Leadership Derailers: Conflict
Productive Conflict and Why We Should Try for Conflict Management Instead of Resolution
Conflict is in our workplaces.
Conflict costs us.
On the other hand, conflict can increase our learning, understanding of others, and effectiveness.
Conflict isn’t inherently negative, even when it is fraught or high stakes. It’s more helpful to distinguish between productive conflict (yay!) and unproductive conflict (boo!), and even more important: learning how to foster productive conflict in our workplaces!
What is the difference between productive & unproductive conflict?
Productive conflict has some key characteristics:
developing a shared understanding of the problem at hand
a focus on understanding the perspective of those involved
an orientation towards resolution or solution finding, rather than being right or winning
everyone has the chance to speak & be heard
On the other hand, unproductive or dysfunctional conflict tends to be focused on personal disputes or incompatibilities.
What is conflict management?
Conflict management is a proactive approach to conflict that leaders can use to increase the ratio of productive conflict versus unproductive conflict in the organizations. It’s a recognition of the necessity of conflict for innovation, creativity and critical decision making, while putting into place measures to avoid the negative impacts of conflict like increased stress, deteriorating relationships and disrupted work.
Conflict management and conflict resolution are not mutually exclusive, as there are overlaps in strategies and concepts. The main difference is that conflict resolution is reactive, and starts once a conflict is already underway. Conflict management is also more organizational than interpersonal, asking the question: what values, systems or processes can we put into place to make conflict more productive?
Some of those values, systems or processes include:
Accept & embrace: how can you reposition conflict as a necessary and important part of the workplace?
Organizational transparency: conflict arises in ambiguity. Can you provide more clarity on priorities, expectations and roles?
Training: There are key skills for deescalating and navigating conflict, some of which are described below. Can you offer training to your teams in listening, assertive communication, problem solving etc? Can you be trained yourself?
Appropriate conflict styles: Consider what conflict styles are currently rewarded, explicitly or implicitly. Which conflict style align with your organization’s values and desired results? See the tool in the next section to consider your and your org’s default conflict style.
Conflict management key skills
Skill development is an essential component of conflict management because it’s next to impossible to learn or develop a skill during an escalated conflict. that work needs to be done proactively.
Assertive communication
Listening
Problem solving
Collaboration
Emotional intelligence
What’s really great about the skills needed in conflict management is that they are highly interconnected. The more emotionally intelligent you become, your listening skills have likely also increased. The more effective you are at assertive communication, the more effective a problem solver you are too.
Conflict management is an essential leadership skill.
As a leader, you will experience conflict, and as a leader, there are circimstaunces where conflict may be essential to the development of your teams, the execution of your work or your mission. Developing the personal and organizational skills to effectively manage conflict means that you have to opportunity to be more innovative, authentic and collaborative.
Tool: Conflict Styles
The Thomas-Killman instrument was developed by Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann, in 1974, and is still in use today. It is an assessment that you can take to determine which conflict modes you use most readily, and which may come less naturally to you. Even without taking the assessment, the conflict modes can be helpful categories for recognizing our individual and organizational approaches to conflict AND to choose different approaches when appropriate.
Avoiding
Avoiding is unassertive and uncooperative. When avoiding, an individual does not immediately pursue his or her own concerns or those of the other person. He or she does not address the conflict. Avoiding might take the form of diplomatically sidestepping an issue, postponing an issue until a better time, or simply withdrawing from a threatening situation. -TKI Sample Assessment
Individually: Do you avoid conversations or interactions because they might be uncomfortable, even if you know it’ll just be a problem later?
Organizationally: Does the phrase “sweep things under the rugs” get used about your organization? Do potential conflicts fester and grow until the explode into bigger problems?
Organizational Challenge: Significant conflicts that are ignored do not always go away, and organizationally, can create resentment, lack of engagement, and frustration.
Secret strength: Choosing your battles means appropriately allocating your resources, and not expending limited time, energy or good will on things that are not high priority to you
As a leader, how can you encourage conflict to be brought into the open? How can you make it safe to do so?
Accommodating
Accommodating is unassertive and cooperative—the opposite of competing. When accommodating, an individual neglects his or her own concerns to satisfy the concerns of the other person; there is an element of self-sacrifice in this mode. Accommodating might take the form of selfless generosity or charity, obeying another person’s order when you would prefer not to, or yielding to another’s point of view. -TKI Sample Assessment
Individually: is it just easier to say, even if it means more trouble or work for you?
Organizationally: Does your leadership just say yes to stakeholders, clients, customers and the squeaky wheels, even when doing so doesn’t align with strategic priorities, resources available or the mission? Do you have a culture of the unexamined yes?"
Organizational Challenge: A culture of neglecting our own needs in service of others is a culture of burnout
Secret strength: Good will built by accommodating others around things that are important to them can be an essential resource when you need a win later
As a leader, how can you encourage and model assertive communication, where people feel comfortable voicing their needs?
Competing
Competing is assertive and uncooperative, a power-oriented mode. When competing, an individual pursues his or her own concerns at the other person’s expense, using whatever power seems appropriate to win his or her position. Competing might mean standing up for your rights, defending a position you believe is correct, or simply trying to win. -TKI Sample Assessment
Individually: Is it more important to you to make a point than to make progress? Would you be the person saying “I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to win?”
Organizationally: Do teams in your organization compete for, defend and hoard resources? Does one team winning mean that another team loses out, rather than being a win for the whole organization?
Organizational Challenge: A culture of competition will have trouble switching gears to collaboration, even when doing so is appropriate for the type of decision being made.
Secret strength: Sometimes, you just have to get the win. People’s jobs, organizational sustainability, justice might be on the line, and ruthlessness is the most effective way to provide for or protect your people.
As a leader, how can you incentivize conflict when appropriate and in turn, incentivize collaboration?
Compromising
Compromising is intermediate in both assertiveness and cooperativeness. When compromising, the objective is to find an expedient, mutually acceptable solution that partially satisfies both parties. Compromising falls on a middle ground between competing and accommodating, giving up more than competing but less than accommodating. Likewise, it addresses an issue more directly than avoiding but doesn’t explore it in as much depth as collaborating. Compromising might mean splitting the difference, exchanging concessions, or seeking a quick middle-ground position. -TKI Sample Assessment
Individually: Are you really good at finding alternatives that give you just enough of what you need?
Organizationally: Are organizational challenges or conflicts tackled by “splitting the baby”?
Organizational Challenge: When compromise is the norm, creative or innovative solutions may be missed in an effort to resolve conflicts quickly
Secret strength: Sometimes, we just don’t have the time to explore the root cause of an issue, or someone is refusing to budge, and it might be more important to get people some of what they need, rather than everything they want.
How can you ensure that quality of resolutions are prioritized over speed or quantity?
Collaborating
Collaborating is both assertive and cooperative. When collaborating, an individual attempts to work with the other person to find a solution that fully satisfies the concerns of both. It involves digging into an issue to identify the underlying concerns of the two individuals and to find an alternative that meets both sets of concerns. Collaborating between two persons might take the form of exploring a disagreement to learn from each other’s insights, resolving some condition that would otherwise have them competing for resources, or confronting and trying to find a creative solution to an interpersonal problem. -TKI Sample Assessment
Individually: Do you find yourself spending a lot of time and energy, and possibly angst, trying to find (and then convince people of) a win-win solution to conflicts?
Organizationally: Are decisions made by committee? Does your organization spend a lot of time collecting input from its staff, clients, users and stakeholders?
Organizational Challenge: Collaborating takes time and energy, and requires that the parties involved in the conflict are all operating in good faith.
Secret strength: Collaborating creates win-wins, and often result in creative, innovative solutions that weren’t immediately apparent.
How can you slow down so that you and your teams feel like you have enough time to effectively collaborate?
Links for Growing Your Conflict Management Key Skills
Appreciative Inquiry as a innovative, care based problem solving approach
“Studies show that reading literature with complex characters can improve empathy. Reading stories from other people’s perspectives helps us gain insight into their thoughts, motivations, and actions and may help enhance your social awareness.” One of many ways to increase your emotional intelligence.
The most collaborative companies had what we call “signature” practices—practices that were memorable, difficult for others to replicate, and particularly well suited to their own business environment. Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams