Everyone at one time or another will experience some form of conflict at work. How individuals handle this depends on a number of factors — their personality, upbringing and culture, how experienced they are in dealing with similar situations, how important the issues are to them and how emotionally involved they are. These are among the factors that come into play in a conflict situation serving to muddy the waters and complicate things so that it often seems impossible to recognize the real underlying issues.
In the UK, expert advisory organizations, such as the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS, 2009) and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2007), recommend that individuals try to resolve conflicts informally between themselves first. Failing this, the next logical step is to approach the manager who will be able to sort the problem out. Or, will they? Unfortunately, although conflict management is an integral part of a manager's role, many managers lack the necessary skills. Few managers receive training in conflict management. Even fewer consider that they need such training with the consequence that difficult situations are all too often made worse or difficult conversations never take place when they really should (Masters and Albright, 2002). Serious, unresolved workplace conflicts lead to low staff morale, high staff turnover and poor client relationships.
Thus, when conflicts escalate, employees' natural tendency is to blame management. But, it is not as simple as that. Even very competent managers get it wrong. This article attempts to address some of the reasons why managers fail. It first examines the causes of conflict and evaluates the extent to which these can be controlled or prevented by a manager. It then examines the conflict process itself and identifies the barriers to effective management within this, the contention being that not all failures can be ascribed to managerial incompetence and that the very nature of conflict itself makes failure, from time to time, inevitable.
The causes of conflict
Researchers have made a number of attempts to identify and classify the causes of workplace conflict, but because there are so many, no one has come up with a definitive list as yet. Wall and Callister (1995) generated a typology of around 40 causes, which have been grouped into three main types for the purposes of this article:
- Individual characteristics and goals, e.g. personality, attitude, personal values, high or rigid goals coupled with a high commitment to achieving these or, conversely, low goals and low commitment, lack of team-working skills.
- Interpersonal factors, e.g. clashes of personality, disagreements over methods of doing things, strong differences of opinion, differing cultural norms, poor communication, power struggles, past history of unresolved conflicts, poor behaviour and conduct, conflicting individual goals, poor delegation.
- Issues, e.g. complex issues, multiple and competing objectives, objectives lacking clarity, lack of agreement over priority and importance of tasks.
What is significant in these causes is the predominance of psychological, behavioural and conduct issues pertaining to the individual and his/her interactions with others. More recent research carried out by the CIPD (2007) supports this finding. According to the CIPD (2007), general behaviour and conduct issues were the most common cause of conflict at work followed by performance, sickness absence, attendance and relationships between colleagues. Thus, the main cause of conflict at work is something that managers have very little control over — people's personal behaviour. Managers can and should spell out the rules for professional conduct and behaviour to all staff, but while these may help to reduce interpersonal conflict, clearly, they will not stop it occurring completely.
ACAS (2009) lists some causes of conflict that are preventable:
- Job roles not clearly defined leading to confusion and/or duplication of effort
- Managers fail to communicate adequately with their staff
- Staff are over-worked or, conversely, under-utilized
- Insufficient training
- Insufficient resources
- No opportunities for development or progression
- Bullying and harassment
- Unfair pay
- Inadequate working environment.
Managers should work to improve the working environment for employees, but not all of these causes are, in fact, controllable or preventable by individual managers, who often do not have the authority to do much about staff pay or crumbling premises or the lack of resources. Employees are often unaware of what is within a manager's power to change and what is not and so end up blaming a manager for something that is ultimately not their fault.
Both ACAS (2009) and the CIPD (2007) stress the importance of managers remaining alert to signs of trouble and nipping conflicts in the bud before they get out of hand. At the same time, however, they also point out that many conflicts remain hidden and simmer below the surface only to explode spectacularly and unexpectedly later on. While managers should monitor staff relationships and should act as soon as they are aware of trouble, they are not all-seeing and all-knowing and will, inevitably, on occasion fail to spot trouble in time.
Case study 1.Effective conflict management in actionFiona was appointed head nurse within a busy referral hospital. She was in charge of a team of 8 qualified RVNs and two student nurses and was enjoying getting to know them and organizing their work rotas. After a few weeks, Fiona began noticing that Tracey, one of the senior nurses, was often quite brusque in her manner towards her and tended not to speak unless spoken to. Whenever Fiona asked Tracey to do something for her, Tracey responded in an offhand way and often made an excuse that she was just about to do something else, which was urgently needed.Fiona decided to have an informal chat with Tracey to find out what the problem was and if there was anything she could do to help. Tracey insisted that there was nothing wrong and feigned great surprise and offence at Fiona's approach. Since Tracey's work was not suffering and Tracey got on well with everyone else, Fiona concluded that it was just her that Tracey had a problem with and she could live with that. So, she let it go.Tracey's attitude towards Fiona gradually began to become destructive. One of the nurses let slip that Tracey was bad mouthing Fiona to the others. The same nurse said that Tracey had actually applied for the Head Nurse post herself, but was turned down.Fiona decided to call in some help to deal with the situation. She approached James, the practice manager. James was aware of the situation with Tracey, but wanted to give Fiona the time to try to resolve it herself. When Fiona approached him, he reassured her that she had acted appropriately.James spent some time talking informally and separately with Tracey and Fiona to establish what the issues were for each of them. He reassured Tracey that she was valued and explained again why she had not been selected for the head nurse post. It was simply that Fiona had experience managing teams, while Tracey did not. James assured Tracey that her competence as a nurse was never in question.James also spoke to one or two of the other nurses and veterinary surgeons in order to get their impressions of how the situation was affecting others and the functioning of the practice as a whole.Having gathered sufficient information, James then met with Tracey and Fiona together. Before the meeting started, he laid down some ground rules. Both Fiona and Tracey were able to speak and to set out their case without being interrupted. James asked them to focus on what was happening and how the situation was affecting them, to avoid personal accusations or guessing what the other person's motives were. Each was able to respond to the other, also without being interrupted.James told them about the effect the situation was having on colleagues and on the practice as a whole, again avoiding accusations or placing blame. Initially, Tracey refused to engage in discussion or to talk directly to Fiona, so James got them to speak to each other through him. This was soon unnecessary when both realized that, ultimately, they wanted the same thing — to do a good job. Tracey admitted her negative feelings about not being selected for the head nurse post and regretted her behaviour. Both Fiona and James expressed their sympathy and agreed that they would probably also feel the same way if that had happened to them.Fiona suggested that Tracey could be given the opportunity to show her worth in a deputy head nurse role. James thought this was a good idea and Fiona agreed to meet with Tracey in two weeks' time to discuss this.
Case study 2.Effective conflict management in actionKaren was a registered veterinary nurse working in a small animal practice. She took the job 4 years ago and during that period proved that she was a highly efficient and competent employee. So much so, that the partners continued to pass on to her more and more responsibility. Karen was generally happy at the practice, but recently began to feel unappreciated and used. Even though the partners offered praise and thanks from time to time, Karen felt that they did not really understand her situation or pay much attention to her needs. What she really wanted was to progress — both in terms of career and pay. So far, she had not been offered promotion or the opportunity to develop her nursing skills. Karen wanted to study for a Diploma in Advanced Veterinary Nursing, but a lack of progress was making her feel less enthusiastic about her work and think about moving to another practice. Karen felt that she had no choice but to hand in her notice.The partners were surprised by Karen's resignation. They agreed that one of them would speak to Karen to establish her reasons for leaving. John met with Karen and encouraged her to talk about herself and her time at the practice. He used good listening and questioning skills and made sure Karen felt comfortable discussing her reasons. John expressed his appreciation for Karen's hard work and acknowledged that opportunities for promotion and development within the practice were few and that this situation needed to change. While he could not ask Karen to stay, as this had to be her decision, he said that he would meet with the other partners to discuss a way forward for all the staff at the practice. He emphasized that the issues Karen had raised needed to be addressed in relation to all staff in the interests of fairness and equality.The partners agreed that they did not want to lose valued members of staff and decided to call a meeting of the entire team to discuss staff development and progression issues. Prior to the meeting they considered the possibility of setting aside a staff training budget and sought advice on how to implement a performance-linked bonus scheme in addition to a system of promotion or progression that would suit practice needs. They outlined their findings and conclusions to the team and described the options available inviting staff to give their views and help develop a solution that would be acceptable to everyone, even though it might not be ideal. The partners emphasized their commitment to ensuring a positive working environment, which allowed for progression and development. Training needs were identified and prioritized in terms of practice growth and improving client relationships. Karen and another nurse were offered partial financial support to study for the Diploma and the partners agreed to allow both 1 day a month time off for study.
Thus, not only are there numerous and varied causes of conflict, but managers cannot prevent all conflicts, no matter how competent they are. Neither can they always be aware of disagreements that can give rise to conflict later on, no matter how well they know their staff.
The conflict process
Wall and Callister (1995) define conflict as one party perceiving that their interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party. They describe the escalation of a conflict as a feedback loop. At the start of the process, one party perceives that another has done or said something damaging or harmful to them. This party has two choices — to ignore or to react. Reacting can take one of three forms: fight, flight or freeze. Reactions are driven by emotions — by how strongly the parties feel about the issues concerned — so that very often the strength of the reaction will equal the strength of the emotion felt. Any reaction will result in escalation of the conflict, either experienced internally by one or other or both of the parties, and/or acted out through the actions of one or other or both. This is the core of the conflict. The core process results in effects, which feed back to affect the causes of the conflict, such that as the conflict escalates, the original cause can be altered or replaced by further causes. A conflict that is ongoing, according to Wall and Callister (1995), will go through a number of such cycles until it is ended. The interdependence of the parties is crucial — the conflict cannot be resolved without an effort undertaken by both parties.
Perceptions
Managers have no control over how people perceive things or how they will react. Neither can they know what another person is thinking or feeling. What would appear to one person to be a trivial matter, may be a big issue to another, so conflict is often completely unpredictable. Thus, a manager often has to rely on the parties involved in the conflict to explain what the problem is. If one or other party is unwilling, or if they are not completely open and honest about the issues, any solution the manager proposes or enforces will be based on incorrect information and, therefore, likely to fail.
Emotions
Emotion is an integral part of conflict. Tjosvold (2008) argues that it is important to allow people to express their feelings and vent their frustrations, but they need to be able to control their emotions if they are to work constructively towards a solution. Apart from showing empathy, there is little a manager can do to control or eliminate emotion. Some individuals are very good at hiding their feelings preferring to keep their resentments and hurts to themselves and so will refuse to talk about how a conflict is affecting them, but cannot move forward if they do not. Thus, strong emotions can act as barriers to prevent the resolution of conflict.
Effects
Often, if a conflict has been ongoing for some time, the original cause will end up being buried beneath a considerable amount of additional baggage on both sides. Consequently, it may be very difficult, if not impossible, to get to the real problem and so the chances of a manager succeeding in resolving the conflict are slim. The interdependence of the parties means that the resolution of a conflict depends very much on their willingness to work together towards a solution. Thus, If either one or the other is unwilling to move from their position, there can be no resolution.
ACAS and the CIPD recommend the use of mediation for the management of complex and ongoing conflicts. In mediation, the aim is to help the conflicting parties to work towards a mutually agreeable solution. Shapiro and Rosen (1994) and Bagshaw (1998) attest to the effectiveness of mediation in successfully resolving workplace conflicts. Shapiro and Rosen (1994), in particular, found that employees prefer solutions that they are able to contribute to themselves. However, mediation is a specialist skill. Most managers are not trained mediators and would probably have to resort to the use of external professional mediators in such situations.
Employees will tend to measure a manager's true worth not by their ability to manage simple conflicts day-to-day, among other things, but by the skill and competence they bring to resolving complex and difficult conflicts. What makes this task even more challenging for the manager, therefore, are the unrealistic expectations that the parties involved in a conflict often have of a manager's abilities, and their lack of awareness that the solution actually depends more on them than on the manager.
Conclusions
A failure to manage conflict well cannot always be ascribed to managerial incompetence. Many issues that give rise to conflicts at work are not within a manager's power to control or prevent. The resolution of complex and ongoing conflicts depends as much on the parties involved and their willingness to find a solution as it does on a manager's mediation skills or ability to select and apply the right approach. This leads to the conclusion that effective conflict management has to become everyone's responsibility — not just the manager's. This does not mean, however, that managers have an excuse for being incompetent or for not acting when they should. They are still responsible for ensuring a positive working environment that enables employees to do their jobs well. Part of this is achieving a better understanding of conflict — its causes, processes and effects — among all employees; encouraging employees to bring issues out into the open and not to bottle them up and fostering an atmosphere of open and honest discussion, focusing on issues, not personalities. Above all, managers must always be ready to listen.
Key Points
- Ongoing, serious conflict can affect the entire practice and result in low staff morale, high staff turnover and poor practice-client relationships.
- Not all causes of conflict are within a manager's power to prevent or to control, but a manager should be able to identify those that are and act quickly.
- The parties to a conflict must be willing to reach a resolution. This involves an effort on both sides. Without this mutual effort, there is no resolution.
- Good communication, open and honest discussion that focuses on issues and not on personalities, are key to successful conflict resolution.
- Mediation has been shown to be an effective technique for helping the conflicting parties to reach a mutually-agreed solution, but mediation is a specialist skill, which managers need training to develop.