Giveaway, Workplace Conflict Articles
We welcome you back to our newsletter. This time, we'll be covering
recent news and updates, and focus on workplace conflict.
The News:
StressBuster Giveaway
As promised our free giveaway of our StressBusters Helpcard has
started. To download your free copy, however, you must be using one of
our Toolbars. The download instructions, including the password codes,
are included in the Messages section (or the Talk To Us) section,
depending on which toolbar you are using.
I have to tell you that although we have created the toolbars, we're
incredibly pleased at the convenience they offer.
The ToolBars Update:
Last time we told you about the Busylearners Toolbar which brings
articles, audio and video TO YOU. THe toolbar sits at the top of your
browser, is well behaved and is amazingly convenient. What is new is
we've added a few pages to one of our websites to explain the whole
thing. You can find more information about the Busylearners Toolbar
at: http://busylearners.com/toolbars/busy.htm
Our newest announcement (and one we are really excited about) is the
MANAGE! Toolbar. This is specifically targeted to current managers,
supervisors and executives, OR, people who want to learn about being
better at management functions, like leadership, running teams,
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The resources included are amazing, including audio from Jack Welch,
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It's even possible to have both toolbars available on your browser,
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For those who haven't, try it. It's pretty amazing technology.
Shhhhh...don't tell anyone but we are developing two more toolbars on
two different topics of interest. Stay tuned here.
News For Trainers
With very little warning the owner(s) of the Training and Development
list hosted at Yahoo, decided to shut down their list which had over
4,000 subscribers, and with the archives containing over 13,000
messages from almost ten years. Sometimes that happens, but the
shameful part has been the intentional and unnecessary destruction of
the message archive. It's sad that others who follow cannot benefit
from the accumulated effort and wisdom contained in the archives. But,
it's done. The good news is...
The original Training and Development List (TRDEV-L) hosted at Penn
State U. has been restarted after a hiatus of 9 or so years. So, if
you are a trainer/refugee, make sure you sign up. The instructions are
as follows:
To subscribe to TRDEV-L (the original Penn State list), send an email
to:
LISTSERV@LISTS.PSU.EDU and include the following, and only the
following, in the body of the message:
SUBSCRIBE TRDEV-L
Once you have received a confirmation email, you can post to:
TRDEV-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU
I have subscribed, primarily to read, but I have no plans to
participate at this time.
Feature: Conflict In The Workplace
As some of you know, I've written several books that cover conflict
issues in the workplace, including THe Complete Idiot's Guide To
Dealing With Difficult Employees, and Conflict Prevention In The
Workplace, and have a website devoted to the topic at http://conflict911.com
. I think conflict in the workplace, particularly mismanaged conflict,
is a huge productivity vacuum, and what's worse, it often operates
under the surface. So, we are taking a look at it this week.
Problem - Conflict in Workplace - Result - People Quit
By Wayne Messick
Did you know that 65% of voluntary terminations are the result of
unresolved workplace conflict? Not the sort of workplace conflict that
turns nice people into bar brawlers or food fight participants in the
company cafeteria or neighborhood diner. I'm talking about "double
secret" conflict - the most damaging kind.
Why do I call it "double secret" workplace conflict? Because most
workplace conflict is misdiagnosed as bad people doing bad things to
each other for some unknown reason. Most of the time "double secret"
workplace conflict is invisible to the naked eye. People act nice
toward one another and seem to be cooperating and doing what they've
been tasked to do, but things never work out right, for no apparent
reason.
Unresolved "double secret" conflict in workplace shows up in the
results arising from it, such as poor business decisions. No matter
how large or how small your organization the best decisions are those
made jointly by the right people with the good of the whole as their
sole motivation. When one person feels that the only way they can "get
back at" one of their team members or the organization in general -
they may sabotage decisions, sometimes causing great harm.
By taking the attitude that their ideas are the only ones worth
considering they force others to bend to their will. By delaying their
own investigation into the alternatives they can put off decisions
until they get their own way or until the decision is made without
them - putting them in a prime "why didn't you wait for my input"
position if things go bad. Look at your own organization - see how
creative the other people are at manipulating you until they get their
own way.
Another way that "double secret" conflict in workplace rears its ugly
head is in turf wars and the dreaded NIH syndrome that is often
displayed by the instigators. Turf wars are designed to keep people
away from what's yours. If they can't get in and you can decide what
gets out - they have to take your decisions at face value, whether
they are accurate or disabling or not. Business decisions made when
only one person has access to the information upon which the decisions
are based are flawed at best.
When the NIH syndrome is in place, ideas not invented here, are
rejected out of hand. This may not look like conflict to you, if your
vision of workplace conflict resembles the gunfight at the OK Corral,
but it is just as deadly. When decisions are made based on untested
assumptions they are rarely the best decisions possible. The NIH
syndrome insures that no one else's input is considered - and the
organization comes up the loser.
What should you do if you think there is "double secret" conflict in
the workplace where you are? Most of you will probably continue to try
to ignore it, put it down to other causes - things you can't do
anything about, so you won't have to deal with it, or just figure it
comes with the territory.
A few of you will look for a solution, but you will find them illusive
- because you really can't pinpoint a specific example and random
poking around and generalizations only make people mad. The culprits
go way under cover or fight back with such venom you're sorry you ever
thought it would work.
For those of you who are serious about dealing head on with "double
secret" conflict in workplace, setting up programs or policies that
offer workplace conflict resolution - well, you need help. By help I
mean motivation - something people will pay attention to, like money,
profit, additions to your bottom line - however you characterize the
positive side of the ledger.
In other words you need to figure out how to quantify the loses
resulting from "double secret" workplace conflict. There are those in
your organization who do not realize the role they are playing, others
who would like to be noticed and taken into consideration in
identifying the hidden conflict related issues, and those who
sincerely do not want to be part of a productive team who need to be
identified, so they can be replaced.
For two dozen years I have seen that the only thing that motivates the
majority of organizations - moves them from tacit acquiescence of
discomfort to an environment of total cooperation, is the money.
People must see the bottom line dollars and cents cost of the
conflicts taking place before they will be willing to put up with the
temporary discomfort of doing something about it.
Successful organization leaders understand that a key ingredient of
success is the development and maintenance of shared goals for the
future - shared by everyone in the organization. They also
instinctively realize the stressful impact of workplace conflict,
whether overt or covert, and appreciate how workplace conflict
resolution strategies offer concrete savings to the individuals and
the organization.
"Managing Differences", a practical guide for creating more productive
relationships in the workplace, provides simple workplace conflict
resolution strategies. It is for organization leaders and
professionals who want to reduce the cost of unresolved workplace
conflict. You can listen to the 1st Chapter free right now at
http://www.ManagingDifferencesLive.com via streaming audio on your
computer.
Just like you, Wayne Messick is concerned about the continuous
refinement of his strategies for productivity in these challenging
times. He is the author of dozens of articles for mainstream
businesses, emerging professionals and association executives and now
in phase III of his career spends hours each week creating articles
from his experiences.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Wayne_Messick
http://EzineArticles.com/?Problem---Conflict-in-Workplace---Result---People-Quit&id=1881761
Conflict In Organizations - An Overview By Robert Bacal
Here's is a chapter from Conflict Prevention In the Workplace - Using
Cooperative Communication. More information about this book, including
ordering information, is available at http://busylearners.com/products/i-coop.htm
One workplace issue that generates frequent expressions of emotion,
frustration and anger
is conflict. For some people it makes their workday just a little less
enjoyable. For others,
the frequency and intensity of workplace conflict around them makes
them a bit more than
"uncomfortable". And for some people, workplace conflicts have reached
the point where
they are at wit's end, where they consider leaving the organization.
Workplace conflict,
once it reaches certain levels does something more than cause minor
problems. Organizations
and teams frequently immersed in conflict situations tend to have
lower morale
levels, lower productivity, higher turnover, and more employee
burnout. If you think for a
moment about your own workplace experiences, you will understand what
we mean. Even
a single ongoing "personality conflict" can make coming to work a
dreaded process.
Before we discuss other issues about workplace conflict and how each
of us can work to
prevent it, we need to understand what workplace conflict means, and
the different kinds
of conflict that occur. Some conflicts are actually good; some not so
good, and some
downright ugly.
The Inevitability of Conflict
Conflict occurs naturally when people interact. Eventually if you and
I are working
together on a work task, we are going to disagree about how something
should be done, or
what each of us should be doing to get the task done, or perhaps some
other issue like how
I might be treating you, or vice versa. That's normal, and in fact
there is a positive aspect
to it. When you and I disagree, or get into heated conversation, it
means that you and I
CARE enough about the issue to take a stand and advocate and argue for
what we believe
is best.
Teams, organizations, and even individuals need conflict interactions
to grow. New ideas
can emerge from conflicts--new ways of thinking and doing things that
can be useful to
everyone.
So long as we work together in teams and organizations, and people
care about what they
are doing and how they are treated, we will have disagreements and
conflict in the workplace.
We can't eliminate all conflict. Neither would we want to because we
would lose an
important way to grow our teams, organizations and ourselves.
The catch is that there are two kinds of conflict that are not growth
producing or productive.
The first is conflict that is unnecessary--that occurs as a result of
the language we use
with each other. For example, if, in a meeting, I call another team-
member an "effing
idiot", I would be creating a conflict which is not likely to be
productive or constructive.
The second kind of conflict is conflict that, regardless of the issue,
is dealt with in ways
that make the conflict unresolvable, where each person's behavior is
serves as fuel for
the fire.
Good Organizational Conflict
Good organizational conflict is conflict and disagreement that allows
the organization or
people in it to grow, solve problems more effectively, and
counterbalance the inertia that
most organizations develop. Good organizational conflict helps people
examine what they
take for granted, and ineffective old ways of doing things. "Good"
conflict also stimulates
creativity and problem solving.
For organizations to benefit from conflict a few things need to
happen. People in the
organization need to be able to separate the personal, emotional
aspects of conflict from
the problem-solving parts. When people become overly invested in their
positions, they
tend to make organizational enemies as conflicts become more and more
personalized.
Personalization means that people forget they are on the same side and
see each other as
very personal enemies.
Second, people in the organization need the skills and understanding
required to interact
in conflict situations so they avoid escalating conflicts into the bad
and ugly ranges. They
need to understand how to "fight fair", and stay focused on problem-
solving.
Ugly Conflict
Ugly conflict is the flip side of the coin. Ugly conflict occurs when
the conflict is unnecessary
or is handled so it becomes a personal confrontation between the
people or sides.
What starts as a reasonable disagreement escalates into a situation
where considerable bad
feelings are generated, and the shift is made to "defeating" each
other, rather than solving
the initiating issue.
People often use the term "personality conflict" to refer to ugly
conflict between two
people, particularly when the situation has occurred over time and
over many issues. It
isn't that two people involved in a personality conflict have a
specific identifiable disagreement.
They just can't stand each other. If one says white the other says
black. When
one says let's go for pizza, the other wants Chinese food, almost on
principle. And, above
all, people involved in this kind of ugly conflict use language
differently than people
engaged in constructive conflict.
The effects of ugly conflict or personality conflict are profound.
First, ugly conflict
creates some very powerful negative emotions on the part of the people
involved. They
waste considerable time and energy trying to "defeat" the other,
lobbying for support, and
generally being angry. Second, ugly conflicts are disruptive for the
team. As these conflict
play out (and they are often unresolvable because there is no central
issue to resolve), the
team has to suffer through wasted effort and time, particularly if
other team members get
pulled into the emotional firestorm, take sides, and lower their ways
of communicating to
the level of the people involved directly in the ugly conflict. If
other team members are
forced to be observers of such conflict, feelings of discomfort and
lack of trust and security
can result.
Apart from your own gut feelings, you can recognize ugly conflict
using the following
characteristics:
• conflict between the parties runs for a long time and across many
issues
• people have given up resolving the conflict and have moved to trying
to score points,
rather than problem-solve
• people in the conflict focus on personal issues, such as styles,
ways of talking, and
personal qualities such as loyalty, rudeness.
• people are often labeled.
• participants look to a higher authority to "fix" the problem using
power (e.g. going to
the boss to have someone fired or disciplined).
Contributors to Ugly Conflict In The Workplace
Conflicts move from "good" to "ugly" in a number of ways. In addition
to the ways
people interact, organizations as a whole "conspire" to create ugly
conflict. If we look at
organizations that foster ugly conflict, we find they seem to share
some or all of the
following.
Ugly #1: Nonaction
The most common repressive strategy is nonaction — doing nothing.
Sometimes, doing
nothing is a smart thing to do, provided the decision to do nothing is
well thought out and
based on an analysis of the situation. Most of the time, people "do
nothing" about conflict
situations for other reasons, such as fear of bringing conflict into
view, or discomfort
with anger.
Unfortunately, doing nothing generally results in conflict escalation,
and sets a tone of
denial for the organization. So long as the organization (and
management) believes "we
don't have conflict here" the issues underlying conflict cannot be
addressed.
Ugly #2: Administrative Orbiting
Administrative orbiting means keeping appeals for change or redress
always "under
consideration". While nonaction suggests obliviousness since it
doesn't even acknowledge
the problem, orbiting acknowledges the problem, but avoids dealing
with it. The
manager who uses orbiting will say things like "We are dealing with
the problem", but the
problem never gets addressed. Common stalls include: collecting more
data, documenting
performance, canceling meetings, etc.
Ugly #3: Secrecy
A common means of avoiding conflict (or repressing it) is to be
secretive. This can be
done by employees and managers. The notion is that if nobody knows
what you are
doing, there can be little conflict. If you think about this for a
moment, you will realize its
absurdity. By being secretive you may delay conflict and
confrontation, but when it does
surface it will have far more negative emotions attached to it than
would have been the
case if things were more open.
Ugly #4: Law and Order
The final "ugly strategy". Normally this strategy is used by managers
who mistakenly
think that they can order people not to be in conflict. Using
regulations, and power, the
person using the approach "leans on" people to repress the outward
manifestations of
conflict. It's like ordering someone not to breathe!
Of course, this doesn't make conflict go away, it just sends it
scuttling to the underground,
where it will grow and increase its destructive power.
Summary
People tend to look at conflict in the workplace as being negative. In
reality, we will never
eliminate conflict, and if we attempt to do so, we will probably only
force some of it
underground. Conflict can be an effective way for everyone to grow,
learn and become
more productive and satisfied in the workplace.
Or, as you well know, it can make everyone miserable. That brings us
back to the point of
this book.
We need to look at conflict as an opportunity, being aware that a good
amount of the time,
conflict brings bad things, and sometimes really ugly things. The
trick for organizations,
and people is to do everything possible to prevent ugly conflict from
occurring and to
prevent small conflict from escalating in major, long term war in the
workplace. We can
live with some conflict. What we can't live with is conflict that is
trivial, destructive,
personal and wastes time.
In order to prevent destructive conflict, and to deal with it
effectively we need to understand
something about what conflict is about.
Conflict can occur for many reasons. It occurs when people have
legitimate differences of
opinion on a subject, and care about the issue at hand. It also occurs
as "death by a thousand
blows". Sometimes two people, through the way they interact on a day-
to-day basis
develop a dislike of each other to the point where they will argue,
debate and even insult
each other at the drop of a hat. There is no one specific issue in
these kinds of conflicts,
and if you ask one or the other of the combatants what is going on
they will probably cite
a "personality conflict" or some general statement of dislike. This
kind of conflict is
almost always destructive to an organization, since without a clear
cause, it cannot be
resolved. As time goes on the behavior of the combatants gets worse
with other noncombatants
drawn into the fray. After a point, the damage is so bad that it can't
be fixed without moving someone, or isolating the combatants somehow,
although even that doesn't always eliminate the closed door backbiting
and gossip that comes with this ugly territory.
We are going to focus primarily on preventing this kind of unnecessary
conflict, because it
is the source of most organizational grief. And, believe it or not, it
CAN be prevented to a
great degree. We can be less concerned about the conflict that occurs
due to legitimate
differences of opinion, although we need to address how to conduct
those kinds of discussions
so they don't escalate into destructive personalized conflicts.
KeyPoints
1) Conflict in the workplace is inevitable and occurs because people
care about what they
are doing.
2) Workplace conflict can be productive or nonproductive. It can help
people and teams
grow, or it can retard growth, waste huge amounts of time, and make
workplace life
miserable. Conflict can be "good" or it can be ugly.
3) Whether disagreement results in good or ugly outcomes depends on
how the disagreements
are handled and whether conflicts are necessary and important to
getting things
done.
Our goals regarding conflict are to:
• handle disagreements so they do not become ugly ongoing conflict.
• reduce or eliminate unnecessary conflict, recognizing that we can't
eliminate all conflict.
© Robert Bacal, 1998. Feel free to share this with your colleagues,
employees and managers. More information about this book, including
ordering information, is available at http://busylearners.com/products/i-coop.htm
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