Conflict Resolution

Strategies to Manage Conflict and Encourage Resolution

Graphics courtesy of PM Study CircleOpens in new window The goal of conflict managementOpens in new window is primarily to prevent negative or dysfunctional conflict from occurring, while at the same time encouraging healthy conflict that stimulates individual and team innovation and performance. However, if dysfunctional conflict cannot be prevented, then the goal is to eliminate it, or at least minimize or decrease it. This entry will provide the leader with a better understanding of available conflict management strategies to encourage functional conflict and discourage dysfunctional conflict in addition to taking a closer look at one specific method of promoting programmed conflict.

If an organization is to achieve its goals, leaders must be able to resolve conflict in a functional manner. Functional conflict resolution means that the conflict is settled, for example, either by compromise or by collaboration between the parties in conflict.

In addition to compromise and collaboration, there are three other ways in which conflicts are sometimes handled: accommodation, avoidance, and competition.

When accommodation takes place, one party to the conflict simply gives in to the demands of the other party. Accommodation typically takes place when one party has more power than the other and can pursue its goal attainment at the expense of the weaker party.

From an organizational perspective, accommodation is often ineffective: the two parties are not cooperating with each other, they are unlikely to want to cooperate in the future, and the weaker party who gives in, or accommodates, the more powerful party might look for ways to get back at the stronger party in the future.

When conflicts are handled by avoidance approach, the parties to a conflict try to ignore the problem and do nothing to resolve the disagreement.

Avoidance is often ineffective because the real source of the disagreement has not been addressed, conflict is likely to continue, and communication and cooperation are hindered.

Competition occurs when each party to a conflict tries to maximize its own gain, and has little interest in understanding the other party’s position and arriving at a solution that will allow both parties to achieve their goals.

Competition can actually escalate levels of conflict as each party tries to outmaneuver the other. As a way of handling conflict, competition is ineffective for the organization because the two sides to a conflict are more concerned about winning the battle than cooperating to arrive at a solution that is best for the organization and acceptable to both sides.

Handling conflicts through accommodation, avoidance, or competition is ineffective from an organizational point of view because the parties do not cooperate with each other and work toward a mutually acceptable solution to their differences.

When the parties to a conflict are willing to cooperate with each other and, through compromise or collaboration, devise a solution that each finds acceptable, an organization is more likely to achieve its goals.

Next we describe four strategies that focus on individuals:

1. increasing awareness of the sources of conflict
2. increasing diversity awareness and skills
3. practicing job rotation or temporary assignments, and
4. using permanent transfers or dismissals when necessary.

We also describe two strategies that focus on the organization as a whole:

1. changing an organization’s structure or culture, and
2. directly altering the source of conflict.

Strategies Focused on Individuals

1.   Increasing awareness of the sources of conflict

Sometimes conflict arises because of communication problemsOpens in new window and interpersonal misunderstandings. For example, different linguistic styles may lead some men in work teams to talk more, and take more credit for ideas, than women in those teams.

These communication differences can cause conflict when the men incorrectly assume that the women are uninterested or less capable because they participate less, and the women incorrectly assume that the men are bossy and are not interested in their ideas because they seem to do all the talking.

By increasing people’s awareness of this source of conflict, managers can help resolve conflict functionally.

Once men and women realize that the source of their conflict is different linguistic stylesOpens in new window, they can take steps to interact with one another more effectively. The men can give the women more chances to provide input, and the women can be more proactive in providing this input.

Sometimes personalities clash in an organization. In these situations, too, leaders can help resolve conflicts functionally by increasing organizational members’ awareness of the source of their difficulties. For example, some people who are not inclined to take risks may come into conflict with those who are prone to taking risks.

The non-risk takers might complain that those who welcome risk propose outlandish ideas without justification, whereas the risk takers might complain that their innovative ideas are always getting shot down. When both types of people are made aware that their conflicts are due to fundamental differences in their ways of approaching problems, they will likely be better able to cooperate in coming up with innovative ideas that entail only moderate levels of risk.

2.   Increasing diversity awareness and skills

Interpersonal conflicts also can arise because of diversity. Older workers may feel uncomfortable or resentful about reporting to a younger supervisor, a Hispanic may feel singled out in a group of non-Hispanic workers, or a female top manager may feel that members of her predominantly male top management team band together whenever one of them disagrees with one of her proposals. Whether or not these feelings are justified, they are likely to cause recurring conflicts.

Increasing diversity awareness and skills can be especially important when organizations expand globally and seek to successfully integrate operations in other countries.

3.   Practicing job rotation or temporary assignments

Sometimes conflicts arise because individual organizational members simply do not understand the work activities and demands that others in an organization face. A financial analyst, for example, may be required to submit monthly reports to a member of the accounting department.

These reports have a low priority for the analyst, who typically turns them in a couple of days late. On each due date the accountant calls the financial analyst, and conflict ensues as the accountant describes in detail why she must have the reports on time and the financial analyst describes everything else he needs to do.

In situations such as this, job rotation or temporary assignments, which expand organizational member’s knowledge base and appreciation of other departments, can be a useful way of resolving the conflict.

If the financial analyst spends some time working in the accounting department, he may appreciate better the need for timely reports. Similarly, a temporary assignment in the finance department may help the accountant realize the demands a financial analyst faces and the need to streamline unnecessary aspects of reporting.

4.   Using permanent transfers or dismissals when necessary

Sometimes when other conflict resolution strategies do not work, leaders may need to take more drastic steps, including permanent transfers or dismissalsOpens in new window.

Suppose two first-line managers who work in the same department are always at each other’s throats; frequent bitter conflicts arise between them even though they both seem to get along well with other employees. No matter what their supervisor does to increase their understanding of each other, the conflicts keep occurring. In this case the supervisor may want to transfer one or both managers so they do not have to interact as frequently.

When dysfunctionally high levels of conflict occur among top managers who cannot resolve their differences and understand each other, it may be necessary for one of them to leave the company. This is how Gerald LevinOpens in new window managed such conflict among top managers when he was chairman of Time Warner, now Warner MediaOpens in new window.

Robert Daly and Terry Semel, one of the most respected management teams in Hollywood at the time and top managers in the Warner Brothers film company, had been in conflict with Michael Fuchs, a long-time veteran of Time Warner and head of the music division, for two years.

As Semel described it, the company “was running like a dysfunctional family, and it needed one management team to run it. Levin realized that Time Warner’s future success rested on resolving this conflict, that it was unlikely that Fuchs would ever be able to work effectively with Daly and Semel, and that he risked losing Daly and Semel to another company if he did not resolve the conflict. Faced with that scenario, Levin asked Fuchs to resign.

Strategies Focused on the Whole Organization

1.    Changing an organization’s structure or culture

Conflict can signal the need for changes in an organization’s structure or culture. Sometimes managers can effectively resolve conflict by changing the organizational structure they use to group people and tasks.

As an organization grows, for example, the functional structureOpens in new window (composed of departments such as marketing, finance, and production) that was effective when the organization was small may cease to be effective, and a shift to a product structureOpens in new window might effectively resolve conflicts.

Leaders also can effectively resolve conflicts by increasing levels of integration in an organization. Hall-mark CardsOpens in new window increased integration by using cross-functional teams to produce new cards.

The use of cross-functional teamsOpens in new window sped new card development and helped resolve conflicts between different departments. Now when a writer and an artist conflict over the appropriateness of the artist’s illustrations, they do not pass criticisms back and forth from one department to another because they are on the same team and can directly resolve the issue on the spot.

Sometime managers may need to take steps to change an organization’s cultureOpens in new window to resolve conflict. Norms and values in an organizational culture might inadvertently promote dysfunctionally high levels of conflict that are difficult to resolve.

For instance, norms that stress respect for formal authority may create conflict that is difficult to resolve when an organization creates self-managed work teams and managers’ roles and the structure of authority in the organization change.

Values stressing individual competition may make it difficult to resolve conflicts when organizational members need to put others’ interests ahead of their own. In circumstances such as these, taking steps to change norms and values can be an effective conflict resolution strategy.

2.    Altering the source of conflict

When the source of conflict is overlapping authority, different evaluation or reward systems, or status inconsistencies, leaders can sometimes effectively resolve the conflict by directly altering its source. For example, managers can clarify the chain of command, and reassign tasks and responsibilities to resolve conflicts due to overlapping authority.