Abstract
Conflict comes with the job of managing the public's natural resources. When I ask, fish and wildlife executives tell me they want employees with excellent conflict management skills. When I next ash what they are doing to prepare their employees to become skilled conflict managers, I regularly get a blank stare. Professionals are usually on their own to acquire these skills, largely through unguided, trial-and-error learning. Eleven actions leaders can take to improve conflict management in their organizations fall into four categories:
1. | Conflict prevention through training, adding a “conflict resolution” dimension to employee performance evaluations, maintaining an early warning system to detect emerging conflict, and creating robust stakeholder involvement processes. | ||||
2. | Contingency planning through systematically assessing vulnerabilities, conducting “What if…” strategy analyses, and maintaining a rapid response capacity for when a conflict emerges. | ||||
3. | Crisis management through ensuring that the organization can effectively analyze a conflict situation and can efficiently stabilize a bad situation so relationships can be rebuilt. | ||||
4. | Encouraging completed staff work by using a planning tool that teaches employees to bring a finished situation analysis and remedial plan forward at the same time they bring a conflict to the executive's attention. |
Acknowledgments
My thanks to the following for thoughtful manuscript reviews: Dale Burkett, Melanie (Mel) DePaoli, Oriana Noël Lewis, Betty Lochner, Dr. Patt Schwab, Dave Chadwick, three AFS reviewers, and, especially, Linda Fraidenburg.