Conflicts Inside Companies
There are conflicts in every
company. Some are minor. Some are serious, toxic, interfering with the goals of
the company. How does a company handle them?
There
are executives who believe a turbulent situation is best cured by firing the
people involved. Maybe. Firing is an expensive solution. It can cost as much to
fire and replace someone as it does to pay one or two years’ salary. Firing
also has human costs. Friends of the former employee lose morale. Others in the
company who fear they might be fired lose morale.
Other
executives try training sessions or courses. These have only limited effects,
limited both in the time the effects last and in how deeply the courses can
change attitudes and behavior. The exceptions are those few courses that give
students tools to look into themselves and change beliefs they want to change.
Those courses produce a lifetime change and their graduates can revitalize a company.
There
is another solution. Look at the problem from the viewpoints of the people in
conflict.
If the members of a key team are in
conflict, there is an alignment hidden underneath. The conflict need not be
solved: find the alignment, and the two sides can agree to disagree but move
forward to the company’s goals because of the alignment.
If the people are in a team that is
stuck, not moving forward, not being creative, the approach is different.
Motivate the team to inspire themselves to high performance. Inspire
themselves? Yes, so they take ownership of the problem and of its solution.
The problem can be a key employee,
or someone who once was key, but is dysfunctional. He or she no longer
contributes to the goals of the company but has knowledge and skills that are
valuable. Dysfunctional people often have a hidden agenda. Work with them, find
out the hidden agenda, and discuss it openly. It is no longer hidden. The
company will improve because of the discussion. The individual will often
realign with the company’s goals. At the
worst, it will become clear that the person cannot realign (and usually, why
they can’t), and they may need to be fired. The open discussion will have made
it clear to all why this is the case, and there aren’t likely to be problems
with morale.
There is the problem of an
executive, perhaps recently promoted, who has technical expertise but has not
yet learned how to deal effectively with emotional situations among staff. This
can lead to a lot of conflicts. Coach the executive to be effective with
emotions and those conflicts begin to disappear. New ones of the same type no
longer appear.
To help a company do any of these
things, or to teach senior executives to be able to do it themselves, one thing
is critical. That is rapport. The consultant must be able to create rapport with
the people he or she is working with, the quicker the better. Executives or
staff need to feel that the consultant is on their side, is trying to
understand them, is compassionate, is nonjudgmental, keeps confidential matters
confidential, and takes responsibility for his – the consultant’s – actions and
for guiding the people he works with to the best possible solution. The consultant
and those he is helping need to be an aligned team.
