How to turn workplace conflict into a strategic advantage

In today’s business climate, the contrast between organizations that effectively manage workplace conflict and people who do not is stark. Organizations that use neglected, ill-defined or immature approaches to conflict management experience a range of undesirable outcomes, from reduced productivity and poor decisions to information suppression and congestion. Sometimes they escalate, causing stress and division, upending work relationships and leading to hostility, complaints and even legal motion.

In turn, organizations with a mature approach to conflict create an environment perceived by people as fair and equitable. Decision-making takes into account diverse perspectives in an environment where disparate information flows freely.

How can leaders make sure that their organizations fall into the latter group? While conflict management is a broad topic, a few key things need to occur for your efforts to be effective.

Understanding conflict theory

As with any workplace phenomenon, harnessing conflict to positive results requires a common way of describing its basic elements. We can start by proposing a definition of conflict that is different from how people often view it. Rather than viewing conflict as inherently destructive, mature organizations define it as the presence of conflicting opinions or concerns. They recognize that this diversity of opinion is part and parcel of the human experience.

The infighting we see in organizations is just one way of viewing conflict.

Researchers Ralph Kilmann and Ken Thomas have identified five overarching ones modes people adapt to situations as they approach conflict (disclosure: my company sells Thomas Kilmann’s Conflict Mode Instrument). They might be understood in terms of how people exercise various degrees of assertiveness and cooperation.

Competition: This assertive and uncooperative approach occurs when one party wants to win 100%.

Polite: It is a non-assertive and collaborative approach in which one party allows the other to get whatever they need.

Compromising: It is a somewhat assertive, somewhat collaborative approach in which each parties get some, but not all, of what they need.

Avoidance: This unassertive and uncooperative approach occurs when at least one party refuses to engage in the conflict.

Cooperation: This assertive but cooperative mode occurs when two or more parties adopt a problem-solving approach that takes into account the concerns of everyone involved.

Collaboration is unique in that it often results in a completely recent solution than originally anticipated. It requires the biggest skill and practice. And while this is not the right solution for every scenario, it’s the one mostly used. It is not surprising that organizations with a mature approach to conflict use this mode more often.

Identifying the culture of conflict in the team

Due to life and work experience, background, and innate psychological and personality preferences, people tend to resort to one of those five conflict modes – often without being aware of it. Likewise, they often do not consider that there could also be other approaches, falling into the mode that is most convenient for them.

Moreover, based on the combination of conflict sorts of their members, teams and organizations have a culture of conflict. When this culture is not cultivated, conflict tends to be unproductive and even destructive.

Therefore, achieving self-awareness and awareness of others is essential to develop competence in dealing with conflict. Greater awareness of the varieties of conflict leads to a reduction in people’s tendency to immediately turn out to be defensive or offensive when conflict occurs. Through strategic training and development, people’s unconscious habits and assumptions turn out to be conscious and people gain perspective on decisions during conflict.

Moreover, it is now possible to observe, measure and improve their tendencies and behaviors in dealing with conflict. Teams can select the appropriate mode for conflict, reasonably than defaulting to the way they are used to dealing with it.

But before this begins, organizations must discover their culture of conflict. For example, an organization may discover that it tends to view conflict as a threat to teamwork. Others may find that they view it as a waste of time and resources that ought to be avoided. Still, others may see that they are predisposed to see it as a threat to leadership authority and organizational stability. These perspectives can shape the culture in which employees operate, dramatically influencing whether or not they handle conflict appropriately.

To achieve greater effectiveness in conflict management, we’d like to know the place to begin. First, organizations must uncover their biases, assumptions, and perspectives regarding conflict. Steps towards a healthier culture can begin from here. Each team must then build worker skills in self-awareness and awareness of others through strategic training and development. Teams will then need assistance transitioning to recent behaviors.

Choosing the best approach to conflict

With this awareness comes the ability to select the best conflict mode for a given scenario.

Collaboration often leads to higher decisions, especially when dealing with complex issues. However, this takes time, so it is clever to reserve it for critical situations where a win-win consequence or an revolutionary solution is required.

On the other hand, when there is not enough information to make an honest decision, temporarily avoiding conflict could also be helpful. It provides the opportunity to collect data, research and feedback from other stakeholders. Once everyone is higher informed, conflict might be reconsidered with a greater likelihood of a productive consequence, minimizing the risk of selections based on misunderstandings.

Even if the optimal mode is chosen, it should be implemented effectively. This involves equipping the team with the skills essential to effectively deal with conflict. These may include the ability to:

• Distinguish between what people fear – what they are primarily motivated to do – and what positions or actions they need to take to satisfy their fears.

• Frame the issue based on these concerns compared to the positions initially held by the parties involved. Collaboration, for example, requires revealing the concerns underlying people’s positions.

• View balance firmness and elasticity when trying to cooperate or adapt, especially when the other party is stuck in competitive mode.

Reducing the costs of conflict

The final point is that even if conflict mode is best for a given situation, it still comes at a cost. Effective conflict management involves minimizing this cost.

If a leader dismisses the significant effects of conflict as simply the price of creating the right decision, this is an indication that he or she lacks conflict skills. An experienced leader can operate in competitive mode without frightening colleagues, in avoidance mode without seeming to shirk vital issues, or in responsive mode without appearing to be a pushover.

In summary, organizations with mature conflict management get to this point because top management has made it a priority and invested in their conflict management culture and employees. Such organizations encourage the acceptance of opposing views and the free exchange of knowledge, and top management leads by example by developing and demonstrating their very own conflict management skills.