In Work with Me!: Resolving Everyday Conflict in Your Organization, Gini Graham Scott writes:

Difficult situations, which include conflicts, come up naturally and inevitably in every workplace. They happen because people have different interests, goals, priorities; because resources are limited; or because there are communication problems, power struggles, mistaken perceptions, faulty assumptions, and personality clashes. Some people are simply difficult to work with. I created a three-step model: first to deal with the emotional fallout of the conflict, then to assess the contributing factors, so you can then determine the best strategies for solution by drawing on your faculties of reason and intuition.