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I read a lot
about conflict and study business
communications regularly. I
came across a couple of studies
about the time and resource drain
that conflict imposes on
organizations.
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85% of employees
report being involved in conflict at work.
What does this mean to you? Let's find out
Let's be conservative
and assume only 1 hour a week is being lost
to situations where conflict has slowed work
down.
1. How many
workers does your firm employ?
_____________
2. Multiply line
1 by .025 (1 hr in a 40hr week)
_____________
3. Multiply line
2 by 50 (weeks in a year*)
_____________
* no conflict during vacations (Ha!)
4. Multiply line
3 by their average annual salary
_____________
5. YIKES!!! The
money you could be saving
_____________
It's worse than that.
Managers spend 40 -
60% of their time navigating and dissolving
conflicts in their organizations.
What does this
mean to your bottom line?
1. How many
managers does your firm employ?
_____________
2. Multiply line
1 by 2080 (# work hours/year)
_____________
3. Multiply line
2 by 50% (.5)
_____________
4. Multiply line
3 by their average annual salary
_____________
5. YIKES!!! The
money you could be saving
_____________
Conflict is a controllable cost. It
takes time to assess, time to disentangle
and and time to resolve. It requires
that the parties are willing to come up with
a solution that works. Often times,
much healing needs to occur before
productive conversations can even begin.
There are several 'interventions' available
to heal a broken situation. Here is
just one.
In any conflict there might be four aspects
of the conflict at play:
1. Content - the 'what' of the conflict
2. Relationship - the 'who' of the conflict
and their history together
3. Self-perception - the 'ego' of each party
4. Process - the 'way' we'll solve this
conflict.
Depending on the people and issue, one or
two of these four might play a bigger role.
It's important to clarify what the conflict
is really about before trying to solve it.
Fixing a process issue when the relationship
is damaged, won't work until the
relationship issues are addressed.
Similarly, coming up with an agreeable
solution when the process is still broken
will just create more conflict in the
future.
Next time you're tempted to sweep an issue
under the proverbial rug, take a minute to
estimate the real potential cost of avoiding
it. Then engage the troops in
dissolving the dispute.
Outside help may be necessary to navigate
troubled waters, especially if you're
swimming in them yourself. Unless the
conflict completely insignificant, don't let
it fester for long. Even seemingly innocuous
issues can escalate until their are out of
control and your profits are languishing
with no hard cost explanation to justify
poor results.
>> Post your
biggest challenges at work on
Dream Leader Blog.
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