Four Types of Conflict Resolution
Brief #17: One preferred, one fantasy, one ugly necessity, and one horror show
The insidious part of conflict resolution is not “conflict”. It’s the resolution part. How conflict ends. Or does not.
Disagreements between personalities, resource demands, priorities, money, timing, opportunities, often fuel conflicts. These are going to happen. Conflicts are a natural part of work and life.
With that being said, people don’t like to think of conflicts. People love to watch some good drama. From a distance. If it gets too close, they become ostriches and stick their heads in the ground. Then bad things start happening which can snowball into failure, firings, and general dismay.
Keep your head out of the dirt and acknowledge a conflict will be resolved in one of four ways. As a leader, prepare your teams for conflicts and working through them. They are coming. There are roles for any and all employees when working through a dispute.
Damage from sincere and legitimate disagreements will generally heal. Resolution must swift, focused, and understood by teams. People should be treated with dignity and respect. And feel that way. While leaders must take the lead in resolving conflicts, everyone on a team has a role in securing a resolution and moving past it.
For most people and situations, conflicts are resolved in of four different ways. Keep these options in mind when you encounter a dispute. Start to think what the odds are for where you are likely to end up and what you can do to get to an acceptable resolution.
Longer and more intense conflicts tend to yield greater damage. Be it intentional or collateral in nature. Examples of this damage can include:
Failure to achieve desired outcomes
Irreparable damage to morale, confidence, and relationships with and between workforces, leaders, customers, and other parties
Customer loss
Financial loss
Loss of time
Promotion/acceptance of normalized deviance related to conflict non-resolution (it’s ok to be dysfunctional and watch people struggle)
When conflicts arise, stabilize the situation then resolve it. It is an inherent duty of every team member to support these stabilization and resolution efforts. Some people may have active roles. For other people their part may be to not make things worse than the current state.
The biggest problem? People are generally reluctant to get involved in finding a solution. Even when it’s in their job descriptions. Don’t wait until a conflict occurs to figure out what to do. Be ready to take care of disputes so you can keep moving forward as an intact team.
Swift conflict resolution must be stressed to all team members. This includes explicit expectation settings for team members. The most important expectation? That focus remains on achieving the team’s desired outcome. They also need to be aware of these four resolution types and how they might contribute to each one.
Ideal resolution- This is all rainbows and unicorns! Everyone is happy. Super rare and typically not a realistic goal in complex scenarios. These are possible in simple situations. Beyond those, they are good for including on your best, good, and worst results lists.
Acceptable resolution - People generally support a resolution and progress continues on achieving a desired outcome. There is a consensus the resolution is in the best interest of achieving a desired outcome. People feel they were treated with dignity and respect and received some positive element from the resolution.
Essential resolution - A desired outcome is achieved after resolving a conflict which received little or no general support. While this type of resolution can still achieve a desired outcome (often in more extreme situations), it is going to have negative consequences. Maybe an outcome is worth this cost, but it will likely lead to changes in team members and other factors.
Non-resolution - No one takes steps to resolve a conflict. There may even be people who actively prolong a dispute. An unresolved conflict inflicts unnecessary damage in the ways listed above. These damages can lead to reputation blemish, organizational demise, and career derailment. As this scenario is allowed to persist, corrective actions and their consequences become more severe for teams. With this being said, this can be a legitimate and desired outcome in certain situations. A non-resolution for one conflict can lead to a acceptable resolution in a different aspect that overall helps success of a desired outcome.
You will deal with conflicts in some way. As a leader, an employee, part of team, and as an individual. There are skills and strategies to learn when dealing with conflict. Your first step is to commit to a swift resolution that supports achieving an acceptable resolution.