Conflict is a fact of everyday life. Whether between family members, workers, or strangers in the coffee line, conflict is all around us. Some people thrive on it, others shy far away from it and at work it can be a significant drain on productivity if it is not dealt with. Besides productivity, conflict can result in increased levels of stress, missed work and, in extreme cases, even escalate into violence. There are departments within companies that are set up to manage conflict, companies focused on solving the problem and employees who are better at managing it than others.
This type of conflict (in the work place), if addressed, is manageable. If not addressed it can ruin your culture, destroy productivity andultimately drive down shareholder value. There is a newer type of conflict emerging though. You cannot see the people in this conflict or hear tone or voice inflection to see if they are kidding. This conflict is often anonymous and most of the time relatively meaningless. This conflict is digital.
Just like ignoring conflict in the offline workplace is imperative, managing conflict in the online workplace is just as imperative. It comes in many flavors though. Conflict can come from people who do not agree with your products, geography, employees, sustainability efforts or anything else and they can present themselves anywhere online at anytime. Some of it is deserved (like this) and some of it is not, (like this).
If you have a digital strategy or not, the chances are, you have conflict online. Whether you know about it or not is a different issue. Be certain that your customers, employees, stakeholders and partners know about it though. As a company, you have to plan for managing online conflict and train workers across the organization how to handle. Clear points of escalation should be in place as well as severity levels for types of conflict. Response frameworks, filters and notifications and other tools should be in place as well. Setting this up proactively before you have an issue is a better way to mitigate risk than setting up under the duress of a reactive situation.
You cannot plan for everything, but having certain precautions in place is always advised. The risk to value ratio is much to significant to ingnore for any business large or small. This week’s moderator is going to help us understand what’s at stake and how to handle when conflict in the digital or social space occurs. The moderator is Meg Fowler from communications firm Sametz Blackstone Associates. Meg brings a heap of experience and a knack for delivering value to this weeks chat. The topic and questions follow:
Topic: Facing conflict on social networks
Q1: What are the key steps a business can/should take in dealing with conflict online (issues w/ cust. serv., reputation, PR, etc.)?
Q2: How do you face conflict when you’re managing a community? Can communities exist without it? Should they?
Q3: What is your personal approach for dealing with conflict online?
Please join us in this online chat on Tuesday, January 18 at noon ET. Follow #sm94 from your favorite Twitter client or simply go to our LIVE page at www.hashtagsocialmedia.com/live. The format will stay the same with the first question starting at noon and a new question coming every 20 minutes at 12:20 and 12:40
Tags: conflict, conflict online, conflict resolution, jason breed, marc meyer, Meg Fowler
Thanks for the post!
I really just have one very similar answer to all of the questions.
The way I would like to see online conflict resolving happening is that you should be very fast in your responses when dealing with conflict, and very honest and open at any point thereafter.
And by honest and open I mean that if there has indeed been some mistake or wrong-doing somewhere, that you might be responsible of, then admitting to your mistakes and apologizing seems to be a much better way to go than cover-ups or truth-bending. The latter option is the one that tends to get the most attention when companies get in trouble due to online controversies.
There’s a short thought I keep in mind when trying to be open and honest online: ‘what happens on the internet, stays on the internet’ – and that’s why I would rather have as much of truthful content posted online by myself. : )
Mikko,
good points about being honest and open. community managers and brand managers have other conflicts as well though. Consider trolls or other people who might not be so vocal if they had to do it in person. that is often the hardest to deal with. The conflict for the sake of argument people.
Good stuff to consider though!