Because I’m not so sure you want to.
As someone who has taken conflict resolution coaching classes and been party to hundreds of employee conflicts in the workplace, most of the advice that you receive in order to resolve conflict is garbage. Do you use a five step method? Do you use an eight step method? Enough already. That stuff is for amateurs.
Here is my alternative answer to conflict resolution:
Resolve Problems
Conflict, in and of itself, is not always a problem. It can be but that isn’t anywhere close to being the norm.
And this is one thing I thought might be generational in nature. That is, until I got into heavy employee relations positions and finally understood it: people really don’t deal with conflict well in the workplace. More specifically, a large proportion of people think that people should be more agreeable and reduce conflict wherever possible.
I don’t buy that. Not for a second.
Take a manager who is annoying an employee by checking in on them all of the time and asking that all work go through them before it goes out to customers. He has an issue with the manager micromanaging his work. Sounds like a perfect opportunity for your rock star conflict resolving skills, right?
Wrong.
You talk to the manager and she says the employee has managed to mess up two critical communications to clients over the course of a week. The employee said it isn’t an issue anymore but she wanted to monitor the next couple weeks of communication before letting him go out on his own.
You came in trying to solve the conflict instead of the problem. The problem was the bad client communication. The conflict was because the manager had to create conflict to solve the problem and prevent future ones.
Encourage Conflict
There are three instances where I think conflict is absolutely essential to the strength and ultimate success of your company:
- Planning
- Problem Solving
- Innovation
When you are doing one of those three things, just allowing conflict and debate isn’t enough anymore. You have to encourage it either through coaching the leader of the exercise or through leading by example. Conflict leads to more thoughtful planning, more thorough problem solving and more creative innovation.
Final Thought
At some point, we are going to have to encourage healthier ways of dealing with conflict. I certainly have conflicts with the people closest with me on a frequent basis. We somehow manage to survive it all too. It seems that as soon as you enter the double doors of your office though, the rules change and suddenly that conflict is tantamount to workplace war.
What are your thoughts on this?
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Well put, Lance! It’s so true that many folks’ default thinking is that conflict should be addressed with either conflict avoidance or conflict resolution. You focus on the bigger picture – *why* is there conflict and *what* are we trying to achieve? As long as conflict is in the right context and is founded on trust, it can actually improve a company’s ability to execute and compete.
Mark, you nailed it here: “As long as conflict is in the right context and is founded on trust, it can actually improve a company’s ability to execute and compete.”
HR Hero types are often too eager to snap on their capes and fly to the scene of a conflict before they’re actually needed.
A lot of times, people just want to complain. They may not want to do what it would take to resolve the problem, or admit that they might be part of the problem. Unless it really is a deep interpersonal issue that causes both people enough pain that they are ready to work on it, active conflict management from a third party just gives both people a new target to shoot at.
Let them grumble some and figure things out on their own – conflict is okay, discomfort is okay, and if you try to get people to make nice nice without their ownership, you end up tripping on that cape every time.
I love this part of your comment: “Unless it really is a deep interpersonal issue that causes both people enough pain that they are ready to work on it, active conflict management from a third party just gives both people a new target to shoot at.”
Love the post. Supervisors who come to HR asking for us to do “something” to ensure meetings with labor representatives run collaboratively and are comfortable are sent away disappointed when they are told build a stronger case . . . and get thicker skin.
Bingo. Nobody can bail you out of that situation. Putting your best foot forward and your armor on is the key.
My experience is that if you can get all parties to agree as to what the root cause product or artifact that is in conflict, you can then have discussions that are product-centric rather than people-centric.
Precisely. And in my experience, most problems are product or process driven.
This is a great perspective !! I agree with more conflict. Good HR happens in the midst of conflict, not in spite of it. I don’t think you should be a guerilla and BE the conflict, bur HR is a lot more interesting inside conflict.
No, I think actively encouraging conflict is different than just being a workplace demon. Seriously.
What if the conflict isn’t a good one? What if it’s between a manager of one department and a supervisor of another department?
Legitimate question. If conflict is truly the source of the problem, then it has to be fixed. A third party (typically HR) isn’t always the best mechanism for this though. One that relies on accountability from all parties going forward and is opted in so to speak is most important.
Great point, Lance. Not all conflict is negative.
I disagree!
(I kid, I kid)
You nailed it Lance. Too many people construe conflict and different points of view as personal attacks instead of recognizing the value created from diversity of thought. Excellent post.
Conflict is the beginning of consciousness -M.Esther Harding.
Without conflict we never wake up. Conflict resolution – as I use the term – enables learning, connection, insight. Conflict suppression or avoidance leads to repeated actions that are destructive / ineffective and none of the above are achieved. So yep I’m sure I want to resolve conflict, what I don’t want is to avoid it or suppress it cos it’ll come back and bite me harder and harder each time till I wake up to it.
Nice one Lance!
Alan
Great post Lance. A you’ve noted, conflict is an excellent opportunity to work on things. I find that companies perhaps overlook the idea that conflict is never about the surface issue and always about the stuff that is deeper. It’s almost as if we put a bunch of people in a room who all mean well but who are working out their family problems on each other. Consequently, you have people who are reacting to situations but trying to fix very different things.
Some people may have issues around power and control, for example, or others might have a need for acceptance. I find that if you work with people on how to get rid of all the noise that gets in the way of resolving conflicts they can start realizing how effectively they can work together to actually fix stuff.
Take care,
Guy
Should individual state government offices(NY) ever be permitted to handle harassment cases for their workers, because the mere fact of the possibility of the harassment comming from within, where everyone involved is connected to each other because of politics? Issues that are raised a lot of times are swept under the rug. They never get resolved. As you look at everything from a distance, you get the feeling that’s the way it was intended to happen.It is interesting, dysfunctional at it seems.As one looks at things, it is an eye opener nonetheless. For it seems government makes laws on one hand and on the other, does everything in it’s power to prevent those laws from being enforced effectively.It also explains the trouble New York government has been having for years.
Without conflict life would be pretty dull, conflict I agree is is a force for change.
I think one of the main contributing factors are the assumptions we all make, as you eluded to. We assume that we are being micromanaged, we are therefore making assumptions about one’s intent without checking it out with them. Our assumptions then take the form of stories in our head that lead us to make snap judgements and ultimately affect the inteaction we have.
Checking out assumtions and inferences are key to nipping conflict in the bud.
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