Create a Conflict Resolution Culture

Recent studies find that more than a quarter of a manager’s time is spent being engaged in or resolving workplace conflict. Some research even puts this figure closer to 40 percent. Why is this so troubling? Because conflict results in stress, frustration and anxiety — which, according to the Centre for Conflict Resolution International, can end up costing an organization $1.7 billion in lost work.

“Conflict is inevitable,” said Mary Scannell, corporate trainer and author of The Big Book of Conflict Resolution Games: Quick, Effective Activities to Improve Communication, Trust and Collaboration. “We’ve got different personalities. We have different perspectives. We may have different goals or perceived goals. Just the way we go about attaining those might put us in conflict with one another.”

As a result, preventing conflict is not the objective — the objective is to create an organizational culture that allows for disputes and encourages resolution, Scannell said.

“What you want to do overall is build a foundation of trust,” she said. “If you try to make conflict go away, then it goes under the surface, and people feel that they’re not able to really express their views and opinions and have those healthy interactions with others. You don’t want that.”

The first step is to recognize that conflicts typically fall into one of two categories: “hot” or “cold.” Hot conflicts are easier to identify: They’re usually one-off debates or arguments in which voices are raised and emotions are at the surface. Cold conflicts, meanwhile, may be more difficult to pinpoint — and they’re often more detrimental.

“[It] might be avoidance: You take a different way through the hallway because you don’t even want to have the chance of running into somebody. Or you’re in the same meeting together but you’re talking around each other or doing whatever you can to avoid the other person or avoid any sort of interaction with the other person,” Scannell said. “Other forms of avoidance would be you’re not coming in to work because you don’t want to deal with what you perceive to be a clash with another person. Or you might sabotage: ‘I’m just a little late in getting you what you need? Oh, sorry, you missed your deadline?’ Little backhanded stuff like that.”