Learn more about the psychology behind team dynamics and conflict, and how Resologics’ processes help teams be super creative, high performing and fun!
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A healthy business team is one with strong relationships and vibrant engagement. It’s a beautiful place to be, where people feel heard and creative ideas bump against each other in an open, constructive way. We call it the Creative Tension Zone and it’s the dream (or should be) of any organization with an aim toward consistent growth.
Teams fall out of this place for various reasons, and the spiral downward can devolve into destructive conflict. It is critical to know where you and your team are on the Conflict Curve in order to make good decisions in “real time” so you can recognize what’s happening and pull your team back from the Conflict Spiral abyss.
On average an ombuds will see 3-5% of an organization’s members in the course of a year. Our work as organizational ombuds has increased steadily over the last couple of years, where we’re initially called in because someone in leadership is being dogged by a “small” conflict that won’t go away but keeps festering and growing until they can’t sweep it under the rug any longer. (From there, we typically enter a contractual arrangement with clients where we serve as their ongoing go-to ombuds, mediator, and conflict adviser.)
He could have been sitting in the corner of the conference room where I was convening as Organizational Ombuds for a team that was stuck - there was (emotional) clutter, plenty of discord, and a really difficult situation. Tension was high, people were venting. At any moment (my experience told me) someone could explode with frustration. It was like a freight train approaching the room, about to crash!
Creative Tension Zone is where huge ideas emerge, innovation thrives, and empires are built! The most successful workplace teams know how to manage constructive conflict to encourage creative tension. What every leader needs to know about leveraging the power of conflict in a team.
Have you ever said: “That person just presses my buttons”? We call these 'conflict hooks', because your reaction to the button-pusher has the potential to feed conflict. Understanding what conflict hooks are can help you and your team make better response choices.
Conflict doesn't just appear out of nowhere. There are always signs warning that a conflict is developing. Managers who know what these signs are can be more effective leaders by confronting the problem before it rages out of hand. By resolving conflict in the early stages, the company will run much more smoothly and the overall productivity level will be increased considerably. What are these subtle signs of conflict to look for?...
Why build conflict resilience into your company’s culture?
Fact: In any business environment, challenges and disagreements WILL happen. For a productive and happy workplace it’s crucial to have a plan in place to manage and de-escalate negative conflicts—with the intention to head them off before they begin.
The costs of conflict to your business are real and they are high.
Excerpted from Forbes Coaches Council article by Mark Batson Baril, Feb. 16, 2021
A little over three percent of an organization’s population used the Office of the Ombuds as a resource to resolve a variety of conflict issues, according to a recent internal study of 164 ombuds offices in the U.S. and Canada.
What are the implications of this finding to your organization?
Without an ombuds or similar structure in place to address conflict, 3.2% of most organizations’ employees believe they have nowhere to turn to resolve issues they have within their workplace. If you have 100 people in your organization, it’s likely that three of them are dealing with something right now at work that is troubling them, and that could potentially create a negative ripple effect throughout the organization.
[updated, April, 2018: 5 Reasons to Get Proactive on Conflict Management Training]
The benefits of skillfully managed conflict to an organization’s growth have never been more crucial than in today’s competitive, ever-changing global economy. Conversely, a dispute that is ignored or handled badly can quickly cause distraction, raise stress levels, create barriers to productivity, communications and innovation — and escalate to negative outcomes that cost an organization in measurable ways.
The literature supports conflict-competency benefits and training — but do you believe that there’s ROI on an organization’s investment in training and support for the purpose of developing conflict competency skills and systems before a dispute arises?
Read MoreThe Organizational Ombuds is being seen more and more as an important service for organizations in a complex world. The profession has existed for centuries yet remains relatively unknown, especially as anything beyond someone to call in for disputes to avoid litigation.
Yes, we do that, but the real and lasting benefit is when we partner with HR leadership to build a workplace culture which is empowered to overcome disputes, conflict and barriers that keep the organization from thriving.
It’s a little like building a house: A reputable contractor brings in experts in different areas such as roofing, masonry, and electrical systems to ensure that the building will be up to code, run efficiently, and for a reasonable amount of time. This foundational expertise is as important as the actual structure itself to create a viable, lasting living space.
Read MoreWhile conflict may be a constant, paradigms to explain conflict in organizations have changed. Systems thinking or chaos theory is the latest paradigm that has been used to understand organizational conflict. The demise of the mechanistic worldview allows us to contemplate how organizations deal with conflict through a fresh set of lenses.
The term "system" is widely used in the field of organizational conflict management. The Federal Interagency Alternative Dispute Resolution Working Group recently sponsored a brown bag Session-"Growing Your ADR Program - Are You Ready for a System?"-that focused on examples of two agencies 'that are attempting to replace ADR programs with ADR systems.'
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When we join a company, partnership or team, our expectation is that everyone involved will exhibit professional behavior toward us and each other. Instead, it’s highly possible that we may become one of the more than 60 million adults in the United States who are affected in some way by bullying behavior at work.
What kind of behaviors are we talking about? Our definition is any interpersonal behavior that causes emotional distress in others sufficient enough to impede their productivity or disrupt organizational functioning. It isn’t just a personality conflict — it’s a chronic pattern of disrespectful behavior.