Disagreements in the workplace are common, and to the extent that disagreements reveal useful differences of opinion, can be constructive and useful in creating a successfully diverse workplace, if managed well.
Unfortunately, not all disagreements or personality differences are expressed or managed effectively. And this often leads to fractured work relationships, damaged wellbeing and reduced work output.
Recent years have seen a notable increase in workplace conflict. Much of the increased incidence can be attributed to heightened levels of anxiety in general, caused by factors unrelated to work – think financial concerns, global instability, pandemic, earthquakes etc.
Most workplaces will experience conflict at work but it’s worth recognising that not all conflict is created equal. Various strategies are employed to address conflict, ranging from informal discussions to formal investigations. Frequently, an external party is brought in to work with the parties involved to understand what is going on and help them identify ways to resolve conflict and work together more collaboratively.
Exactly which strategy you use will depend on your organisational policy and can also be usefully informed by assessing the level of difficulty. In my experience, there are several factors which complicate conflict and make resolution more difficult:
- Personality and willingness to take accountability – where one or more of the individuals is highly resistant to feedback and/or holds a seemingly intractable viewpoint that they are the innocent party and another person is 100% at fault, or where they lack interpersonal tolerance
- Duration – where the conflict has been ongoing for an extended period of time
- Management involvement – where management has allowed the conflict to continue and has not held people to account for counterproductive behaviour or when two managers of individuals experiencing conflict have not proactively sought to resolve the conflict
- Number of people – where the conflict exists between more than two people, or has extended to others; perhaps where individuals or teams have taken sides
- Position – where one of the individuals involved is in a management position, particularly if this is line management of the other individual
- Wellbeing – where the conflict is having significant impacts on one or more of the individuals’ physical or psychological wellbeing
- Lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities – where people’s roles overlap and position descriptions, policies and procedures do not specifically address levels of responsibility and expectations of consultation or involvement.
- Organisational culture – where microaggressions are commonplace and people are not trained in ways of resolving differences of opinion and/or where expected standards of behaviour are not known or communicated
- The work itself– where workload is heavy and/or the nature of the work creates heightened emotions
Our key advice? Always address conflict early, carefully considering your resolution strategy based on the above factors. And in the meantime, put serious effort into creating a workplace where people are open to differences of opinion and have the tolerance, skills and support to manage disagreement effectively.
Andrea Gardner
Director
andrea.gardner@spgroup.nz
