determine which tasks need to be prioritized, scheduled, delegated, or removed, based on urgency and importance.
- MosCoW method: With this method, you determine which tasks are must-haves and you do them first, and then deal with all the should-haves, could-haves, and won’t-haves afterward.
- Pareto principle: Also known as the 80/20 rule, this enables you to focus on tasks that drive the biggest value.
Apart from these effective frameworks, you can also use OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to make sure priorities are tied to measurable outcomes. Also, you should have check-ins with your team on a regular basis in order to make sure everybody is aligned.
Define clear roles and responsibilities
While it’s great to give your team members a certain degree of autonomy, they should still be crystal clear on who should be doing what and in what capacity. In other words, without clearly defined roles and responsibilities, task conflict can appear in the form of forgotten, duplicated, or delayed tasks.
To avoid this common pitfall and introduce accountability, do the following:
- Set expectations early on: When putting together your project, one of the first things you should do is to communicate roles and responsibilities for each team member.
- Nurture transparent communication: your team members should be comfortable clarifying roles before accepting responsibility.
- Make use of RACI Charts: With a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) chart, you can create a clear definition of task ownership and involvement for each task.
When you define all the roles and responsibilities upfront, you reduce the chance of miscommunication and work overlap, which keeps your team efficient.
Use software tools
Instead of keeping everything spread out in multiple documents or Excel sheets, you can use software tools to help you keep track of your team workload, so you can zero in on task conflicts in no time, or minimize their occurrence as much as possible.
You can use project management tools, ERP systems, or a productivity workspace like ActiveCollab that can do all of it in a streamlined, user-friendly manner.
Here is how ActiveCollab can help you manage different types of task conflicts:
- Workload feature: With this functionality, you can get a comprehensive view of your team’s entire workload, as well as distribute tasks evenly in order to prevent employees stress, burnout, or resentment due to uneven work distribution.
- Availability: To avoid delays, miscommunication, and confusion, you can keep track of each team member’s availability for tasks and projects, as well as their days off, leaves, and vacations.
- Team reporting: Anticipate potential task conflicts by utilizing the advanced team reporting feature and track progress on all projects and tasks.
More on the Workload feature in the video below:
Improve communication
If we were to round up all of the most common problems your projects face, a common denominator would be poor communication among team members or between managers and the team.
When there is no clarity in communication, it can lead to team members prioritizing the wrong tasks and duplicating work. Avoid task conflict in this case by considering the following tips:
- Give clear instructions: For each task, assignments should be detailed and well-documented. One way of doing this would be to rely on the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).
- Have open discussions: The idea behind these is to provide your team members with a chance to ask for additional clarification on tasks detailed before starting work.
- Use communication tools: This includes tools that support both synchronous and asynchronous communication, such as ActiveCollab, shared documents, video conferencing software, meeting summaries, and instant messaging apps.
Allocate resources effectively
This is a pretty big one as far as task conflict generators go. When you have multiple projects fighting to use the same resources, whether it’s money, time, team members, or tools, it can quickly turn into a game of musical chairs.
But, if you decide to plan the use of your resources in advance, you can let everyone have sufficient resources when they need them and reduce task conflict frequency.
Here are some guidelines on how to avoid task conflicts due to limited resources:
- Know what you’re working with: Have a clear picture of your budget, team capacity, and tools, so that you don’t cause a task conflict as a result of overpromising.
- Encourage teamwork: If team members are able to communicate their needs in an open manner, then everyone will be more aware of the available resources.
- Use software to your advantage: With a platform like ActiveCollab, you can easily keep track of how is using what resource and when, at any given moment.
Establish realistic deadlines
Unrealistic deadlines cause task conflicts in two different ways. When the deadline is too tight, your team members will scramble to get everything done under pressure, which is when mistakes start to creep in and the quality of work takes a back seat.
However, if the deadline is too loose, your team members will drag their feet and procrastinate. So how do you find the middle ground? How do you come up with an optimal deadline?
First, you can begin by giving each team a feasible deadline that falls in line with their actual capacity instead of just project expectations. Second, you can break up the main deadline into smaller, more manageable deadlines for easier progress tracking and making adjustments if needed.
Third, you can create a buffer that will allow you to anticipate delays, unforeseen circumstances, and setbacks.
Foster collaboration and compromise
If you have a task conflict on one of your projects, then you can consider yourself lucky, because it’s actually something you want. Provided that you handle it constructively, of course.
You see, if a task conflict is approached with understanding and openness, it can actually bring the entire team closer together, rather than pulling it apart. As each team member presents their point of view, they can learn the value in other people’s perspectives.
That way, you can turn a task conflict into an opportunity for growth, enabling your team to come out stronger on the other side.
Adopt a conflict-resolution culture
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!
But, what does this have to do with task conflicts?
Well, since we’ve established that they are pretty much a given on any project, how you handle them is just as important as why they happened in the first place.
Instead of allowing a task conflict to escalate into something bigger or getting frustrated about it, you can start fostering a culture of open communication in which team members are allowed to step forward and address their concerns and issues.
And another thing about that culture: it should always focus on the solution, not finding someone to blame.
Task conflict examples
Content writing team: different working styles
It’s not uncommon to have writers inside a content writing team that have vastly different working styles. One likes to work based on detailed briefs and structured workflows, while the other likes more freedom in their work, which can lead to conflicts.
However, freedom and structure can be balanced through the implementation of clear content guidelines, as well as by using collaborative workspaces like ActiveCollab for transparency.
SEO team: task dependencies
This works both ways: writers can’t begin work without receiving a content brief from SEOs, and SEOs can’t start with keyword optimization and on-page SEO without receiving finished blog posts.
To avoid this type of task conflict, you should encourage team members to communicate potential dependencies, set buffers, as well as realistic deadlines to avoid bottlenecks.
Design and sales team: limited resources
Imagine that a design team is working on a new branding for your agency, while at the same time, your sales team needs them to create custom marketing materials in order to win over new clients.
The design team can’t do both, so the conflict is handled by establishing the impact and urgency of each task and then assigning it the appropriate priority.
Conclusion – Say goobye to task conflicts with ActiveCollab
Whenever you have a group of people working on a project or toward a common goal, there are bound to be conflicts, and task conflicts are among the common ones.
But, if you and your team know how to approach and handle them, then they can become not only a minor setback but an opportunity for your team’s growth on multiple fronts, including communication, conflict resolution, and collaboration.
In order to facilitate that, ActiveCollab is the right tool for the job, with its dedicated Workload functionality, productivity, and project management features, as well as advanced Time reports, all of which enable you to have an upper hand when it comes to task conflicts.
If you want to know more, sign up for our 14-day free trial, or book a demo, and experience first-hand how ActiveCollab’s powerful features can transform the way your agency manages task conflicts!
