[Opinion] The 4 Areas of Organizational Conflict

In many organizations, the anticipated fear of doing something that might not work when resolving a conflict outweighs the anticipated benefits of taking a risk and resolving a conflict in a new way.

This anticipated fear shows up in four areas.

Customer service interactions—these are the ones that involve poor or miscommunication, bad service, a dissatisfied customer, or even a service that doesn’t do what the end-user (i.e. the customer) thought that it would. Conflicts in these areas tend to be the ones who’s outcomes are used to define the organization by its external supporters and detractors. They are usually resolved through speed and immediacy flooding the point of contention, followed by organizational silence.
Product recall incidents—these are incidents where a product is created, developed, produced, distributed and marketed in “good faith” but then proves to be defective in some way. Conflicts in these areas tend to focus around a material loss of some kind and are rarely resolved with an apology. They are resolved through litigation, regulation and in some cases, destruction of the organization.
Process innovation failures—this is when a product or service changes in some way and the changes are dissatisfying to the end user, the seller of the product or service, or the creator of the original product or service. Conflicts in these areas tend to take a long time to manifest and usually begin in the customer service area. They are usually resolved through changing cultures at two steps below the surface level (i.e. firing and hiring) but are rarely resolved thoroughly.
Employee disputes and conflicts—these are the most common internal conflicts and occur when visions, values and goals rubu up against each other. They are usually responded to internally through either avoidance, accommodation or attacking and are rarely resolved thoroughly until employees “move on.”

Many organizations assume that immediacy of response in all four of these “dispute” areas equals resolution. The problem “goes away” and then there is silence—from the press, from the customer, from the stakeholders, and from the employees.

This assumption exists because organizations operate at scale. Scale creates degrees of separation between the person impacted by the outcome of the interaction, the incident, the innovation or the conflict, and the person who is “at the top” of the hierarchy in the organization.

As human beings, from the age of tribes to the age of multinational organizations, we have outsourced the resolution of conflicts to third parties—chiefs, in essence—with the expectation that with distance comes freedom from emotional entanglement and rationality in decision making.

When the chief knew everyone in the tribe, this might have been—and may continue to be—true. But when Dunbar’s Number kicks in at scale, and organizations begin to grow, more and more resolution is outsourced to fewer and fewer people who are called to sit in judgment, render a verdict and not consider the consequences.

The unspooling of the Industrial Revolution and its outcomes and consequences, at scale, has put to lie, the myth promulgated throughout mass media, mass advertising, mass unionization, and even mass government for the majority of the last century: The individual, whether employee, customer, neighbor or advocate, can get resolution to conflict, disagreement, or disappointment at scale from an organization.

All conflicts, interactions, incidents, disturbances, and any other synonyms humans use to describe conflicts and disputes are always interpersonal, and thus can only be resolved at the interpersonal level. But many organizations—schools, nonprofits, businesses, corporations—only function well and “change the world” at scale, rather than in interacting with one person, employee, customer, neighbor or advocate, at a time.

The solution for this is not to prevent organizations from scaling. This is as impossible as canceling biological maturation or natural growth. The deep solution is for the chief to purposefully change attitudes and minds at the individual level through coaching, training, and leading, and then leaving a culture in an organization behind that repeats the vision, mission, values and goals that they want to see.

This is the real innovation that requires courage at the beginning, the middle and the end to execute. But many organizations would rather put out burning fires than build a better house in the first place.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Strategy] KPIs For Managing Workplace Conflict

There are typically three methods employed to manage workplace conflicts:

Avoid the issue and let the employees involved know that the work is what matters, not the conflict. Avoidance looks like censure, a write-up, a conversation in private or in public, or a mandated training.
Accommodate each employee and try to negotiate with each party to get them to return to work, not the conflict. Accommodation looks like supervisory silence, employees teaming up and deciding what’s going to happen in the conflict situation, or not actually doing the work at all.
Attack each employee and make sure that any other employees know that the work is what matters, not the conflict. Attack looks like threatening to fire employees, a write-up, a “disciplinary warning,” a mandated training, or even actually firing somebody.

None of these methods is effective at preventing, addressing and resolving employee conflicts. All the methods represent a hybrid of personalized conflict management styles, poor, little or no organizational training, and deeply ingrained organizational cultures that resist shifting for a variety of reasons.

There is, of course, another choice.

The goals for managing conflict in the workplace should go beyond merely the metric of “Is the work getting done in spite of what’s going on?” and should shift to “Is the productivity of the people being impacted because of a conflict fueled work environment?”

Here are some alternate metrics to consider:

Measure the resolution of conflict as a value that is offered as a customer service to internal stakeholders (i.e. employees). This metric can be tied to specific benchmarks with consequences attached to missing the benchmark—or attaining it.

Develop the process of conflict resolution through creating systems as a series of steps that are antifragile in nature—flexible and sturdy at the same time. Most systems in organizations cannot withstand external shocks (i.e. economic downturns) or internal shocks (i.e. a sexual harassment lawsuit) well. This is why any resolution system based in mediation, arbitration or even litigation must be flexible based on the nature, type and intensity of conflicts.

Implement training that focuses on three levels: knowledge gain, skill set gain, and emotional gain. Most corporate training is mandatory, meaningless and ultimately not absorbed or used by the employees who need to absorb and use it. This is primarily because most employee training in conflict resolution focuses on skill attainment and some knowledge gain, but there is little attention paid to emotional content. Mindfulness training, de-escalation tactics and active listening strategies are the first step in this direction, but in reality, after 100 years of psychology and therapeutic methods, there are many, many more.

Coach managers, supervisors and others higher in the hierarchical chain to attend trainings and get involved in the conversation around conflict in the workplace and what can be done about it. Many employees are elevated to supervisor or managerial status without fully understanding how they can motivate and encourage people, what their own conflict management styles are, and how to develop competing styles in a work environment that is perceived as resource deficient. This reality seems easy to overcome (“We’ll just bring in an outside trainer!”) but without follow-up, support and coaching from their supervisors, the training is just as useless for them as it is for the employees they supervise.

Elevate departments, divisions and even employee positions that were previously viewed as “hand slapping” or “regulatory” into change agents, charged with supporting the development and maintenance of new systems after the training is over and the consultant is gone. Raising the profile and status of human resources from a regulatory/litigation prevention arm of an organization to the status that it deserves as a change agent takes time, training and trust. It also requires a shift in the cultural thinking of C-suite executives about how their organizational culture can change its approach to change.

When organizations complain about the establishing of these metrics and relegate them to the province of HR, they surrender the ability to create workplaces that employees desire to be productive inside of.

Establishing a new management style, developing training and following up with it through coaching and implementation of outcomes, and means testing resolution strategies is not just “fluff.” Taking such actions represents the only way forward for many organizations. Past short terms wins that appeal to shareholders and the media and toward long term gains that create genuine, long lasting cultures.

Saying to employees in conflict “Just get back to work,” just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Download the new FREE eBook courtesy of Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT), on Forgiveness and Reconciliation by clicking the link here.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Strategy] KPIs for Your Conflict Management Skills Training

Effective conflict management should be a consistently pursued leadership competency in all organizations.

Often though, it’s not even pursued.

Or, even worse when it is pursued, it’s relegated to attending a one off workshop, or seminar over a weekend with little to no follow-up. Neither of these realities lead to lasting changes in the ways that employees choose to react and respond to conflicts occuring in their organizational cultures.

This happens for many reasons.

And typically, the feedback that the conflict management expert receives during the workshop is “Well, all this seems like it would work. But it all seems so indefinable.” This piece of feedback reveals the challenge that many organizations have, when pulling people off the floor, off assignment, and away from work, to attend HR mandated diversity trainings and other offerings.

And those are offerings that are mandated to keep organizations out of regulatory trouble, out of litigation and open for business.

Conflict management trainings, conflict communication trainings and conflict resolution trainings are not mandated in many organizations, and thus are seen as “nice-to-haves,” by supervisors, managers and others.

Kind of like marketing.

The fact of the matter is, the impact of unresolved conflicts on turnover, productivity, decision making, retention and innovation efforts, touches internal stakeholders (i.e. employees) directly. And in a world where more and more product is produced by fewer and fewer people, human capital must be managed properly and effectively. And the outcomes of that management must be measured, tracked and analyzed more effectively.

There are three key ways to do this, and they should be established before sending off employees to another “nice-to-have” training:

Establish benchmarks and attainable goals—What do you want your employees to understand, appreciate and implement from the conflict management training you are sending them to?

Just wanting the “conflict” to “end” and for everybody to “get back to work” isn’t a benchmark of success in any meaningful sense of the word. Without definable, organizationally based benchmarks and goals, the chances that your organization will be in litigation—or in a mandated rather than voluntary training situation in the future–increase exponentially.

Implement outcomes from the training—Without implementation of practical skills, attained through conflict management training exercises and facilitation, the fact of the matter is that many employees will revert to what’s comfortable, what “feels” right and what is immediate.

They will do this for a number of reasons: lack of organizational support, a desire for the perceived security from predictable conflict outcomes, or just plain old fear. Active implementation (and support) of the results and learning from conflict resolution, management and communication trainings, increases employee buy-in and productivity and decreases the measurable costs of conflict in increased litigation, increased health care costs and decreased productivity.

Enable supervisors and managers—Here’s a smaple scenario: Employee X goes to conflict resolution training because they can’t get along with Employee Y. They were told to go after their last performance review from Supervisor N. Supervisor N told them “This is your last chance, so we need to see some changes—or we’re going to have to implement some changes.”

Employee X, filled with dread, attends the two day training on Thursday, enjoys the training, feels good about the training all weekend, and goes back to work on Monday. Supervisor N later on Monday, casually asks Employee X “Well, how was it?”

And that’s the extent of the follow-up until the next performance review.

Thus, Employee X has no idea if they succeeded or failed, if they have any support in the organization to implement what was covered in the workshop, and has no idea if they are going to keep their job or not. And, Supervisor N, who didn’t attend the training or review the material with the trainer, has no knowledge to implement follow-up, no understanding of what was talked about during the training and no way to measure success or failure in the employee.

This is not an uncommon scenario.

The solution is to enable supervisors and managers to attend trainings, review materials and be involved in the benchmarking and goal setting process for success with the employee, rather than acting as a bystander in the employee’s development.

The outcomes of conflict management training may seem undefinable, but that’s only if the organization chooses to allow them to remain so. This choice reflects cultural issues and cultural choices orgnaizations have become comfortable with over time. Shifting out of these comfort zones requires everyone to be on board, from the lowest entry-level employee, all the way to the executives in the suites.

It is often believed that training in conflict is a “soft skill” and thus relegated to the back burner in many organizations. But the hard metrics of success and development in lowering employee turnover, increasing employee retention, encouraging employee productivity and decision making and driving innovation, yield dividends that can be seen all over the bottom line.

Download the new FREE eBook courtesy of Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT), Assumptions and Expectations by clicking the link here.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] How to Reconcile When You Don’t Feel Like It

“I don’t feel like it.”

Actually, we understand that you don’t.

An apology never works when it is given based in coercion, because an apology should be an active, uniting act. However, reconciliation following an apology doesn’t have its basis in feelings.

Don’t get us wrong, the fact of the matter is, reconciliation when you don’t feel like reconciling should not be an option for many parties in conflict, because if either party is unwilling to come to reconciliation circle, then the whole thing falls apart.

Reconciling with another party in good faith, can only happen when engagement with the conflict has happened in good faith by both parties as well. Good faith is something that we talk about in workplace disputes, and we even bring it up in union negotiations, but very rarely in interpersonal conflict spaces. When both parties are committed to the same outcome, regardless of their feelings, their constituencies’ feelings, and changing circumstances, then reconciliation can occur.

The worst deception—most a particularly in workplace conflicts—occurs when one party think they are reconciling in good faith and the other party is merely buying time for the next opportunity to revisit the old conflict pattern, because that’s where they believe their power lies.

Click on the link here and download the FREE HSCT White Paper on FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION TODAY!

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] The Ability to Remember

The ability to remember makes it hard for us to be reconciled with those who have harmed us.

This remembering lies at the core of our unwillingness to extend a hand of forgiveness toward those who have wronged us, whether it be in the business world, the academic world or even our families. This remembering lies at the core of our willingness to engage in vengeance, to couch and justify judgments and to close ourselves off from the other party in a conflict, under the guise of “self-protection.”

Many people hide behind their memories of “who did what when to who” in a conflict, in order to avoid letting go of the emotional pain associated with impact of the conflict; but, many more people would rather be reconciled to those who have wronged them in the past and continue in relationship.

Human beings are built for relationship, not ritualized conflict. And in non-Western cultures, where communitarianism is valued over individualism and conflicts are seen as tearing at the root fabric of relationship, the ritualized process of reconciliation is framed in the language of restoration.

In the West, though, outside of family and school we focus too much about the surface of relationships. Exploring this pathology is another blog post for another, day. The point is, we must figure out three things when we feel like we are ready to be reconciled with the one who has hurt us:

We are beginning a new relationship with an old person, and what happened in a past conflict no longer determines the current parameters of the new relationship. This is the hardest part of reconciliation, because we often want to hold the other party continually accountable for what we think is their part of the conflict, regardless of whether or not the situation has changed.

We are surrendering our “right” to revenge, continued blame, and “dredging up the past.” This is the second hardest part of reconciliation, because we project our view of the conflict onto the other party, and subscribe to them motives that we have secretly inside ourselves. Where there is fierce conflict, there needs to be equally fierce reconciliation.

We are reconciled to people, not to brands, organizations, governments, corporations or even neighborhoods or families. This is the third hardest part, which paradoxically, makes it the easiest to nod our heads and accept when we hear it (or read it). However, really consider it: When people litigate, they are looking for an apology (more on this phenomenon later) from a human being. Too many of us hide away from relationships that make us uncomfortable, or that expose our vulnerabilities in ways that make us seem weak. Reconciliation only occurs when people are exposed to other people and experience their desire for a renewed relationship. Systems and structure cannot engage in reconciliation (or even apology) in any kind of meaningful way.

The ability to remember is a choice. Just as the ability to reconcile is. Both require active participation on the part of one (or both) parties to a conflict. They also require repeated refreshing at the well of relationship.

Click on the link here and download the FREE HSCT White Paper on FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION TODAY!

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Reasons to Forgive

How many times do you have to forgive the other party in a conflict?

Well, if certain books are to be believed, quite a lot.

In a world of instant messaging, instant gratification and instant stimulation with instant reactions, the long, slow, deliberative act of forgiving someone else for something that they’ve done to you can be emotionally exhausting for many people.

There are a few things to consider before getting on the forgiveness train:

Who does it impact? – Finding the motive to forgive, just like finding the motive to engage in a conflict, comes down to understanding who benefits from forgiveness. Do you benefit more than the other person, or does the other person benefit more than you? Many people will respond from zero-sum thinking (“If I forgive the other party, then I lose something, i.e. my position, my ability to be ‘right’, etc.”) but sometimes the gains are deeper than the losses.

What can really change, and what can’t? – Do people change? Well, we don’t know the answer to that question, but we can say that people deserve the chance to change. And sometimes people deserve to be punished. But without knowing everything about a situational conflict (and people inside of situational conflicts rarely know everything about themselves or the other party) makes that decision harder, not easier. In popular culture, dealing out death in judgment, is seen as retributive and righting all wrongs. But asking the question about what can change in a situation to make it better for both you and the other party is key to getting on the path to forgiveness.

How do you go about doing it? – Advice, tips, tactics and even strategies fail here, as the “how” is invariably entangled in the gossamer of the conflict itself. But one thing to consider is how to heal oneself first, before attempting to “fix” the other party. Forgiveness is a personal act that starts from within and moves outward in ever expanding concentric circles.

Where does forgiving somebody begin and where does it end? – Restorative justice practices unite perpetrators and victims of crimes. Depending upon the cultural background of the victim and the perpetrator, these efforts may work, or may backfire. However, when there is a conflict in the midst of a shared culture (a work culture, a school culture or a family culture) forgiving begins in the minds—and hearts—of the participants in the conflict. As far as where forgiveness ends, well, that’s subjective as well.

When can you forgive? –Whenever you like. Or not at all.

In the West, forgiveness is wrapped up with religious proscriptions, but in reality, forgiveness is deeply psychological and a process based in science. The results of forgiveness—lowered blood pressure, less stress, reduced stroke risk—should be tied more to the actual process of getting on board with someone who has wronged you.

But the act of forgiveness is personal, difficult and time consuming, But in a world of emotional labor, it might be the most important journey we ever embark on.

Click on the link here and download the FREE HSCT White Paper on FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION TODAY!

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] 3 Fundamental Reasons for Escalation

A large part of negative escalation is the insistence on advocating for a perspective, not with courage, but with obstinance.

The moment of truth is revealed when, through such negative escalation, we become trapped in a paradigm of our own making, between the relationship we have with reality through our own perspectives, and the relationship with reality that the other party has.

That dynamic tension—between two different views of what is the reality in a conflict scenario and what is not—drives forward negative escalation. Parties in conflict often throw up their hands and proclaim later on “I had no other choice.”

But this is a statement said so often that it is no longer in the provenance of a lie, but it goes into the area approaching truth. Parties in conflict genuinely believe that they have no choice but to escalate a minor communication issue into something larger for three fundamental reasons:

They feel powerless and impotent in the face of the situation, the other party, or the atmosphere of the conflict.

They want an outcome that they either feel they can’t get, or they feel that they are “owed” but are being blocked in pursuing, or they feel as though their options are limited because of inherent issues they bring to the conflict that have nothing to do with the material nature of whatever is going on.

They are full of the desire to be right as well as possessing the will to make the outcome come to pass that they favor.

So, they escalate negatively.

The way out of this is to dive further into the relationship with the other party in conflict. But many times, we don’t want to…

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] What’s Underneath All That Risk…

The trouble with most conversation that leads to conflict isn’t that it’s earth shattering or amazing, but that it’s banal and boring.

This is one of the many reason why there will always be more online content consumers than online content creators. It is hard to be interesting to others when you secretly are not that interested in yourself.

This is one of the many reasons why, in the context of conflicts, many participants seek to avoid any type of conversation that could trigger latent, unresolved conflicts; bringing to the surface old issues and never addressed concerns.

Participants, when asked later, will identify their conflict engagement style as being “avoiding” or “accommodating” of the other person, but it’s really a style that is based in the inability to engage in an interesting, high risk conversation. This inability, however, hobbles the potential in participants for learning new skills to manage, engage and resolve the inevitable arrival of the kind of exciting, conflict driven conversations that they seek desperately to avoid.

There are two things to recognize (other than just the banality of many conversations and the ability to avoid) that can help anybody craft a meaningful strategy for talking when the topic is high risk, but the participants are not:

Fear is at the root of avoidance, accommodation and even assertive tactics—At its root, fear of consequences, outcomes we can’t control, the situation, other people, the material facts of the conflict itself, “getting involved” and many other emotional situations, lead to the desire to pursue continuing the status quo. This fear is why a person at work who causes confrontations because they are addicted to the power rush they get from domination behavior, is “allowed” to continue the behavior, while people whisper behind their backs.

Boredom (and the desire for entertainment) is at the root of banality—The corollary to fear is boredom. Boredom happens when a person is surrounded by uninteresting conversations, uninteresting people, or uninteresting situations. The reason for the rise in conflict avoidance tactics as an interpersonal skill set among many individuals is based in the fact that many in-person social interactions are not exactly intellectually stimulating. And when and entertaining (or intellectually stimulating) alternative is offered people will take it. This is not exclusive to the now: there are many artistic representations of people ignoring each other while reading the paper, while crowded around the radio, or while watching the television.

There are arguments to be made for developing resilience, being polite, knowing enough to have a conversation, and being forgiving of people and situations. But when conflicts (particularly around issues that matter) arise, the default is to embrace the banal, continue to be boring, and hope it all blows over.

Such as it ever was…

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Strategic Escalation

Most of the time, in a conflict management scenario, escalation of any kind is viewed as a net negative.

Most trainings—whether corporate, academic, online or in-person—focus on teaching techniques and tactics that will bring the other party from a less defensive emotional position to a more collaborative emotional position.

These are great tactics if each party is emotionally invested in the process and outcome of the conflict, but what happens when the other party is apathetic at best, and disengaged at worst?

Customer center call representatives, from organizations that can’t outsource that service (i.e. local utility companies, local banks/credit unions, bill/debt collectors, etc.), or retail clerks, tend to be emotionally at either one of those two poles: apathetic, or disengaged. Rarely does a employee call a customer’s house, or interact with a customer at a retail store, in a way that reflects emotional engagement and intrinsic care to potentially escalate (even negatively) if the interaction doesn’t go as planned. And the solution to this issue is not more automation, and less human to human interaction, because escalating with a machine is ineffective, time consuming and pointless.

Strategic escalation is the process of positively escalating the other party to a collaborative emotional position, from a net apathetic one. The skills to do this effectively are at the opposite of the skills we all possess (name-calling, judging, moralizing, blaming, threatening, denial, etc.) that we default too naturally if we believe that an interpersonal interaction isn’t going well—and we feel powerless to make it better.

Escalating an interpersonal interaction toward a positive outcome involves:

Complimenting (“You’re doing a good job…”)
Thanking (“Thank you for the help you gave me today…”)
Calling a person by name (“Cindy, that’s great that you got that for me…”)
Taking responsibility for being wrong (“I took the wrong approach to asking for what I wanted…”)
Using positive feedback (“I’m going to tell your manager what a great experience this was…”)

We must shift the ingrained, Industrial Revolution thinking that has us believing that such interactions are meaningless, irrelevant and unimportant, because increasingly, they are the only kind of interactions that matter.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] A Modern History For Labor Day II

There’s a lot of political commentary floating around about the perils of income inequality.

This issue—which can lead to conflicts—is mask for a much larger, more pervasive, and more pernicious kind of inequality though. And this conversation masks discussing the core question, buried deep inside the second type of inequality.

Here’s the question that a conversation around income inequality can‘t touch: Why do some people become “successful” (whatever that means) and other people don’t (whatever that means)?

Labor Day is a day to focus around outcomes and inputs:

Labor is an input. Work is an outcome.
Effort is an input. “Success” is an outcome.
Childhood is an input. Adulthood is an outcome.
Actions are inputs. Consequences are outcomes.

Conflicts come about when there is an avoidance, an accommodation or an attack as an outcome related directly to deeply held perceptions about the nature, range and efficacy of a particular consequence, for a particular action.

Different people respond in a random variety of ways to inputs and outcomes, consequences and conflicts.

Trying to focus on equalizing responses—and thus removing the risk of conflicts related to differing outcomes—is an exercise best left to academics, politicians and political commentators on the news.

The celebration on this day should be about how successful and persuasive efforts have been (inputs) to create different, and materially better, outcomes, rather than continuing to circle the room, searching in vain for better outcomes.

-Peace Be With You All-