It’s double secret because everyone goes around smiling at each other, even actually liking one another, playing on the softball team together – while at the same time they’re just waiting for the right moment to submarine your plans, and sabotage your strategies.

I have found it to be true, I bet you have too, that no matter what I say and no matter how I say I feel about a coworker, supervisor, or boss – it’s what I end up doing that proves what I actually believe.

We think we can tell from someone’s non-verbal communications when they are conflicted, upset, etc.

We might sense it in their posture of aggression, their hostile gestures, their unwillingness to make eye contact, or maybe the silent treatment when we’re around.

We think we’re pretty good at figuring out who’s on the team and who is ready to drop the big one. Too bad, another myth busted.

The really difficult people are those that smile and say how are you – then slip the knife in when you’re not looking.

For instance one of your coworkers says that they want to be cooperative, they want to share in the information gathering, they want to be part of the team willingly pitching in to help in the accumulation of information around which important plans for the businesses future are being made.

But in reality they withhold critical information until you come begging for it, they incorporate the famous “if they don’t ask, I won’t tell” policy. Until, that is, they can demonstrate their superiority by questioning the final decision in light of what they know nobody else knows.

It doesn’t matter to them that the organization has wasted time, energy, and money coming to an erroneous conclusion because of the missing information.

Or they can smile and go along with the planning process, never telling anyone this key information. The decisions are flawed and the organization loses money as a result.

Decisions made without all relevant input can be devastatingly costly. In addition the cost of decisions not made or directions not taken can never be accurately calculated.

We pay dearly when members of our teams put their desire for power, their interest in getting over on the company or the boss ahead of doing what’s right.

When the boss thinks they have a saboteur in their midst, they often try to appease them rather than fire them, discipline them, or even have a constructive conflict resolution intended discussion with them.

Our organizations are full of people we can not fire , and almost no one has a preemptive workplace conflict resolution strategy designed to seek out conflicts when they are still blips just barely visible on the screen.

The manipulators among us will try to get the boss to take their side in the matter. Or maybe they will report their findings to their supervisor in a way to suggest that only they were capable of ferreting out this information and bring it to them.

Unfortunately the boss, who always sees through the ploy, will go along with it just to keep things moving forward.

Every organization is made up of steps, the “critical path” – where something must be done by someone else in order for you to do your job and you must do your job in order for the next person to do theirs.

Manipulators understand this all too well – so they work their game on their fellow employees, knowing that their power is in the ability to blockade the process. Their coworkers, again always knowing what’s happening – will go along so the process can move along.

How much time do you think is consumed needlessly with these maneuvers? How much money, actual dollars off the bottom line and out the door is this “double secret” conflict costing your organization?

Is there anything you can do about it?

The answer, it depends. It depends on whether or not the person is sacred (can not be dealt with in any productive way) because of their position in the business or the family. If this is true your choices are limited to those with the power in the organization are willing to exert. Often the business collapse because of situations like this.

On the other hand if they are, as is usually the case, good people who want to do better – but have behavioral issues or other issues that conspire to put them in the role of problem instigator, there is hope.

And that hope comes from the organization’s leaders willingness to put in place a conflict prevention strategy around the principle that we are all different and that the key to our long term success is our willingness to work hard at managing those differences whenever they exist .

Technorati Tags: Business Conflict, Conflict in Workplace, Conflict Strategies, cost of conflict workplace conflict resolution

Whenever you work with people, conflict is inevitable. The tension created by daily conflict either results in wasted time, decreased productivity, and poor decisions or the sort of internal competition that pushes each individual to do their best, if for no other reason that convince their coworkers that they can do it.

This inevitable conflict is either destructive or creative. The destructive conflict is toxic to relationships and hurts people and organizations and this is the one that needs managing. In my experience creative conflict seems to be cultural in nature. It’s how the people themselves react and address each other and the situations they face together.

If you’ve ever seen “American Chopper” on the Discovery Channel you know what I mean by creative conflict. There is a lot of yelling going on. These guys are not shy about sharing their opinions when they disagree with one another. If you were a stranger who walked into their shop you might think WWIII had broken out.

In fact, that is how they relate to one another – there is no ambiguity, they tell it like it is in the moment. Imagine how much more they accomplish because they use the tension to air their different opinions, right now – and then get on with it. It’s possible that this is just a TV show and these guys have nice quiet meetings in the board room, listening to various committee reports, before the speak up, but that’s not likely. I bet they are who we see them as being.

In three decades working with family businesses I have seen dozens and dozens of companies who harness conflict creatively, and in so doing get the most out of everyone as well as optimum results overall. They don’t waste time on what’s not working just because it was the bosses idea. They stop what they’re doing and point out the other person’s mistake then show them how to fix it. Nothing and no one or their opinion is sacred – it’s all about getting the job done.

Sadly I have seen experts try to get them to change their behavior, be more polite to one another and offer more politically correct input in an ever more constructive manner. In other words they (the experts) want other people to be more like them.

So instead of helping their clients manage the destructive conflict that exists, they are offering suggestions on how to fix what isn’t broken.

I am talking about the conflict that distracts employees and managers from otherwise productive use of their time. Studies reveal that up to 30% of a typical managers time is spent dealing with conflict. And that 42 percent of their time is spent reaching agreements with others when conflicts occur.

Sometimes destructive conflict is simply because the people don’t like each other. In the universe of family owned companies sometimes brothers, sisters, cousins, and in-laws are thrown together in ways none of them like. Conflict is the only way they have of displaying the frustration they feel about the situation they’re in.

It is no wonder that an estimated 65% of performance problems result from strained relationships like these. Between employees who are not happy with each other – not from deficits in their training, skill, or motivation.

The most common way that destructive conflict shows up is about “how” a certain task should be accomplished. I met a farmer once whose son (age 50) refused to do things the way he wanted them done. He sited an example by driving me on the back of his four wheeler (you could not get there any other way) to a field that illustrated his point.

He and his father before him had always plowed the field north to south – his son was plowing it east to west. I am not making this up. It didn’t have anything to do with soil erosion, conservation, or the environment – he was doing it this way against his dad’s wishes, just to get his goat. And it was working.

I bet you can think of things at your company that are being done a certain way because that’s the way they’ve always been done. And if you’re the one who wants to change history, good luck!

Destructive conflict about how things are being done, what things are being done, and whether or not a certain thing should even be done can paralyze the organization.

Wasted time arguing about things that don’t matter, an unwillingness to consider another person’s point of view based on their experience, and the blame game when the results are in all cry out for a self-help process you can use to manage your differences so that all conflict is creative.

The end result of a successful self-help mediation process is that you (as a group) turn together and focus on the challenge or opportunity you all face. You see the problem as the stumbling block and not your coworker.

Self-help mediation tools allow two individuals the opportunity to discuss their assumptions about the other person’s motives. In many conflicts the simple process of testing these assumptions face to face using active listening skills will resolve the issue entirely, because the parties realize the conflict is simply a misunderstanding.

Self-help mediation tools pave the way for more effective decision making. Obviously decisions made under conditions of conflict are going to be inferior to decisions made when cooperation prevails. If ongoing conflict (even a low grade resistance to cooperation) is present between people who share decision-making authority, the resulting decisions are likely to be flawed by the power struggles between those people.

As business owners we know that good decisions must be based on an optimum quality and quantity of objective information. So when information is withheld or distorted by those we are depending on to provide it, the decision cannot be the best one possible.

There is now doubt, workplace conflict resolution strategies – especially those that will allow you to do it yourself – will save you money, time, energy, and enhance your workplace by helping you make better decisions, retain your best employees, and design a future course for the business everyone will actively support!

Technorati Tags: Business Conflict, Conflict in Workplace, Conflict Strategies, cost of conflict workplace conflict resolution

Fist fights on the loading dock for instance, or between supervisors who start malicious rumors about one another, is easy to see.

Even so the dollar cost of such obvious conflict is rarely measured.

Other, much more subtle forms of conflict in workplace, such as intimidation or bullying are never measured.

Not only does this sort of conduct often become “he said – he said” with the taking of sides the only result, it is usually not seen by management as conflict in the traditional sense, so not attempt to resolve it takes place.

The powers that be wait patiently on the sidelines until it all blows over or until there is some other reason to step in and make a personnel decision.

Workplace conflict resolution is applied, and applied sparingly I might add, often as a last resort – when it should have been the very first step.

No matter if your workplace looks like WWI, with everyone dug in to their own trenches firing volley’s across a wasteland of desks, cubicles, warehouses, and fields, or if everyone is so polite to each other it’s disgusting – while sniping behind their backs, one thing is clear. The behavior is wasting time, everyone’s time, and time is money after all.

Since it’s often impossible to tell how much or how little is going on inside someone’s head, maybe your people are simply conflicted about their relationship at home. and that has caused them to ’shut down’ – they look productive, but nothing is happening. The bottom line results are the same – they are wasting their time on the job and your money.

I am no accountant so ask yours how much actual money is erased directly from your organization’s bottom line when two employees can’t or won’t work together cooperatively. There is the money you were paying them at the time they were not productive, that’s a given.

What about the money you lose because the people who report to them can’t complete their tasks because they have not received the results these two individuals are squabbling over. There are also all the indirect costs that account for another 30% of payroll or more. Then imagine a couple of these ongoing conflicts taking place somewhere with someone all the time.

As tough as business is right now I am amazed that you have not picked up on this and that your employees are not doing everything possible to work together effectively. I am flabbergasted by some of the stories I hear, people just unwilling to work together while their company is struggling to survive. And how supervisors and business owners are doing nothing to measure the actual cost of wasted time.

Be sure to tell your accountant that when calculating the organizational cost of wasted time, that they should be conservative with their estimates.

A cost of conflict calculator will consider all the variables you input in order to generate its results. If they’re not very conservative – their results will be so large as to be mind-blowing, and if you try to present them to your Board or your employees you will lose credibility. No one will believe the numbers.

When the numbers look too big your employees will either discount them as not being possible, just your accountant over reacting to the way things always are around here or they seem too big to actually do anything about. When that happens, getting buy-in for whatever corrective action you might want to take becomes even more difficult.

When it come to the real financial cost of wasted time in the workplace, it s an eye opening experience when you or your accountant measures it for the first time.

Technorati Tags: Business Conflict, Conflict in Workplace, Conflict Strategies, cost of conflict workplace conflict resolution