How Does Your Org Handle Conflict?

Bickering, arguing, and back door dealing are often driven by a lack of conflict resolution processes in an organization.

When employees feel culture is bad, unpleasant, or unprofessional, usually it is because they don’t have a formal conflict resolution process in place or it has been undermined.

So, what makes up a formal conflict resolution process???

1. A Formal Framework:? It has to be published and can be referred to any time people have a conflict. It isn’t me, it is the house rules.? I have to escalate because that is my job. HR usually has a formal process for interpersonal conflict, but if you have a business conflict process, the HR processes don't get invoked as often.
2. A No Stigma Culture:? Invoking the conflict resolution process should be expected and socially acceptable. It isn’t personal, we just have a disagreement about X and that is ok. Cultural change is often hard when introducing a formal process and I have tips below on how to do this.
3. Accountability Driven by Service Level Agreements:? Published and public to the consumers, SLAs should be driven by what the business needs, not what people think they can get done.
4. Culture Driven by Leadership Buy-In:? Leadership that is willing to trust their subordinates to apply the process and accept the outcomes

Why These Pillars Matter

If any of these pillars are missing the rest suffer.? Bickering and backdoor dealing starts to happen.? Some of the individual pillars can still have a positive impact on culture, accountability, and delivery, but together there is a multiplier effect.

If it isn’t published and formalized people will take it personally when they are called out.?

If there is a stigma attached to invoking the resolution plan it takes on a punitive whip context and is used as a threat.? It causes hard feelings that impact the ability of people to function and generally get along.??

If there are no service level agreements, then there aren’t any triggers for the conflict resolution process.? If an organization doesn’t have accountability to a deliverable time frame how can it identify that there is even a conflict? (Or that people are doing their jobs at all?)?

What kind of business culture do you have and what kind of leadership is in place?? Is this a long-term community of people, or is this just a place to get paid and move on soon? Is this a data-driven and process-oriented organization, or is it an emotion and perception-based organization?? Every company claims to be the former, those run by the more cynical short-term-focused leadership teams tend to be the latter.??

Some More Detail On A Formal Framework

Once you have SLAs in place, you have expectations of performance.? When those expectations are missed, and the team that is expected to resolve an issue doesn't, where do you go? ? If not explicitly spelled out, everyone uses the default and escalates to the boss(sometimes jumping levels) and it is taken as commentary on the failed team or individual's performance.??

A formal conflict resolution process covers the standard decision-making processes for specific resources(people, time, money) around a specific deliverable.

Standard conflict resolution process Examples:

Even something simple that is formalized can save a lot of time and frustration.? When two people both dig in and the boss doesn’t care, we do rock paper scissors.

The Fertitta brothers do a Jiu Jitsu match https://www.bjjee.com/bjj-news/ufc-owners-fertitta-bros-face-each-other-in-jiu-jitsu-match-to-resolve-business-disputes/?

All hospitals have a formal triage processes for the resource of doctor attention:? Mortality rate of injury (Doctors)

Most investments of business ventures use a Return on Investment calculation for prioritization

Good sales contracting organizations leverage a Portfolio level pricing model for resolving contractual decisions. (i.e. If I give A up for free to get the sale how much do I have to charge for B to get the same profit margin on the sale)

As you build a process, build the escalation tree/resolution process into it and you will be much happier when you can delegate that decision.

Most people are familiar with the catch-all conflict resolution process. Few organizations have it as a formal escalation chain process.? Even when it is established, in a lot of organizations it is used more as a threat than a process.

Its key to note that no matter what the formal process for a specific decision is, the catch-all can always be invoked… i.e. I don’t like how "rock, paper, scissors" worked out so I’m going to your boss to get an exception.? Having specific resolution processes formalized empowers the lower level staff and the whole organization to run more efficiently. Meanwhile, being able to invoke the catch-all helps an organization avoid getting painted into a bureaucratic corner.? Good managers and businesses train and encourage their staff to operationalize decisions and push them lower into the organizational chain.

The Catch All resolution process:

1. SLA Breach?
2. Escalation to direct manager
3. Non responsive manger
4. Escalation to tier two manager
5. Non Responsive manager
6. Escalation up through the chain of command

If you want to shift to a sustainable escalation chain process follow a few simple rules when the escalation chain process is put in place.

1. Unless you are dealing with incompetence, Tell whomever you are escalating on before you escalate.? (Lack of response isn’t usually incompetence so at least copy them)
2. Copy them on the escalation communication?
3. If you don’t feel comfortable copying them, you are indirectly asking for them to be removed from their role
4. Don’t bypass levels or bypass levels of leadership, respect the chain of command.
5. Be fair and clear in the explanation of why you are escalating.? Be fair and clear in the expected outcome or need.
6. I.e. give Jon more people please, give Jon more training, please.

Some More Details on A No Stigma Culture

Invoking the conflict resolution process should be expected and socially acceptable.? If performance metrics and SLAs are in place already, judging performance is easy.? The base assumption related to anything that is escalated is that it is one of three things.??

Understaffing.? If you know your work input, the time it takes to do that work, and how quickly you want the turnaround time to be then the formula for staffing is pretty easy.? The more variety and variability in the times/skill levels etc for the work, the harder it gets to formulate.? Escalations become just another tool for that calculation… Too many escalations?? Add some folk.? Too Few, maybe you don’t need those new hires as bad as you thought.

UnderTraining.? Do the people you have, know how to do the work you have asked them to do?

? Underperforming.? This is the category that almost everyone thinks an escalation means… The team/leader/person sucks at their job and it doesn’t matter how much money or training they get, they will still suck.? Bad attitude, hard to work with.? This might be true, but usually, it’s the first two reasons.? I’ve found that managers that jump to this assumption are hard to work with and it develops a culture of mistrust and encourages people to hide issues.

How escalation perception is handled is very dependent on your direct supervisor and you need to know what game you are playing.? I had a supervisor that had a similar philosophy to myself around escalation. I.e. escalations are just a tool for prioritization and identifying the risk associated with resource allocation.? We decided what a tolerable level of escalation and failure to the business was and staffed accordingly.? It was a bit of art along with the science, but we formalized the acceptable levels and what the signals were to adjust staffing/spend on training.??

The next supervisor I had shocked me with his attitude towards escalation.? His background clearly was much more punitive and political in nature. After one particular escalation, I was told, (paraphrased), ‘Escalation is a direct reflection on you and your organization’s ability.? Person X is saying you lack the faculties to do this work.? Are you going to take this?? I need you to stand up for yourself and punch back’.???

Whatever philosophy a leadership team has towards escalation and conflict will flow down through the organization. If you aren't in alignment with your chain of command things get very uncomfortable. You will need to adapt to their methodology or move on.

Some More Detail on Accountability Driven by Service Level Agreements

There are countless papers and books written about service level agreements, their value, how to implement them etc etc.? If you have a solid organization and a well defined product and business then defining what SLAs are required to get the work done is easy.?

Once you have SLAs in place, accountability, performance metrics, and general visibility into an organization's abilities, strengths, and weaknesses improve.

Define a process, how long it needs to take to stay in business, and then track it.? Don’t make it too complicated or staff will game the system and reduce visibility.? Use the metrics to improve the overall performance of the organization. Use a ticketing system and watch resolution time. It will immediately improve organizational performance and show you who doesn't want their work tracked.? Get out of email completely for basic business operations communication.

Some More Detail? on Culture Driven by Leadership Buy-In

Cultural acceptance of what an escalation means needs to be focused on staffing levels and training, not on the personal performance of the individuals being escalated on.? Changing the focus makes people less paranoid and more collaborative.? If the management chain acts like every escalation is a vote of no confidence, then people start hiding issues and pretending to be much busier than they actually are in order to minimize their exposure to escalation. It also allows poor performers to hide because it is in everyone's best interest to hide.

Leadership that is willing to accept the business outcomes of their decisions can make a place a great place to work.? Conversely, if you have a management team that thinks management is about “sweating the human assets”, you aren’t going to enjoy the atmosphere.? Get buy-in on what an SLA means from a revenue and budget standpoint from your management chain.

Example: "I need 15+ people to meet the SLA"

GOOD responses from a manager:

"Bummer, that means my margin is only 20% instead of 22%"

"OK, but I am going to invest in some process improvement to minimize impact to margin and get it back down to 10 people"

BAD responses from a manager:

“You only get budget for 10 make it work”?

“You didn’t hit the SLA, You get a terrible raise”

Bummer, that means my margin is -2% instead of 5% and we are going out of business.

Conflict Resolution Skills have to be Learned and Practiced

Conflict is inevitable any time you try to accomplish a business goal.? There will inevitably be conflict and people are terrible at it generally.? In virtually every interview I’ve asked prospects about their attitudes and processes associated with conflict resolution and almost universally gotten terrible or non-answers.? Examples.? “Eventually we worked it out”.? “I was able to convince them.” “I was able to force the completion of..” “I backed off and let them have their way.”? These are all terrible responses in my opinion.? Too much force or too much passivity leads to poor leadership and representation of your organization's goals.?

If you can articulate how you would identify those potential conflicts, get ahead of them, and get parties to agree to a decision-making or resolution process ahead of time, that is when you can really shine as a visionary and leader.?

There is a time to go to an emotional well with your peers and organization, but if you go there too often you become a punchline and emotionally exhausting for those around you.? Stick to a data-driven, process-oriented approach to conflict and you will get much farther in life, not just business.