How can facilitators help team members overcome conflict due to different work expectations?

The harmony of a well functioning team is to be clear on the details of the deliverables (who, what, when, process, framework, etc.) AND leave room for each individual on the team to work "how" they prefer to work. Maybe someone finds quiet, solo work for 4 hour sprints allows them to produce their most creative work vs others who appreciate the ongoing banter of feedback. Allowing for how someone works best, gives the individual the freedom to BE their team's best asset.

Facilitators can foster resolution by promoting active listening, clarifying expectations, and establishing open communication channels. Encouraging empathy, providing conflict resolution training, and emphasizing a shared vision contribute to understanding and collaboration. Facilitators play a crucial role in aligning diverse work expectations, creating a more harmonious and productive team environment.

In your workshop, ask the team to develop roles and responsibilities. You can also have a workshop in which the team develops their vision, values, and guiding principles.

With a detailed charter - purpose, scope, outcomes, you establish clear expectations from the workshop. That helps ensure that any conflict becomes healthy conflict (we need healthy conflict to progress).

As a facilitator, your job is not to coach but to actively listen. When the team has conflict, active listening is the best tool since the team generally stops listening as a first response to conflict.

A facilitated process to help each person appreciate the hopes, pressures, stresses and fears in other people's shoes can reduce the "us and them" dynamic, and enhance empathy. Using the "street corner" approach can help people appreciate that their truth is one perspective - and that someone else might hold a different truth. Even if these 2 perspectives are different, they can both be true subjectively at the same time.

Active listening is the best approach. Get to the core through who, observation, feelings, needs, and requests to enable communication. That takes it from blame to understanding.

In how your execute your agenda you determine the best tools to use to enable divergence, discuss, and convergence to enable the group to build trust, develop healthy conflict, make commitments, hold themselves accountable, and aim for a common goal. That fosters a culture of trust and collaboration.