Your team is facing conflicts. How can you use mindfulness to enhance communication and resolve issues?

Start by encouraging everyone to practice mindful listening. This means really tuning in to what others are saying without jumping to conclusions or planning your response while they speak. Create a space where each person feels heard and valued. Mindfulness also helps in managing emotions during conflicts. Encourage your team to notice their feelings without judgment and take a moment to pause before reacting. This can prevent knee-jerk reactions and allow for more thoughtful responses. Finally, use mindfulness to create more empathy and understanding. Encourage team members to consider the perspectives of others, promoting a more compassionate approach to resolving conflicts.

In these situations, we must consider the 'third party' perspective. This exercise blends coaching with mindfulness and is typically done 1:1. It can also be done without the meditation, although is more powerful it #1. Set up a guided meditation (i.e. deep breathing, focus on breath etc). #2 Visualise the situation. Replay all elements of the scenario. #3 Focus on you. How do you feel? Feel the emotion. #4 Focus on the other person. How do they feel? Is there anything you were missing? Feel the emotion. #5 A third party has been watching. What do they see? How do they feel? #6 Consider the full perspective. You, the other person, the third party. What will your next action be?

Be aware of your own feelings as well as those of the other parties. Recognize that communication can be impacted by emotions. Focus on the other person's words without interjecting. Be understanding and affirm their emotions. Take deep breaths and remain composed. React logically instead of rashly. Locate points of agreement and expand on them. Concentrate on common objectives. Make use of neutral wording. Steer clear of criticism and blaming. Come up with solutions as a team. Be willing to make concessions.

Great executive leaders build trust, accountability and collaboration in their teams before conflicts arise. This allows the team to have courageous conversations with compassion. Tackling and discussing issues early within the team is an outcome of the culture that is curated in the leadership team.

In this situations I always do counseling of each team members and try to find our the root cause of the conflict. I have seen in many companies issues were very small but they have shown as a very big issues. We should talk to each of them separately and understand the needs and find out the solutions accordingly as a good mindful boss.