When one person or group does something that is unacceptable to others conflict exists

Truth is that conflict can make or break your entire business! Actually, the biggest controversy I hear when it comes to teams or even big businesses is the role of conflict within that said team or business. In this post, I want to explain exactly what conflict is, its role within a firm, as well as possible types of conflict so that you are prepared to face it when the need arises. So make sure you read until the end because there are some serious things going on here!

Conflict Characteristics

I started learning about conflict a few years ago, during my first university years. Studying Business Administration helped me learn many things about team leadership and the most important thing is the role of conflict within a team.

So, what is conflict? Well, conflict is basically just a disagreement. It doesn’t have to be a huge deal or something that makes people want to fight each other, just a small disagreement of opinions or interests. That’s enough to be called a conflict. So, conflicts could be small (like a small disagreement) or something really big (that could potentially take over the whole company). And it’s important for a leader to deal with it when it’s still small and easy to manage.

Another thing to note is that conflict is a part of every organization and it happens all the time. Actually, there are tons of scientific papers showing that a manager deals with conflicts multiple times per day! That’s crazy if you think about it, but not so much. Seeing and knowing how a business works, it’s natural to see that from all these people working together, disagreements would arise. Maybe even arguments. I remember my mentor in my second university year saying “It just takes one person to start a conflict”. And he’s right! One person, for any reason, is more than enough to start any kind of conflict.

Conflict Types

Now, in order for a leader to be able to solve the conflict easier and lower the cost and time that comes with it, it’s important to categorize it and have an idea of what kind of conflict we’re talking about. These categories could be the following:

When it comes to how many people take part in it:

1. Interpersonal: Between individual people.
2. Intragroup / Intradepartmental: Between teams or whole departments.

When it comes to how many organizations take part in it:

1. Intra-organizational: A conflict that happens within the organization.
2. Inter-organizational: Between organizations.

When it comes to its formality:

1. Formal: It has to do with formal procedures and company goals.
2. Informal: It has to do with informal things and “off the book” tasks, or the way things are happening/ approached.

When it comes to business or personal goals and motives:

1. Task Related: It has to do with tasks, procedures, goals, and work in general.
2. Relationship / Personal: It has to do with the relationship between people; it’s more personal and comes through as grudges towards other people.

Whether it’s subjective or objective:

1. Subjective: It has to do with physical things, such as resources, money, etc.
2. Objective: It has to do with things such as values, opinions, behaviors, etc.

As you can see, by categorizing the conflict, we’re able to see its characteristics and act accordingly. Of course, a conflict could belong to more than one category and that’s actually the more likely scenario.

Good or Bad?

The big misconception about conflict is that it’s inherently bad. I understand that mindset since conflicts could mean negative emotions and that could lead to some problems in the workplace. However, conflict can’t be good or bad by nature. It depends on the people that disagree, on the topic, the conflict type, and even things like the firm’s own culture!

A conflict that only has to do with business practices, ways to do things better, and such, can’t be a bad conflict. Yes, there are disagreements, but all sides have the same goal in mind; they want the best for the team and they just believe that there’s a better way to accomplish that goal.

Actually, such conflicts not only give birth to new ideas and make the whole team stronger, but they also bring to light possible problems that exist within a team or even things that happen within the firm and its practices that could be problematic or just not as good. That’s why these kinds of conflicts are also called productive!

However, there are also bad conflicts that spread negativity and could cause major problems in team environments. These bad conflicts are called personal, because each side has in mind some more personal motives than the good of the firm and so they do their best to protect these motives, even at the expense of the organizational goals. These conflicts are caused by negative emotions, such as anger or jealousy and they aim towards a specific person or group of people.

Personal conflicts could be small or big, but they need to be managed as soon as possible in order to achieve the least amount of problems along the way. If such conflicts play out they will just grow and there will be negative consequences for the whole team (or even for multiple teams).

• It's important to note that productive conflicts should be left to play out, but not without control. The leader needs to have some sort of control over it so that it won’t become a more personal and thus, bad kind of conflict.

Solution

The best way for the team to maximize the pros of productive conflicts and reduce the cons of the negative conflicts by resolving them lies within the realms of Conflict Management!

In my next post, I’m going to dive really deep into Conflict Management and all things you need to know about it and the ways you can actually manage a conflict. I can’t emphasize enough its importance and the impact it has on people you lead or may lead in the future. So make sure you check that post out!

Furthermore, I should note that what I explained here is just a portion of what’s really going on. It would take a whole book to explain everything in a way that covers the whole spectrum. And that’s why I’m writing a book right now! Conflict Management Mastery is the book I wish I had when I was learning about Conflict Management and just couldn’t find anywhere. That's why I decided to write it! It’ll be out in 2021, so make sure you check it out!

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