Family Business Workplace Conflict Resolution

When you think of conflict – what do you think of first, the cause or the effects? When you think about workplace conflict – what comes to your mind first – discomfort, embarrassment, tears, agitation, & frustration, or money being vacuumed right off your organization’s bottom line?

When you think of workplace conflict resolution – what’s your natural inclination, call the lawyers, go to HR, hire conflict resolution trainers, or punch someone in the nose?

Each of the above tactics has its place and there is a cost for implementing each of them. From thousands of dollars to 30 days in jail – there is a price to be paid. Is there a better, more productive approach? I think so.

Maybe you are one of those people who really tries to figure out how to get the combatants together in the same room to at least sit down to discuss the issues. Maybe there is a way to reach a consensus, some common ground where peace and productivity can coexist.

Let’s assume you decide to sit down and talk – either with your colleague, since the conflict is between the two of you and no one else is involved – or you are the supervisor and you’re sitting down as the third party to the conversation.

Are there identifiable behaviors people use in this situation – behaviors that can derail, doom for all eternity, the entire workplace conflict resolution process before it even gets started? Well of course there are – and here a just a few of the ones you must be on the lookout for. See if there is a pattern.

Some folks are natural avoiders who will do whatever they can to stay out of the line of fire. They are the slippery ones, hard to catch up with them to have the even the first conversation because their style is to avoid, avoid, avoid.

They may withdraw from the conversation – the words go in but nothing comes out. This silent treatment is one that has served them well in the past – the harder it is to engage them the more likely they can escape making a commitment to the solution.

And depending upon their position in the organization relative to the person with whom they have a conflict – they may withhold information. Withholding information can be a very real power play for them and in many situations others give in to their wishes, just to get things moving again.

Then there are the bully’s for whom attack is their only response to situations where their wishes are not met. Their threatening behavior may or may not be an actual physical act – it nevertheless undermines the workplace conflict resolution process. If they are aggressive they may use hostile gestures or take actions that pre-empt the possibilities of peace.

If they are sneaky they try to find sympathetic allies and tell them their side of the story. Marshalling their side of the dispute, getting others to commit to be in their camp is the fastest way I know to convert a simple – “which parking place is yours and which is mine” sort of discussion into a virtual police action.

Workplace conflict resolution, whether it involves outside consultants or is a do-it-yourself internal process can only be successful when these reflexive “fight or flight” responses are identified for what they are. And then treated as the strategic behaviors they actually are – behaviors that are 100% counterproductive to finding a workable long term solution to this and all future conflicts.

These wrong reflexes can not be allowed to undermine your workplace conflict resolution tactics. If they are allowed to continue you not only suffer the losses associated with the conflicts themselves – you also have to bear the additional costs associated with the time you are wasting looking for a solution.

Successful organization leaders understand that a key ingredient of success is the development and maintenance of shared goals for the future – shared by everyone in the organization.

They also instinctively realize the stressful impact of workplace conflict, whether overt or covert, and appreciate how workplace conflict resolution  strategies offer concrete savings to the individuals and the organization.