Conflict Management | A summary based on the lessons in Wrangling Squirrels

Just like change, conflict is inevitable. Because you work with a number of unique individuals coming from different backgrounds that have diverse personalities, attitudes, values, needs, expectations, perspectives, resources, and so on, the potential for conflict is inescapable and often high.

Conflict can arise at any level in an organization and at any point in the project cycle. Some common causes of conflict are issues in resourcing, arguments about procedures, methodologies, materials, disputes in costs and expenditures, differences of opinions, disagreements on responsibilities, the delegation of tasks and scheduling, misaligned goals and objectives, and lastly but probably the most common is personality clashes.

When conflict is already present, be mindful to address it immediately. It’s easy to put it off for another time and attend to seemingly more urgent and matters first. However, conflicts are like a ticking time bomb. If mismanaged or neglected, they can get worse over time and blow out of proportion, giving you an even bigger mess to take care of. This can have a severe impact on your people, your project, and even yourself. Our personalities often determine our initial and natural reaction and response to trying situations such as disagreeing with others or mediating a dispute between two other individuals. However, because of the diverse work dynamics of your project, conflict will arise. It will help you be well-versed with a handful of strategies and approaches you can use when managing conflict.

Confronting: Also known as problem-solving, integrating, collaborating, or win-win style, collaborating often entails involving the conflicting parties in a dialogue where they can discuss their concerns and put their heads together to arrive at a solution favorable to all of them. It attempts to incorporate different perspectives and insights to arrive at one solution that is agreed upon by everyone involved. This is an approach where the conflict is dealt with upfront and the end goal is to solve the problem head-on.

Confronting is best used in situations where:

The need for both parties must be met.
You want to save on cost (in terms of mediation, to be discussed further later).
You have enough time for both parties to meet and discuss personally.
The parties involved have a sense of trust between each other.
Both parties are willing to identify their strengths and find a way to work together.

Compromising: Often referred to as the reconcile or “give and take” style. Compromising means to bargain in order to arrive at a mutually favorable solution. Similar to confronting, when compromising the solution, you will look for one where everyone walks away satisfied to a certain degree with little effort exerted. The main difference is, when you compromise, one or both parties will have to give in on the other’s ideas and suggestions to resolve the conflict. This may mean that adjustments will have to be made to meet both of their needs.

This approach is among the more popular approaches in conflict management. However, when compromising, you may not always fully resolve the conflict, especially those with complex issues. Sometimes, the needs of one or all the parties are not completely met. This can have drawbacks and retributions if not managed so it’s important to assess the risk of compromising when faced with a conflict. Before you create a compromise, gain a comprehensive insight into the needs of the individuals concerned. You will also have to make changes in the project plans.

Compromising is called “give and take” because both parties will have to sacrifice and benefit from the solution to be agreed upon. It’s a quick approach that’s appropriate for conflicts with time constraints. It’s also less confrontational so it will take less effort. However, it’s important to make follow-ups after closing the conflict to ensure that no tables are left unturned and the opposing parties don’t get lingering feelings of doubt and dissatisfaction about the outcomes.

Accommodating. Also known as the smoothing or obligating style, accommodating means highlighting areas of agreement and downplaying areas of disagreement. In other words, accommodating means pacifying the situation by finding the most agreeable resolution. In most cases, one party may have to give way to address the concern of the other or concede to the needs of the other.

Accommodating is your golden ticket to resolving conflict when receding will cause you little to no damage but will be beneficial to the other party involved. This can help in strengthening your connection with other individuals in the situation and maintaining harmonious relationships with other players in your project arena.

When a team is fairly new to a project, accommodating is an effective approach to establish and strengthening group cohesion and relationships. For example, you may easily agree to incorporate recommendations from your team members about improvements in the operational processes, granted that these will not affect critical work path elements.

Competing: Because of its win-lose nature, competing is also referred to as the controlling, forcing, or dominating approach. The competing approach is the opposite of the accommodating approach and is exactly what it sounds–to resolve the conflict; one party strives to win by defeating the other. In this scenario, one person forces his position and pursues his interest despite the resistance of another. The irony, however, is that rather than resolving the conflict, the competing approach intensifies the conflict before arriving at a resolution when it is misused or abused.

Using the competing approach often means enforcing power position to solve the conflict. This is more common among individuals who have a higher authority as compared to the other party in the conflict. Because of this authority, they have the power to influence the situation by issuing a command or imperative.

The forcing strategy can also be helpful in a situation where an individual is in a position where he needs to exert dominance through enforcing the power of his authority. For example, a young professional had just been promoted to the level of senior management where most leaders are advanced in age. To prove his competency and make a statement about his authority, he may use the forcing approach in addressing conflict, granted that the risks have been duly calculated, and the decision is well informed.

Competing may also be appropriate when the issue at hand is related to budget or resource matters or when you have the expert knowledge about the matter, which the other party does not. For example, a newly hired employee is presenting a modified scheme in the project plan. He forwards the plan to you and expresses his intent to move the project towards innovation. After a careful review, you note that his proposal, although commendable, is costlier and will require additional and unnecessary work on all stakeholders in the project. While his effort and initiative are appreciated, his proposal is just not feasible at the moment. In this kind of situations, you must put your foot down.

The forcing approach, however, should be used sparingly, especially in your case if you are the leader. If done poorly, forcing can worsen the situation and even cause bigger problems. For one, the opposing party may develop ill feelings toward you. Another scenario could be where the opposing party continues to stand his ground, causing the conflict to escalate and even lead to heated arguments and exchanges.

Avoiding: Avoiding, identified also as the withdrawal style, is an approach were either dealing with the issue is postponed for a later time or the issue is withdrawn completely. When you avoid the conflict, you neither take part in the discussion nor are you helping to resolve it. Avoiding is a temporary solution, not a resolution to the problem.

Because the problem isn’t addressed, it doesn’t fix the situation and the conflict is bound to surface repeatedly, often it doesn’t really solve anything. Although, avoiding isn’t necessarily a bad approach. Withdrawing from conflict doesn’t mean surrendering. It gives the involved parties’ time that can be helpful and beneficial to conflict resolution, especially when the matter is too trivial or too significant.

Dodging a problematic situation where the concern has little to no significance to the project may be necessary. This can give you time to delegate conflict resolution to another individual to focus on more pressing priorities. Avoiding also works well as a self-management technique. It can also reduce the stress for the opposing parties.

When an issue is more complicated, however, it may be beneficial to buy time in resolving the conflict. Some personalities can be prone to outbursts of anger. When you are dealing with this individual, it may be best to use the avoiding approach. It provides the opportunity for the parties involved to calm down and think more clearly and more empathetically, hence, increasing the chance to prepare better to find the best resolution. When you feel that the conflict can be better handled or managed by someone else, such as a third-party mediator from the HR department or an external legal counsel, avoiding is the best approach to use. Avoiding is also appropriate when further investigation is necessary.