For teams or groups, achieving high performance often requires skill in resolving destructive conflict. Unlike fine wine, destructive conflict does not improve with age. Left alone, it can consume resources essential to organizational success. But even when we resolve a destructive conflict, it's an expensive distraction. Prevention is better than resolution.
To prevent destructive conflict, we must know its causes. Here's Part II of a little catalog of practices and situations that tend to generate destructive conflict.
- Sudden change
- Change is almost always difficult. Suddenness makes Change even more difficult, but it does more. It creates general insecurity, by creating doubt that we understand the world around us.
- When Change is elective, release as much information about it as you can as early as you can. Prepare the people of the organization.
- Zero-sum recognition practices
- Recognition programs that have a zero-sum structure can inhibit cooperative behavior and create intense rivalries. In a group of N people, creating one winner creates N-1 losers, and that undermines teamwork. For example, an organization that designates only one "Engineer of the Year" might experience erosion in the overall sense of teamwork and group loyalty.
- Modern organizations depend for success on contributions from employees in a wide range of positions, working as individuals and in groups or teams. Surely we can find ways to recognize all. Recognizing everyone for something reduces the incidence of destructive conflict. Recognizing everyone is an honest acknowledgment of the reality of modern work life.
- Rank-based performance management
- Some performance management systems rate individual performance according to several levels across several dimensions. They use that rating for compensation adjustment, promotion, disciplinary action, and termination. This methodology can be a fertile source of destructive conflict when combined with quotas, in a framework often called "forced ranking" or "stack ranking."
- In today's highly interconnected workplaces, the concept of individual performance is itself questionable. We cannot always determine who contributed what, and a contribution that seems constructive today might not seem so constructive next month, even if we could realistically determine its value. Given these uncertainties, risking destructive conflict by using quota-based performance management systems would seem counter-productive on its face.
- Hierarchical conflict
- Manifestations of destructive Sudden Change creates general
insecurity, by creating doubt that we
understand the world around usconflict among executives and/or senior managers can appear throughout the organization. As subordinates interact, some can fear that mutual respect or cooperation with the subordinates of rival senior managers might be interpreted as behavior disloyal to their own senior managers. - Seek complete resolution of feuds between senior managers, recognizing that a truce is not resolution. Abandon the illusion that such feuds can be "private." The secret always escapes.
Think of root causes of destructive conflict as masters of camouflage, intent on surviving by remaining unnoticed. Then search for them where you think they aren't. First in this series Top Next Issue
Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!
For much more about the effects of recognition practices on performance, see No Contest: The Case Against Competition, by Alfie Kohn. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1986. Especially chapter 6.
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Related articles
More articles on Conflict Management:
- Deniable Intimidation
- Some people achieve or maintain power by intimidating others in deniable ways. Too often, when intimidators
succeed, their success rests in part on our unwillingness to resist, or on our lack of skill. By understanding
their tactics, and by preparing responses, we can deter intimidators.
- Covert Obstruction in Teams: I
- Some organizational initiatives are funded and progressing, despite opposition. They continue to confront
attempts to deprive them of resources or to limit their progress. When team members covertly obstruct
progress, what techniques do they use?
- Bullying by Proxy: II
- Bullying by proxy occurs when A bullies B at the behest of C. Organizational control of bullying by
proxy is difficult, in part, because C's contribution is covert. Policies that control overt bullying
are less effective at controlling bullying by proxy.
- Reaching Agreements in Technological Contexts
- Reaching consensus in technological contexts presents special challenges. Problems can arise from interactions
between the technological elements of the issue at hand, and the social dynamics of the group addressing
that issue. Here are three examples.
- The Politics of Forming Joint Leadership Teams
- Some teams, business units, or enterprises are led not by individuals, but by joint leadership teams
of two or more. They face special risks that arise from both the politics of the joint leadership team
and the politics of the organization hosting it.
See also Conflict Management and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming April 24: Antipatterns for Time-Constrained Communication: 1
- Knowing how to recognize just a few patterns that can lead to miscommunication can be helpful in reducing the incidence of problems. Here is Part 1 of a collection of communication antipatterns that arise in technical communication under time pressure. Available here and by RSS on April 24.
- And on May 1: Antipatterns for Time-Constrained Communication: 2
- Recognizing just a few patterns that can lead to miscommunication can reduce the incidence of problems. Here is Part 2 of a collection of antipatterns that arise in technical communication under time pressure, emphasizing those that depend on content. Available here and by RSS on May 1.
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