A September 2008 report co-sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development estimates that upto a staggering £24B - £24 Billion!!! - is lost every year in the UK due to workplace conflict. The report also identifies that a key contributing factor to this is the lack of training in Conflict Management for all levels of management.

 

Clearly much more needs to be put into resolving - or, at least, minimising - conflict.

 

So think about this....Is the progress of your organisation being hindered by disputes between key members of staff? When disagreements inevitably occur, do they soon get out of hand? Do simmering resentments undermine and destabilise co-operation, leading to wastefulness, errors and downtime? How much real money is your organisation haemorrhaging as a Consequence of conflict?

 

When you think about the way you handle conflict, do you tend to be:-

• an Avoider - who seeks to avoid all conflict and would rather other people fought over the decision-making?
• a Flamethrower - who must beat the other side because you are the one who is fit to make the decisions (and they are not)?
• a Zealot - who knows what is right and must convert everyone else to your way of thinking?
• an Ideologue - who knows what is right and will sacrifice your own interests as well as everyone else's to 'What is right?'
• a Moderate - who will listen to other people's views and moderate your own where you can see relevance in what they have to say?
• a Pragmatist - who will manipulate people in whatever way you need to get the answer you think in your best interests?
• a Conciliator - who is prepared to give some ground so that a decision which represents the best you can get is made?
• a Compromiser - who believes everybody should give ground in the interests of a decision that is fair to all?
• a Collaborator - who can work with others to get the best deal possible for everyone's interests overall?

 

How do the people you have problems with tend to be? - and can you change your style to deal with them?

 

By combining the work of Spiral Dynamics co-developer Don Beck with the work of conflict management pioneers Robert Blake & Jane Mouton and Ken Thomas & Ralph Kilmann, I have completed what is arguably the most comprehensive map of conflict modes in the Western World.

 

All relationships invite conflict because people are different. Genetically, experientially, in the beliefs you hold about yourself and others, you are unique. Your very uniqueness invites conflict with the uniqueness of others. No matter how close you are to somebody and how much you like that person, your differences mean the potential for devastating conflict exists.

 

Of course, some relationships are inescapable conflict hell! For example, the boss with the indispensably-skilled employee with the bad attitude; the parent with the teenager who says, "Screw you!" - as soon as look at you....

 

To get the best out of your relationships - whether with your spouse, your children, your parents, your boss or your employees - you need to understand your conflict mode and how it changes in different situations. You also need, as far as possible, to understand how other people's conflict styles operate.

 

To manage other people, you may have to take on a mode that isn't your preferred one. For example, Compromisers rarely persuade Avoiders to do anything and usually get badly burnt by Flamethrowers!

 

                                                                                                

                                                                                         The effects of Belief and Temperament

Did you once believe in Santa Claus...but now you don’t? Have you ever been passionately in love and then found some time later that you no longer are in love with that person? The beliefs (schemas) we have can change; yet at the time they have us we treat them as though they are the absolute unchangeable truth. (Try telling a 5-year-old Santa Claus is just a story - and experience the tears and tantrums! Try telling someone in the first full flush of new love that the intensity of their feelings will fade - and you will almost certainly be met with unequivocal denial - even if they’ve already experienced several relationship break-ups - “This time it’s different!” will be most likely be their mantra.)

 

So the memes we are exposed to which become our schemas (our vMEMES - motivational systems - heavily influencing that process) are critical because they become our reality which will be different to someone else’s reality. Understanding that the beliefs we are ready to fight for (and sometimes die for) are just schemas and can actually be quite transitory is often a critical step in scaling down conflict.

 

In addition to beliefs and values, you may also need to take into account the Dimensions of Temperament of both yourself and those you deal with.Some people’s temperament leads them naturally to be assertive, even aggressive, while others are naturally unassuming.

 

                                                                                                 Can all conflicts be resolved?
Notice the term I use is management, not resolution.

 

In reality, not all conflicts are resolvable - much as we might want them to be!

 

One of the key points Dr Ichak Adizes makes, in his pioneering work on Organisation LifeCycles, is that the different roles in organisations - Production, Administration, Entrepreneurship and Integration  - of necessity are in conflict with one another. They each require different values and, therefore, different ways of thinking (vMEMES), For example, Production wants the job delivered to the customer and invoiced but Administration wants to quality check it first; Entrepreneurship wants to focus energies on what the organisation should be doing in the future but Production wants all efforts to go into the current job.

 

Tensions, for Adizes, are natural - structurally inherent - and, given the effects of vMEMES, belief systems and even natural temperament, it is foolish to think all tensions can all be dissolved in every circumstance.

 

So we must accept that not all conflicts can be resolved - that there aren't always perfect solutions. Those that can't be resolved need to be managed - controlled, balanced - to give the best working solution at that moment in time - understanding that circumstances change and a new working solution will need to be arrived at when those circumstances change.

 

This workshop - which can be open or in-house - can be scaled to suit needs. As a minimum half-day session, it serves to introduce the main conflict modes and the vMEMES which drive them. As a 3-day comprehensive programme, it not only includes related aspects of temperament and patterns of belief creation and restructuring but also strategies for effective conflict management - including use of the Assimilation-Contrast Effect.

 

Contact me to find out how training in these powerful concepts can be geared to maximise benefit to your organisation.