Think about the last time you argued with someone. Perhaps it was a personal, domestic, or work-related dispute. As we navigate each day responding to others' needs, conflict can occur as we negotiate and address our individual needs and concerns. Functional conflict can serve as a positive force for change in the workplace, by fostering new, innovative and more efficient ways to accomplish tasks or goals. However, misunderstandings and personal clashes can also create dysfunctional conflict and a caustic work environment.
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While we tend to try to eliminate conflict in the workplace, it is important to recognize that some level of disagreement can benefit an organization or company: conflicting ideas often prompt coworkers to generate new solutions and use their collective, creative problem-solving skills to create innovative solutions. For example, scientists did not invent the light bulb by making continuous improvements to the candle. Benjamin Franklin was the pioneer who developed electricity and a team of scientists and inventors, including Thomas Edison, built on his innovation to solve a problem.
Promoting functional conflict in the workplace is not easy. It requires a delicate balance of encouraging people to challenge their ideas, choices, and preferences without negativity. Some best practices for fostering functional conflict include:
Read this text, which defines three different types of conflict: intrapersonal (within oneself), interpersonal (among individuals), and intergroup conflict (among groups of people).
Conflict can push us to foster innovation by forcing us to ask what is possible and prompt us to generate ideas that resolve a conflict. Read this short article, where the author outlines five ways conflict can benefit the workplace, such as by fostering creativity.
Read this text, which explains why certain leadership styles are more effective at managing conflict. For example, a study by Zhang et. al. found that transformational leaders who used conflict management methods were able to influence their teams more effectively to enhance coordination and performance.
Workplace conflict can come in many forms. It may be interpersonal or group conflict.
Read this paper, which outlines four main reasons why dysfunctional workplace conflicts arise. It offers ways to manage conflict from misinterpretation, competition, different values and expectations, and unrealistic goals. In the next section, we will review these ideas and some other causes of dysfunctional workplace conflict.
The structure a company uses to organize its leadership, areas of authority and responsibility, and decision-making processes can cause conflict and misunderstandings among employees within its organization.
For example, a lack of transparency about the formal processes employees follow or the hierarchy among individuals and departments can cause employees to have conflicting expectations about their goals, standards, or decision-making authority. The misunderstandings that arise when leaders fail to communicate clearly and with transparency can cause internal confusion and turmoil.
Read this text which explores different types of organizational structures.
The first section explores four key organizational descriptors:
The second section of the reading explores three contemporary organizational models: matrix organizations, boundary-less organizations, and learning organizations.
Resource scarcity is a concept we borrow from economics that explains how people compete for things they value and therefore come into conflict. In these cases, there are only so many resources to go around – whether we are talking about money, time, physical effort, or commitment.
For example, three workplace resources that employees or organizational units tend to covet, but are usually in short supply, include:
Read this text, which discusses the economic concepts of scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost. Opportunity cost describes how companies and organizations choose to allocate their scarce resources when they follow one option and not another. In other words, economists calculate an opportunity cost as a numerical amount (a cost or loss) that documents the company's decision.
Because everyone has different areas of expertise, strengths, and abilities, we should differentiate our skills and collaborate with coworkers to accomplish complex work assignments to meet a project's goals. Economists describe this concept as task interdependence.
When we rely on our coworkers to complete their part of the assignment, participants often have different ideas about their strengths, roles, responsibilities, and deadlines. Consequently, project managers should clearly define the roles and work assignments each employee will complete, and share this information with the group, so conflicts and misunderstandings do not arise.
Throughout the project completion process, participants should communicate clearly to articulate challenges and frustrations. Team members can then revise their tasks and responsibilities accordingly, complete projects in a reasonable timeframe, and meet the client's expectations. An imbalance of expectations often leads to conflict.
We say teams work well together when each member shares an understanding of their individual and collective role within the work process. Team members depend on each other to contribute to the process and collaborate well.
Read this article, which presents four distinct phases psychologist Bruce Tuckman created in 1965 to classify the group developmental process. The author explains how Tuckman's concept of task interdependence is a key element of the norming phase.
Read this chapter, which describes factors that can help employees work together as a team. Companies foster teamwork by encouraging staff members to depend on and trust each other, realize they work better together than individually, support and promote each other, and find ways to foster a sense of enjoyment working together as a team. Some organizations encourage leadership structures that rotate periodically so each team member can lead and share responsibility with the group.
Watch this video, which examines how effective collaboration, holistic approaches, interdisciplinary thinking (collaboration among disciplines), and divergent thinking (exploring many possible solutions) are critical elements for innovative problem solving in our complex environment. Good communication and understanding are vital for success and can help a company avoid conflict.
Watch these three short videos that demonstrate the importance of communication and active listening for resolving workplace conflict.
Sociologists and employers have created descriptors to categorize and classify how people communicate, behave, and interact with each other. For example, we describe people who are gregarious and enjoy meeting others in a social atmosphere as extroverts. We classify those who are less social, more solitary, and prefer the company of those they already know, as introverts.
Many employers use these categorizations of personality types during the hiring process. They assign individuals with certain strengths and abilities to work assignments and balance the personality types within their teams.
For example, more extroverted individuals tend to excel in sales positions since they must interact regularly with new clients and discuss products or present ideas to small and large groups. Introverted individuals tend to prefer to work in the background in more structured work processes. They tend to enjoy using their problem-solving abilities and interacting with individuals to get the job done.
Keep in mind that these personality tools are fraught with generalizations about how individuals respond to each situation. Everyone is different and has their own interests. Nevertheless, employers should be mindful of individuals' comfort level for working in certain environments, especially those who must respond to disagreement and conflict.
For example, some people find a workplace that involves uncertainty, the need to make quick decisions, and the opportunity to exchange ideas with others (even if they disagree) exciting and challenging. Others are uncomfortable with disagreement and conflict. They are reluctant to share their ideas if they think others may disagree (even if they are amenable), and prefer to express their ideas in a less confrontational setting.
Read this article that explores the evolution of theories surrounding personality types and discusses tools businesses use to categorize and predict how individuals will act in certain situations. It compares and contrasts three personality tests: Four Temperaments, DISC, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It cites a case study of Myers-Briggs assessments that concluded two personality types were prevalent among a group of engineering students. The author finds that a mix of personality types can bring out the best in others and enhance the group dynamic.
Most of us carry subtle, unconscious biases and prejudices that affect how we treat others. We come to situations using the framework of our past experiences – and those experiences may reflect an element of bias within each of us.
A stereotype is the assumption that every member of a group shares characteristics which some members exhibit. We frequently rely on stereotypes to make judgments about others, both good and bad. Unfortunately, negative stereotypes about individuals or groups are often incorrect and damaging, and can lead to conflict in personal and workplace settings.
Here's an example of a commonly-held stereotype: boys can throw better than girls. However, anyone who has young boys knows that most cannot throw a baseball either! But many boys get a lot of practice throwing, while girls often never receive this training. While an individual may be a lousy baseball thrower, it is wrong and foolish to assume they lack this skill due to their gender. We see evidence of these inaccurate averages with our own eyes as more girls get involved and excel in the sports men once dominated.
Review these definitions and examples of stereotypes.
Read this article, which distinguishes between blatant stereotyping and more subtle biases, prejudices, and discrimination.
Gender-based stereotypes exist when someone assumes another person has a set of values, abilities, or skills due to their gender. In this section, we discuss gender diversity in the workplace. There is a persistent wage gap between men and women, even though they share equal responsibilities and exhibit equal work performance levels.
Read this article, which discusses gender-based stereotypes, gender roles, gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexism. The authors argue that there are "significantly fewer real gender differences than one would expect relative to the large number of stereotypes about gender differences".
Workplace sexual harassment has been in the news. Complaints and lawsuits have included high-profile cases where managers, coworkers, clients, and potential employers have perpetrated or condoned sexual harassment and similar violations of professional ethical standards.
Victims often remain silent rather than report this workplace conflict because they believe their managers will ignore their accounts. Many employers dismiss the seriousness of these charges and lack the courage to discipline or terminate a perpetrator who may be an otherwise valued employee. Victims are afraid their assailant or manager will retaliate against them and jeopardize their career, such as by moving them to a less desirable work assignment or calling for their termination. This type of workplace conflict is particularly damaging because it creates a hostile environment where employees must work despite feeling hurt, angry, frustrated, distrustful, and resentful toward their employer.
Read this comprehensive definition of sexual harassment in the workplace.
Many of us believe stereotypes based on a person's age. For example, older employees are deemed less capable of learning new technologies. Meanwhile, younger employees are criticized for being entitled and less committed to completing workplace tasks.
Read this review of three studies that discuss:
We often base our decisions on preconceptions regarding ethnic, racial, cultural, or religious backgrounds. We can be quick to take offense when others cross our cultural norms – we paint the unwitting perpetrator as rude, disrespectful, or worse. For example, in some Asian cultures, it is considered disrespectful to look an elderly person "in the eye" when conversing with them. But many Americans feel that speakers who avert their eyes are hiding something or lack self-confidence.
Read this guidebook that a state health department in Australia wrote to prevent their health professionals from making incorrect assumptions or decisions regarding their patients and coworkers.
As the manual states:
"Before you can begin to have insight into diverse communities, individuals and groups, you need to understand and know your own culture and identity, whether this is your personal ethnic, spiritual or cultural heritage or your professional or organizational affiliations. Evidence has shown that our attitudes, whether we are conscious of them or not, have a direct and significant impact on the people around us.
It is impossible to know all the different rules that might exist across different cultural groups. However, it is possible to approach your work with the understanding that different and complex cultural conventions exist, and to seek out these conventions in order to both improve understanding, to adapt to whatever cultural codes you encounter, and to avoid incorrectly attributing negative characteristics onto a particular group or person."
In our increasingly diverse global economy, creating a more inclusive workplace that welcomes employees who have different ideas and cultural traditions can generate an economic and competitive advantage. New and diverse perspectives, ideas, and strategies can foster creative decision-making and problem-solving. In this way, companies can understand their diverse clientele more readily, and employees feel more comfortable and welcome working in a friendlier, open environment.
Read this short chapter, which identifies how employers can enhance diversity and inclusiveness in their workplaces to avoid biased and stereotypical decisions.
Dysfunctional conflict takes a toll on employees, especially when it takes on a personal tone, making employees who are the object of personal bias, harassment, and abuse feel stressed, undervalued, and mistrustful of their coworkers. These conflict situations negatively affect productivity and morale.
Read this article to learn about conflicts in the workplace, their causes, outcomes (both favorable and unfavorable), and various methods of conflict management.
Read this article which discusses how to help employees resolve workplace conflict. The author emphasizes how to use confrontations as opportunities to open lines of communication to understand relevant issues at hand and overcome conflicts by working together for a mutually-satisfactory outcome.