Managing conflict well – The Underacknowledged Superpower

Poorly managed conflict can all too easily turn into destructive behaviour, ruining lives and livelihoods in the process. There’s a toxic torrent of evidence for this in the appalling images of violence on our screens, the divisive behaviour of many of our politicians and the media, as well as the dark side of social media.  

Yet, as the Gershwins’ famous song goes, “It ain’t necessarily so!”.

Managed well, conflicting ideas, objectives and personalities are powerful stimulants for creativity, innovation and organisational transformation, as well as performance. They are also strong vaccines against the dangers of “Group Think”.  

For most of us the conflict in our lives isn’t about armed conflict, physical violence or sinister trolling. It’s far less noxious. It’s about people or situations causing us frustration, anger or anxiety and undermining performance and happiness. However, it can still come at a heavy price. According to Susan Clews, the ACAS CEO, in 2021

"A failure by employers to deal with conflict early can be costly to businesses and our study estimates that these costs add up to nearly £30 billion a year (in the UK). Poor conflict management can also cause staff stress, anxiety or depression and impact workplace productivity.”

I have always believed that the ability to manage difference and conflict is a defining characteristic for successful leaders and organisations. The increased pressures, uncertainty and volatility of the last few years, as well as the welcome progress in increasing the diversity of boards and leadership teams have simply reinforced this belief.  It’s an underacknowledged capability and I’d love to think that this article might help a little to change that.

Many struggle to find the right place on the “Harmony Spectrum” and to bring out the best in others and themselves but over the years I have been fortunate enough to work with many who can.    

So, what is it about them that makes them effective and what is it that they do to navigate and to use conflict positively?

Firstly, they assume that conflict is natural and expect it to happen. They know that there are things that you can plumb in to the organisation to increase the chances of it being healthy rather than growing into corrosive and undermining “Long Conflict”. For example, they discuss how we might resolve predictable conflicts before they happen and put the mechanisms in place to deal with them.  

They work hard to understand the specific sources and nature of the conflict.  The “Big Five” being:

·        Context.

·        Conflicting or misaligned objectives.

·        Lack of clarity on roles or role conflict.

·        Asymmetry of information and poor communication;

·        The fundamentals of human behaviour

Recognising that there’s typically no single source but a combination making each situation distinct.

Underperformance, existential or reputational threats, societal tensions and other factors influencing the context have the power to bond or bust relationships. The pressures they create can also lead to conflicting or misaligned objectives as well as misunderstanding, weakening confidence and trust. Those strong on conflict are usually on the front foot communicating the impact of significant contextual factors and how the organisation is going to deal with them. We saw numerous brilliant examples of this through the pandemic.

There can still be misaligned objectives even a benign or positive context can’t solve, either through poor management or because that’s just life. It’s perfectly natural for different stakeholders to want different things. Zero sum games happen and are a part of life’s rich pattern.  

Smart leaders know that having integrated stakeholder strategies reduces the risk of legitimate misalignment causing unhealthy conflict. We are seeing many good and bad examples of this in the way governments and organisations are dealing with the climate challenge.   For those in the UK dare I mention ULEZ!

Being on a board or a leadership team without clarity or unity of purpose can be uncomfortable. If our roles collide and or we work in a “Rabble” state with everyone pointing in different directions it’s just plain miserable. Unless, of course, you thrive on chaos and don’t care about the cost to others or the organisation.   

Autocratic cultures may have the superficial appearance of alignment. However, in reality, they’re often fragile. Factions and cliques below focus on pleasing the autocrat, avoiding their ire, positioning for enhanced status, or to be the next in line.

The place a board or a leadership team ideally want to be is all pointing in the same direction but with enough creative tension and diversity of thought to avoid “Groupthink” and to make sure it’s the right direction.

Smart leaders also know that getting the right connecting managers and support function leaders reduces the potential for conflict between roles.  Good examples of this are in compliance, finance, talent management, systems and operations.  This is as much about the right attitude as it is about the plumbing. On the plumbing there are many more systems and best practice processes to reduce potential friction these days.

I came across a good example from my friends at SAP Concur the other day at a micro level to do with a conflict rich area, expense fraud and compliance and how to plumb it away. As an aside their research showed that only 35% of employees claim that they would never exaggerate mileage claims.  There is also a bigger more general point here in that not having true and accurate data for the board and leadership can cause mistrust and lead to conflict.

Those who are good at managing conflict tend to be magnetic aligners, attracting others to recognise competing objectives and aligning them behind the route through the conflict, keeping their eyes on the prize.

There’s a whole section on conflict between boards and management teams in my Boards book. Some boards operate in a parallel universe with the management presenting the bare minimum in the maximum possible time, leaving just a little bit of time for them to tolerate a few questions and enable them to get back to doing what they were going to do anyway. The non-execs or trustees here are too distant and not as involved as they should be. All pretty pointless and risky with periods of “Silent Seething” punctuated by bouts of noisy discontent when the inner conflict breaks through the surface.

At the other end of the spectrum boards and leadership teams are falling over themselves trying to do each-others’ jobs and there’s conflict over roles and usually personalities leading to turf wars.

Yet there are those who find the right balance with real clarity over their own roles and those of others and who are able to stimulate a productive intersection with other groups and individuals. 

Asymmetry of information and poor communications are another source of conflict. Misinterpreting reality, projecting views on to people which they don’t hold and uniting through contempt for other people or groups is a well-known tactic of dictators. There is more on this in my previous article on Silos.

Skillful managers of conflict focus on finding out the facts, artfully dispelling myths, understanding real motives and removing bias and misunderstanding.

Self-awareness is critical both on an individual or collective basis.  Dierdorff and Rubin's research published in the Harvard Business Review showed that groups composed of highly self-aware people outperformed those made up with people with low levels of self-awareness by a factor of two at making decisions, coordinating and managing conflict.

Sadly, research from Ethan Zell and Zlatan Kirzan, with data from over 375,000 people in large organisations with feedback and review processes, showed that self-awareness is not something that comes naturally. Indeed, their work showed a correlation of only 0.29 between people’s own self-assessment and objective evidence and the views of others. It’s therefore something that we need to work on.

As an indicator of the level of explicit or implicit conflict between boards and exec teams the 2022 Survey by PWC and The Conference Board of 601 C-Suite executives in major US corporations was really interesting. Of those surveyed:   

Only:

•        29% rate board’s overall performance as excellent or good

•        20% think their boards are diverse enough

•        33% say their boards ask probing questions

•        21% think their boards spend enough time fulfilling their responsibilities

Worse:

•        60% don’t trust their boards to effectively assess their own performance

•        64% of execs don’t trust their boards enough to remove underperformers

•        75% think two or more board members should be replaced

Somewhat ironic in that in the US the CEOs have much greater influence on the choice of their boards. So, they picked these people, haven’t done anything to change it and are now complaining about them. Also, I wonder how many of the board members in these companies think that it’s the others around the table who are the problem not them. I wouldn’t be surprised either if many of the board members had mirror views of their executives.

As an aside, the ability to deal with underperformers is also something those who manage conflict well use to reduce the chances of “Long conflict”.

Reflection and feedback are two tools we can use to help us increase our self-awareness. Our schedules can drive out time for reflection if we let them. For me a good walk really helps with this. Most often alone but frequently with someone else. Sometimes reflecting on a situation together can be more powerful.

Another is to build a culture of Constructive Challenge and to be aware of the level of pressure and its impact on us individually and collectively. Resilience also matters in that the more resilient we are the better we are able to absorb constructive challenge and to be more responsive rather than reactive in managing conflict.

The masters of conflict management know when and how to raise or lower the pressure and have the right balance. If they spot someone, especially the CEO or CFO, coming under increasing unhealthy pressure they will override their natural impulses to pile on the pressure and instead find a way to relieve it. Understanding what causes us pressure and our own tolerances to pressure is again an important aspect of self-awareness.

Over the last few years there has also been much written about the many biases that we are susceptible to. It’s a long list. From the obvious ones such as anchoring, confirmation and mirroring bias to the more complex ones such as selection bias and post rationalisation bias.

Bias matters because it influences the way we view things as well as how we feel about them and that can lead us into unnecessary and unproductive conflict. 

Another thing to be aware of is what our own and others instinctive preferences are when it comes to dealing with conflict. This is really important if you want to be able to anticipate and prepare well for a situation which is likely to involve conflict.

The most widely accepted test on this is the Thomas Kilmann test. It consists of 30 forced rank questions and ascertains whether you are most likely to Compete, Collaborate, Compromise, Avoid or Accommodate in a conflict situation

I have found that CEOs when tested tend to be high in “Compete” and “Avoid”. They’ll die in a ditch over things they care about and disengage when they don’t. Sophisticated CEOs may throw a veil of collaboration over an issue along the lines of “Morning everyone I’m really keen to know what you think about X” but if it looks like the group are coming up with the “Wrong answer” on goes the Compete or Avoid switch depending on the issue.

Really good board members and especially Chairs tend to be more even across the five approaches and have the ability to pick and choose which is most appropriate given the issue, the dynamics of the group and the atmosphere in the room. They recognise that all have their uses.

When preparing for a potential conflict situation it is as important to try and listen to what others are thinking as well as what they are saying and to be really observant of body language and conscious of your own body and what that is telling you about how you are feeling. Understanding body language and the power of non-verbal communication also helps in choosing and using the right approaches.

Leap Confronting Conflict , the charity I chaired for many years and am now a proud Patron of, has a wonderful little mnemonic called FIDO for helping young people manage conflict more effectively. I think it is just as helpful for board members and leadership teams.

FIDO stands for Facts, Interpretation, Decision and Outcome and is designed to make us respond thoughtfully and achieve a better outcome rather than simply reacting and possibly making the wrong choice.

By starting with figuring out what the facts are and what you can interpret from them and other inputs you can slow yourself up enough to avoid a hasty reaction. This can also help you to work out what outcome you want and what might be realistic. Then finally, motivated by having your eyes on the prize, making the right choices to achieve it.  These choices are typically what you say, who you say it to and how and when you say it.

In summary, in my experience the “Big 3” things that help you to manage conflict well are:

·        Self- Awareness and awareness of those in the conflict or potential conflict.

·        The Power of the FIDO (Facts, Interpretation, Decision, Outcome) approach

·        Developing the knowledge, skills and character for high performance in conflict situations.

I hope that you found this article helpful, please do contribute by commenting and reposting and in the meantime I wish you every success in developing your conflict management superpower.

Patrick Dunne

Experienced Chair and author of the award-winning book Boards.

This article has been sponsored by SAP Concur – industry-leading technology that automates travel, expense and invoice spend processes. The fee will be donated to ESSA- Education Sub Saharan Africa a charity which is using evidence to transform educational outcomes through systemic change and to make educational systems more resilient.