Question

What should you do to avoid virtual conflicts?

Sometimes conflicts can be really nice, why?

Answer 1

The virtual teams will not get the face to face interaction and any misunderstandings in the teams will become a personal grudge over a period of time. The virtual environment causes the online disinhibition effect where the people will act with far fewer restraints. So the best ways to avoid virtual conflicts is to develop an online discussion board where the members of different teams can share their ideas and complaints with everyone. Any misunderstandings can be solved here and the management team will also have access to it. They can monitor all the changes and suggest the teams that need to make some changes in order to function normally. The transparency will build trust among the teams and they will coordinate better. It can also act a knowledge repository for the teams in the company where the members can share their ideas and knowledge with others.

The conflicts can be a source of new thinking and new ideas. The employees fight over a process and it might lead to a new process that is better than all the previous steps followed. Conflicts always raise new questions and these questions will always lead to multiple answers from different people. These answers can be innovative and lead to a positive change in the approach. The employees who fight and again come together to work will have to the strongest relationship and they will be aware of the behavior that is required to maintain a good environment after that. People will open their mind and start thinking out of the box to find a solution to the conflict and this can improve the productivity.