Managing Conflict in Organizations

1. Managing Conflict in Organizations Thomas P. Holland, Ph.D., Professor Institute for Nonprofit Organizations

2. Handling Conflicts • Definition: when two or more values or perspectives are contradictory in nature • May be internal (within self) or external (between two or more people). • Conflicts are problems when they hamper productivity, lower morale, cause inappropriate behaviors if poorly handled. • Conflicts are useful when they • Raise important but unaddressed problems • Motivate people to attend to them • Help people learn how to recognize and benefit from differences

3. Things that provoke workplace conflicts • Poor communications, employees surprised by new decisions, don’t understand reasons for decisions, come to distrust supervisors • Alignment of resources doesn’t match work expectations, disagreement about who does what • Personal differences, conflicting values and actions, dislike of aspects of others (that we don’t like in ourselves) • Abuses of power, authoritarianism • Inconsistent or uninformed leadership, passing the buck, repeated poor handling of an issue, managers don’t understand the jobs of subordinates.

4. Ways People Deal with Conflicts • Avoid or ignore it. May worsen conflict over time. • Accommodate: give in to others. May be useful when you know you will have a better opportunity in the near future. • Compromise: mutual give-and-take when you want to get beyond the issue • Collaborate: seek ways of working together for mutual goals without trying to solve issue • Compete: Try to get your way, expressing strong convictions about your position, seeking to persuade others. May include efforts to discredit opposition. • Warfare: polarizing the conflict, using formal and informal power to undermine opposition and gain control of organizational resources.

5. Conflict Managementin increasing order of difficulty • Recognize that some differences are useful and always present • Prevent initiation of conflicts by developing clear policies • Set limits on ways conflict may be expressed • Help individuals understand triggering factors and alternative responses • Help individuals find different ways of coping with consequences of conflicts • Resolve basic issues underlying the conflict

6. Supervisory Actions to Minimize Conflicts • Keep current on job descriptions, making sure that roles don’t conflict and no tasks fall into cracks • Build positive relationships with staff, meet with them regularly, ask about accomplishments and challenges • Get regular status reports, including needs and planned next steps • Provide staff development opportunities on key aspects of work • Develop procedures for handling challenges, drawing upon employees’ input • Hold regular meetings to communicate status of projects, resources and challenges, new initiatives

7. Steps in Managing Conflicts • Know what you don’t like in yourself, and recognize that we react negatively to those things in others. • Stop arguing, move to discussion between adults • Manage yourself in interactions. Speak calmly even if other doesn’t. Maintain eye contact. • Move discussion in private room. • Allow person time to vent without reacting or interrupting. • Check to make sure you have heard their concerns correctly. Ask clarifying questions as appropriate, making no judgments about responses. • Clarify where/whether organizational policies touch on issue.

8. Further Steps • Identify points where you agree and disagree. • Address the issues, not the person. Rule out personal attacks. • Keep focus on the mission and on the future, not the past • Listen carefully, respectfully • Seek mutual solutions. Ask “what could we do to fix this problem?” If more complaints, go back to previous steps, then ask question again. • If possible, identify at least one action that can be done by one or both of you. • If not, ask for a cooling off period before meeting again. Could we “agree to disagree?” • Seek advice from manager. • Consider inviting in mediator if appropriate.

9. Applications Exercise • Analyze a workplace conflict you (or another person) have experienced. Describe the issue, triggers, responses, approach(es) to handling it, consequences, successes and mistakes, lessons learned. • Set forth a plan for handling such a situation more effectively in the future. Who should do what, when, how, why? • What steps can you take to cultivate the skills to handle conflicts more productively?