Catching conflict early is a key part of resolving it effectively. All too often I get calls saying, “this came out of nowhere.” But when I dig a little deeper, I find that there were ample warning signs and indicators that managers and supervisors failed to notice. Don’t let that happen to your organization.

Here are a few warning signs of growing conflict.

• A high rate of absenteeism, stress leaves, sick leaves

• More people than usual asking to work from home. This might indicate people avoiding the workplace for emotional reasons.

• Negative gossip. There will be some workplace chatter in any organization. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But if it gets to be overwhelming you should be alerted that something is wrong.

• People working through backchannels. Perhaps they need information from a co-worker or another department. But instead of asking directly, they go through an intermediary. If people consistently avoid dealing with a particular individual or department, you should definitely investigate.

• Using outside suppliers where there are internal resources. Again, any actions that shows employees going through some kind of subterfuge in order to avoid others is a warning sign.

• Meetings where no one talks. Surface harmony may mask deeper conflicts or indicate that people are afraid to speak up. Whatever the reason, too much silence should sound as a big warning bell.

If you notice one or two of these, it probably isn’t a big deal. If you notice three or more, however, it is worth investigating.

About the images: 1) By Christina Morillo; 2) By Mary Whitney. Both courtesy Pexels.

Managing conflict is a crucial skill set for leaders today. To do this effectively, you need some understand of what conflict is and how it escalates.

I understand conflict as disagreement or competition plus mutual hostility. When friends disagree – even about important matters – it doesn’t usually turn into conflict because they have a foundation of mutual affection. People who play on opposing sports teams may compete very fiercely, but it doesn’t become a conflict unless they dislike each other for some other reasons.

Where does “mutual hostility” come from? From what I have seen in workplaces, it often arises from a perception of disrespect or a sense of unfairness. For example, someone sees their colleague get promoted while they don’t, or it becomes apparent to everyone that one person is receiving special treatment from the boss. Whatever the source, a perception of unfairness is a huge driver of workplace conflict.

Any organization is going to include some people who get along with each other better than others, and every workplace is going to have ups and downs. Usually these day-to-day disagreements don’t amount to much. Then one day there is a more serious incident. It doesn’t really matter what it is, and I have seen a very wide range of small incidents that end up blown out of all proportion because of the way they are managed.

Typically after the incident someone – most often a supervisor – will step in to smooth things over. If this person has the right skills and is respected by everyone involved, then things will go back to where they were before – small ups and downs without genuine conflict.

Yet all too often the intervention fails.

Maybe the attempted mediator lacks the proper skills or is seen as biased. For whatever reason people involved in the conflict don’t feel heard or understood. The failed intervention leads to a dramatic increase in stress. If this continues, or if other “small” incidents are mismanaged, then communication breaks down, work no longer gets done, and the organization is weaker.

When conflict escalates and is allowed to go on without a resolution it can become distracting and costly to an organization. The longer conflict goes on, the graver the consequences. Most people don’t like drama at work. An organization may lose its best people, as good workers usually have other options.

Next time: Warning signs of workplace conflict

About the images: 1)Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash 2) Courtesy of rawpixel.com.

Every so often I get an inquiry about training that goes something like this:

Me: Can you tell me why you’re interested in conflict resolution training?
Potential Client: We have two divisions that need to work together, but whenever they have a meeting, it ends up in a screaming match. So we’d like to get some training to improve their communication.

If you have two groups in open, hostile conflict, putting them together in a room for a day of training will not help. In fact, it might even make things worse. What this client really needs is to understand what is driving the conflict between the groups. Until the client knows this, any “solution” just amounts to throwing money at the problem.

Or the conversation might go like this:

Me: I got your message that you’re interested in anti-harassment training. Can you tell me what’s going on in your workplace?
Potential Client: We’ve had a few complaints about one of our managers. So we want to have a training session so everyone knows what is appropriate.

First, if you’ve had complaints about someone’s behaviour, you need to do some kind of investigation. Depending on the circumstances, it may not be necessary to do a full, formal investigation, but you need to get a better idea of what is going on.

Second, if the problem really is centered on one person, individual coaching for him or her is a better use of resources than group training.

My main point in all of this is: Solve the right problem. If you have ongoing workplace conflict, address that. If you have one manager whose behaviour is inappropriate, devise a plan for him or her. Don’t send a whole group out for training.

And if you’re unfortunate enough to have a whole culture of disrespect among the people in your organization, then you need a long-term strategy to address that. Training will play a part in that strategy – but don’t mistake the training (a tactic) for the strategy.

About the image: Rahulrdx223 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]