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Conflict Doesn’t Have to Hurt

We can all acknowledge that conflict is inevitable – yet challenging to manage – in our personal lives. It can be even trickier in an organization.

In the workplace, we have our jobs and reputations to maintain; we face multiple systemic constraints; and we need to get results. Considering this, do any of the following scenarios sound familiar?

  1. An employee is too frightened to talk to his supervisor about feeling micromanaged. Instead, he spends hours complaining to colleagues and ruminating in anger, which impacts his and others’ productivity.
  2. A team of six can’t reach common ground on a decision, so two things happen: 1) They fail to complete the project, and 2) the aggressive way the discussion is handled leads to mistrust and disengagement among team members.
  3. You learn that your coworker resigned because she has been struggling with a workplace conflict. Although she never mentioned this, you discover that the prolonged hostility she experienced made it unbearable for her to remain.

We hear these types of anecdotes frequently. Factors like hierarchy and power imbalances, overly polite or aggressive cultures, competition for resources – among others – contribute to the difficulties that many organizations face with conflict management.

And because conflict is experienced as so emotionally averse, few executives and employees have developed the skills needed to manage conflict in a productive way. Instead, poorly managed conflict often leads to negative consequences for the entire organization.

The CPP 2008 Global Human Capital Report revealed troubling findings after surveying 5,000 full-time employees in nine countries:

  • 89% experienced a workplace conflict that escalated, meaning it was not resolved in a timely or effective manner
  • 67% went out of their way to avoid a colleague because of a disagreement
  • 25% saw conflict lead to sickness or absence (48% in the nonprofit sector)
  • 12% admitted that conflict resulted in them leaving their job
  • 9% attributed a project failure to poorly handled disagreements

These numbers demonstrate that when conflict is not managed well, it costs organizations time, money and resources. Yet being in conflict does not have to cause the statistics above. Those outcomes only occur when conflict is not handled effectively.

So what happens when conflict is managed well? Studies show that it reduces the previously mentioned consequences and actually produces additional benefits, including:

  • Higher productivity and task focus
  • Improved decisions and decision-making processes
  • Clarity around roles and responsibilities
  • Respect, trust and engagement among teams
  • More innovative ideas
  • Lower turnover rates

Effective conflict management requires tact, intentionality, vulnerability, and a lot of active listening. Like playing an instrument or sport, we can only improve our skills with concrete tools, practice and feedback.

Reflect on a time in which you did not manage a workplace conflict as well as you could have. What was the outcome? What could you have done better? How would the results have changed if you approached it differently?

There are many techniques and advanced skills that help transform conflict into dialogue for better outcomes. The next time you find yourself in a difficult conversation, try an experiment: Suspend any urge to blame or attack the other person, and instead approach him or her with curiosity and nonjudgmental questions. Rather than instigating pushback or defensiveness, you may create an opportunity to discover new ideas and reach solutions.

That is just one example of a technique our blog will cover in the months to come. Stay tuned for our next article for more on this and other constructive tips.