case study of conflict in the workplace

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Case Study: When Two Leaders on the Senior Team Hate Each Other

• Boris Groysberg
• Katherine Connolly Baden

How should a CEO address friction between his CFO and the sales chief?

In this fictional case, the CEO of a sports apparel manufacturer is faced with an ongoing conflict between two of his top executives. Specifically, the head of sales and the CFO are at each other’s throats and the tension is having a ripple effect on their teams and the rest of the organization. The CEO, who tends to avoid conflict himself, is struggling with how to respond. His options include changing the company compensation scheme to encourage better collaboration, firing the two leaders, getting them each a coach, and doing more team building activities.

The feedback in the 360-degree reviews was supposed to be anonymous. But it was crystal clear who’d made the negative comments in the assessment of one executive.

• BG Boris Groysberg is a professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School and a faculty affiliate at the school’s Race, Gender & Equity Initiative. He is the coauthor, with Colleen Ammerman, of Glass Half-Broken: Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021). bgroysberg
• KB Katherine Connolly Baden is a research associate at Harvard Business School.

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Appendix A: Case Studies

List of case studies, case study 1: handling roommate conflicts, case study 2: salary negotiation at college corp, case study 3: oecollaboration, case study 4: the ohio connection, case study 5: uber pays the price, case study 6: diverse teams hold court.

Chapter Reference: Section 2.2 Approaches to Conflict

Whether you have a roommate by choice, by necessity, or through the random selection process of your school’s housing office, it’s important to be able to get along with the person who shares your living space. While having a roommate offers many benefits such as making a new friend, having someone to experience a new situation like college life with, and having someone to split the cost on your own with, there are also challenges. Some common roommate conflicts involve neatness, noise, having guests, sharing possessions, value conflicts, money conflicts, and personality conflicts (Ball State University, 2001). Read the following scenarios and answer the following questions for each one:

• Which conflict management style, from the five discussed, would you use in this situation?
• What are the potential strengths of using this style?
• What are the potential weaknesses of using this style?

Scenario 1: Neatness. Your college dorm has bunk beds, and your roommate takes a lot of time making their bed (the bottom bunk) each morning. They have told you that they don’t want anyone sitting on or sleeping in the bed when they are not in the room. While your roommate is away for the weekend, your friend comes to visit and sits on the bottom bunk bed. You tell your friend what your roommate said, and you try to fix the bed back before your roommate returns to the dorm. When they return, your roommate notices that the bed has been disturbed and confronts you about it.

Scenario 2: Noise and having guests. Your roommate has a job waiting tables and gets home around midnight on Thursday nights. They often brings a couple friends from work home with them. They watch television, listen to music, or play video games and talk and laugh. You have an 8 a.m. class on Friday mornings and are usually asleep when they returns. Last Friday, you talked to your roommate and asked them to keep it down in the future. Tonight, their noise has woken you up and you can’t get back to sleep.

Scenario 3: Sharing possessions. When you go out to eat, you often bring back leftovers to have for lunch the next day during your short break between classes. You didn’t have time to eat breakfast, and you’re really excited about having your leftover pizza for lunch until you get home and see your roommate sitting on the couch eating the last slice.

Scenario 4: Money conflicts. Your roommate got mono and missed two weeks of work last month. Since they have a steady job and you have some savings, you cover their portion of the rent and agree that they will pay your portion next month. The next month comes around and your roommate informs you that they only have enough to pay their half of the rent.

Scenario 5: Value and personality conflicts. You like to go out to clubs and parties and have friends over, but your roommate is much more of an introvert. You’ve tried to get them to come out with you or join the party at your place, but they’d rather study. One day your roommate tells you that they want to break the lease so they can move out early to live with one of their friends. You both signed the lease, so you have to agree or they can’t do it. If you break the lease, you automatically lose your portion of the security deposit

Works Adapted

“ Conflict and Interpersonal Communication ” in Communication in the Real World  by University of Minnesota is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Ball State University. (2001). Roommate conflicts. accessed June 16, 2001, from  http://cms.bsu.edu/CampusLife/CounselingCenter/VirtualSelfHelpLibrary/RoommateIssues.asx.

Chapter Reference:  Section 2.4 Negotiation

Janine just graduated college, she’s ready to head out on her own and get that first job, and she’s through her first interviews. She receives an offer of a $28,000 salary, including benefits from COLLEGE CORP, from an entry-level marketing position that seems like a perfect fit. She is thrown off by the salary they are offering and knows that it is lower than what she was hoping for. Instead of panicking, she takes the advice of her mentor and does a little research to know what the market range for the salary is for her area. She feels better after doing this, knowing that she was correct and the offer is low compared to the market rate. After understanding more about the offer and the rates, she goes back to the HR representative and asks for her preferred rate of $32,500, knowing the minimum that she would accept is $30,000. Instead of going in for her lowest amount, she started higher to be open to negotiations with the company. She also sent a note regarding her expertise that warranted why she asked for that salary. To her happy surprise, the company counter offered at $31,000—and she accepted.

• What key points of Janice’s negotiation led to her success?
• What could have Janice done better to get a better outcome for her salary?

“ Conflict and Negotiations ” in Organizational Behaviour by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

“Good & Bad Salary Negotiations,”  Salary.com , April 19, 2018, https://www.salary.com/articles/good-bad-examples-of-salary-negotiations .

Herner, M. (n.d). 5 things HR wishes you knew about salary negotiation. Payscale.com, accessed October 21, 2018, https://www.payscale.com/salary-negotiation-guide/salary-negotiation-tips-from-hr .

Chapter Reference:  Section 3.2 Creating, Maintaining, and Changing Culture

At OECollaboration, a technology company that develops virtual collaboration software for new companies, Mike Jones is a new manager. One of the biggest challenges he has faced is that the team that he is managing is well established and because he is an outsider, the team members haven’t yet developed trust in him.

Two weeks into his new employment, Mike held a meeting and discussed all of the changes to the remote work agreements as well as implementing new meeting requirements for each employee to have a biweekly meeting scheduled with him to discuss their projects. The team was outraged, they were not excited, and the following days he wasn’t greeted in a friendly way; in addition, his team seemed less engaged when asked to participate in team functions.

Tracy James is also a new manager at OECollaboration who started at the same time as Mike, in a similar situation where she is a new manager of an existing team. Tracy was able to hold a meeting the first day on the job to listen to her team and get to know them. During this meeting she also told the team about herself and her past experiences. Additionally, she held one-on-one meetings to listen to each of her team members to discuss what they were working on and their career goals. After observation and discussion with upper management, she aligned her own team goals closely with the skills and experiences of her new team. She met with the whole team to make changes to a few policies, explaining why they were being changed, and set the strategy for the team moving forward.

Because she got her team involved and learned about them before implementing her new strategy, this was well received. Her team still had questions and concerns, but they felt like they could trust her and that they were included in the changes that were being made.

• What challenges can a new manager encounter when starting to manage an existing team?
• What strategies can a new manager implement to ensure that their new team is engaged with them and open to change and growth?

Adapted Works

“ Organizational Power and Politics ” in Organizational Behaviour by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Giang, V. (2013, July 31). The 7 types of power that shape the workplace. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/the-7-types-of-power-that-shape-the-workplace-2013-7

Morin, A. (2018, June 25). How to prevent a workplace bully from taking your power. Inc. https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/how-to-prevent-a-workplace-bully-from-taking-your-power.html

Weinstein,  B. (n.d.). 10 tips for dealing with a bully boss,” CIO , accessed October 13, 2018, https://www.cio.com.au/article/198499/10_tips_dealing_bully_boss/.

Chapter Reference:  Section 4.1 Power

Janey worked as an executive assistant to a product manager at her company: Ohio Connection. Overall, she loved her job; she was happy to work with a company that provided great benefits, and she and found enjoyment in her day-to-day work. She had the same product manager boss for years, but last year, her manager left Ohio Connection and retired. Recently her new manager has been treating her unfairly and showcasing bullying behavior.

Yesterday, Janey came into work, and her boss decided to use their power as her manager and her “superior” to demand that she stay late to cover for him, correct reports that he had made mistakes on, and would not pay her overtime. She was going to be late to pick up her son from soccer practice if she stayed late; she told him this, and he was not happy.

Over subsequent days, her boss consistently would make comments about her performance, even though she had always had good remarks on reviews, and created a very negative work environment. The next time she was asked to stay late, she complied for fear of losing her job or having other negative impacts on her job. Janey’s situation was not ideal, but she didn’t feel she had a choice.

• What type of power did Janey’s boss employ to get her to do the things that he wanted her to do?
• What negative consequences are apparent in this situation and other situations where power is not balanced in the workplace?
• What steps should Janey take do to counteract the power struggle that is occurring with her new manager?

Chapter Reference:   Section 5.1 Interpersonal Relationships at Work

Uber revolutionized the taxi industry and the way people commute. With the simple mission “to bring transportation—for everyone, everywhere,” today Uber has reached a valuation of around $70 billion and claimed a market share high of almost 90% in 2015. However, in June 2017 Uber experienced a series of bad press regarding an alleged culture of sexual harassment, which is what most experts believe caused their market share to fall to 75%.

In February of 2017 a former software engineer, Susan Fowler, wrote a lengthy post on her website regarding her experience of being harassed by a manager who was not disciplined by human resources for his behavior. In her post, Fowler wrote that Uber’s HR department and members of upper management told her that because it was the man’s first offense, they would only give him a warning. During her meeting with HR about the incident, Fowler was also advised that she should transfer to another department within the organization. According to Fowler, she was ultimately left no choice but to transfer to another department, despite having specific expertise in the department in which she had originally been working.

As her time at the company went on, she began meeting other women who worked for the company who relayed their own stories of harassment. To her surprise, many of the women reported being harassed by the same person who had harassed her. As she noted in her blog, “It became obvious that both HR and management had been lying about this being his ‘first offense.’” Fowler also reported a number of other instances that she identified as sexist and inappropriate within the organization and claims that she was disciplined severely for continuing to speak out. Fowler eventually left Uber after about two years of working for the company, noting that during her time at Uber the percentage of women working there had dropped to 6% of the workforce, down from 25% when she first started.

Following the fallout from Fowler’s lengthy description of the workplace on her website, Uber’s chief executive Travis Kalanick publicly condemned the behavior described by Fowler, calling it “abhorrent and against everything Uber stands for and believes in.” But later in March, Uber board member Arianna Huffington claimed that she believed “sexual harassment was not a systemic problem at the company.” Amid pressure from bad media attention and the company’s falling market share, Uber made some changes after an independent investigation resulted in 215 complaints. As a result, 20 employees were fired for reasons ranging from sexual harassment to bullying to retaliation to discrimination, and Kalanick announced that he would hire a chief operating officer to help manage the company. In an effort to provide the leadership team with more diversity, two senior female executives were hired to fill the positions of chief brand officer and senior vice president for leadership and strategy.

Critical Thinking Questions

• Based on Cox’s business case for diversity, what are some positive outcomes that may result in changes to Uber’s leadership team?
• If the case had occurred in Canada, what forms of legislation would have protected Fowler?
• What strategies should have been put in place to help prevent sexual harassment incidents like this from happening in the first place?

“ Diversity in Organizations ” in Organizational Behaviour by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Della Cava, M. (2017, June 13). Uber has lost market share to Lyft during crisis. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/13/uber-market-share-customer-image-hit-string-scandals/102795024/

Fowler, T. (2017, February 19). Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber. https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.

Lien,  T. (2017, June 6). Uber fires 20 workers after harassment investigation. Los Angeles Times.  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tn-uber-sexual-harassment-20170606-story.html

Uber (2017, February). Company info. https://www.uber.com/newsroom/company-info/

Chapter Reference:  Section 5.3 Collaboration, Decision-Making and Problem Solving in Groups

Diverse teams have been proven to be better at problem-solving and decision-making for a number of reasons. First, they bring many different perspectives to the table. Second, they rely more on facts and use those facts to substantiate their positions. What is even more interesting is that, according to the Scientific American article “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter,” simply “being around people who are different from us makes more creative, diligent, and harder-working.”

One case in point is the example of jury decision-making, where fact-finding and logical decision-making are of utmost importance. A 2006 study of jury decision-making, led by social psychologist Samuel Sommers of Tufts University, showed that racially diverse groups exchanged a wider range of information during deliberation of a case than all-White groups did. The researcher also conducted mock jury trials with a group of real jurors to show the impact of diversity on jury decision-making.

Interestingly enough, it was the mere presence of diversity on the jury that made jurors consider the facts more, and they had fewer errors recalling the relevant information. The groups even became more willing to discuss the role of race case, when they hadn’t before with an all-White jury. This wasn’t the case because the diverse jury members brought new information to the group—it happened because, according to the author, the mere presence of diversity made people more open-minded and diligent. Given what we discussed on the benefits of diversity, it makes sense. People are more likely to be prepared, to be diligent, and to think logically about something if they know that they will be pushed or tested on it. And who else would push you or test you on something, if not someone who is different from you in perspective, experience, or thinking. “Diversity jolts us into cognitive action in ways that homogeneity simply does not.”

So, the next time you are called for jury duty, or to serve on a board committee, or to make an important decision as part of a team, remember that one way to generate a great discussion and come up with a strong solution is to pull together a diverse team.

• If you don’t have a diverse group of people on your team, how can you ensure that you will have robust discussions and decision-making? What techniques can you use to generate conversations from different perspectives?
• Evaluate your own team at work. Is it a diverse team? How would you rate the quality of decisions generated from that group?

Sources: Adapted from Katherine W. Phillips, “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter,” Scientific American, October 2014, p. 7–8.

“ Critical Thinking Case ” in  Organizational Behaviour by OpenStax is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Conflict Management Copyright © 2022 by Laura Westmaas, BA, MSc is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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5 Strategies for Conflict Resolution in the Workplace

• 07 Sep 2023

Any scenario in which you live, work, and collaborate with others is susceptible to conflict. Because workplaces are made up of employees with different backgrounds, personalities, opinions, and daily lives, discord is bound to occur. To navigate it, it’s crucial to understand why it arises and your options for resolving it.

Common reasons for workplace conflict include:

• Misunderstandings or poor communication skills
• Differing opinions, viewpoints, or personalities
• Biases or stereotypes
• Variations in learning or processing styles
• Perceptions of unfairness

Although conflict is common, many don’t feel comfortable handling it—especially with colleagues. As a business leader, you’ll likely clash with other managers and need to help your team work through disputes.

Here’s why conflict resolution is important and five strategies for approaching it.

Access your free e-book today.

Why Is Addressing Workplace Conflict Important?

Pretending conflict doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away. Ignoring issues can lead to missed deadlines, festering resentment, and unsuccessful initiatives.

Yet, according to coaching and training firm Bravely , 53 percent of employees handle “toxic” situations by avoiding them. Worse still, averting a difficult conversation can cost an organization $7,500 and more than seven workdays.

That adds up quickly: American businesses lose $359 billion yearly due to the impact of unresolved conflict.

As a leader, you have a responsibility to foster healthy conflict resolution and create a safe, productive work environment for employees.

“Some rights, such as the right to safe working conditions or the right against sexual harassment, are fundamental to the employment relationship,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “These rights are things that employees should be entitled to no matter what. They’re often written into the law, but even when they aren’t, they’re central to the ethical treatment of others, which involves respecting the inherent dignity and intrinsic worth of each individual.”

Effectively resolving disputes as they arise benefits your employees’ well-being and your company’s financial health. The first step is learning about five conflict resolution strategies at your disposal.

Related: How to Navigate Difficult Conversations with Employees

While there are several approaches to conflict, some can be more effective than others. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model —developed by Dr. Kenneth W. Thomas and Dr. Ralph H. Kilmann—outlines five strategies for conflict resolution:

• Accommodating
• Compromising
• Collaborating

These fall on a graph, with assertiveness on the y-axis and cooperativeness on the x-axis. In the Thomas-Kilmann model, “assertiveness” refers to the extent to which you try to reach your own goal, and “cooperativeness” is the extent to which you try to satisfy the other party’s goal.

Alternatively, you can think of these axis labels as the “importance of my goal” and the “importance of this relationship.” If your assertiveness is high, you aim to achieve your own goal. If your cooperativeness is high, you strive to help the other person reach theirs to maintain the relationship.

Here’s a breakdown of the five strategies and when to use each.

1. Avoiding

Avoiding is a strategy best suited for situations in which the relationship’s importance and goal are both low.

While you’re unlikely to encounter these scenarios at work, they may occur in daily life. For instance, imagine you’re on a public bus and the passenger next to you is loudly playing music. You’ll likely never bump into that person again, and your goal of a pleasant bus ride isn’t extremely pressing. Avoiding conflict by ignoring the music is a valid option.

In workplace conflicts—where your goals are typically important and you care about maintaining a lasting relationship with colleagues—avoidance can be detrimental.

Remember: Some situations require avoiding conflict, but you’re unlikely to encounter them in the workplace.

2. Competing

Competing is another strategy that, while not often suited for workplace conflict, can be useful in some situations.

This conflict style is for scenarios in which you place high importance on your goal and low importance on your relationships with others. It’s high in assertiveness and low in cooperation.

You may choose a competing style in a crisis. For instance, if someone is unconscious and people are arguing about what to do, asserting yourself and taking charge can help the person get medical attention quicker.

You can also use it when standing up for yourself and in instances where you feel unsafe. In those cases, asserting yourself and reaching safety is more critical than your relationships with others.

When using a competing style in situations where your relationships do matter (for instance, with a colleague), you risk impeding trust—along with collaboration, creativity, and productivity.

3. Accommodating

The third conflict resolution strategy is accommodation, in which you acquiesce to the other party’s needs. Use accommodating in instances where the relationship matters more than your goal.

For example, if you pitch an idea for a future project in a meeting, and one of your colleagues says they believe it will have a negative impact, you could resolve the conflict by rescinding your original thought.

This is useful if the other person is angry or hostile or you don’t have a strong opinion on the matter. It immediately deescalates conflict by removing your goal from the equation.

While accommodation has its place within organizational settings, question whether you use it to avoid conflict. If someone disagrees with you, simply acquiescing can snuff out opportunities for innovation and creative problem-solving .

As a leader, notice whether your employees frequently fall back on accommodation. If the setting is safe, encouraging healthy debate can lead to greater collaboration.

Related: How to Create a Culture of Ethics and Accountability in the Workplace

4. Compromising

Compromising is a conflict resolution strategy in which you and the other party willingly forfeit some of your needs to reach an agreement. It’s known as a “lose-lose” strategy, since neither of you achieve your full goal.

This strategy works well when your care for your goal and the relationship are both moderate. You value the relationship, but not so much that you abandon your goal, like in accommodation.

For example, maybe you and a peer express interest in leading an upcoming project. You could compromise by co-leading it or deciding one of you leads this one and the other the next one.

Compromising requires big-picture thinking and swallowing your pride, knowing you won’t get all your needs fulfilled. The benefits are that you and the other party value your relationship and make sacrifices to reach a mutually beneficial resolution.

5. Collaborating

Where compromise is a lose-lose strategy, collaboration is a win-win. In instances of collaboration, your goal and the relationship are equally important, motivating both you and the other party to work together to find an outcome that meets all needs.

An example of a situation where collaboration is necessary is if one of your employees isn’t performing well in their role—to the point that they’re negatively impacting the business. While maintaining a strong, positive relationship is important, so is finding a solution to their poor performance. Framing the conflict as a collaboration can open doors to help each other discover its cause and what you can do to improve performance and the business’s health.

Collaboration is ideal for most workplace conflicts. Goals are important, but so is maintaining positive relationships with co-workers. Promote collaboration whenever possible to find creative solutions to problems . If you can’t generate a win-win idea, you can always fall back on compromise.

Considering Your Responsibilities as a Leader

As a leader, not only must you address your own conflicts but help your employees work through theirs. When doing so, remember your responsibilities to your employees—whether ethical, legal, or economic.

Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability groups your ethical responsibilities to employees into five categories:

• Well-being: What’s ultimately good for the person
• Rights: Entitlement to receive certain treatment
• Duties: A moral obligation to behave in a specific way
• Best practices: Aspirational standards not required by law or cultural norms
• Fairness: Impartial and just treatment

In the course, Hsieh outlines three types of fairness you can use when helping employees solve conflicts:

• Legitimate expectations: Employees reasonably expect certain practices or behaviors to continue based on experiences with the organization and explicit promises.
• Procedural fairness: Managers must resolve issues impartially and consistently.
• Distributive fairness: Your company equitably allocates opportunities, benefits, and burdens.

Particularly with procedural fairness, ensure you don’t take sides when mediating conflict. Treat both parties equally, allowing them time to speak and share their perspectives. Guide your team toward collaboration or compromise, and work toward a solution that achieves the goal while maintaining—and even strengthening—relationships.

Are you interested in learning how to navigate difficult decisions as a leader? Explore Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability —one of our online leadership and management courses —and download our free guide to becoming a more effective leader.

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A Case Study of Conflict Management and Negotiation

There is a lot to be learned from this case study of conflict management and negotiation..

By PON Staff — on January 22nd, 2024 / Conflict Resolution

Group negotiations are a fact of managerial life, yet the outcomes of teamwork are highly unpredictable. Sometimes, groups cohere, reaching novel solutions to nagging problems, and sometimes infighting causes them to collapse. This is where you may find a case study of conflict management helpful.

How can you predict when the conflict will emerge in groups, and what can you do to stop it?

The following is drawn from a case study of conflict management and negotiation involving multi-party negotiation scenarios. Dora Lau of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Keith Murnighan of the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University have examined group conflict in terms of fault lines the cracks that result when groups split into homogenous subgroups according to demographic characteristics.

For instance, in a four-person group made up of two white males in their forties and two African American females in their twenties, a very strong fault line would exist, one clearly defined by age, gender, and race. In a group consisting of one white male, one Asian male, one Hispanic female, and one African American female, all in their thirties, fault lines would be less evident.

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A Case Study of Conflict Management – Divisions in Group Negotiation

Recently Katerina Bezrukova of Rutgers University and her colleagues compared the effects of fault lines based on social categories (e.g., age, race, or gender) with those based on information (e.g., education or work experience). Their negotiation research found that groups with strong information-based fault lines perform better than groups with strong demographic-based fault lines.

While the latter create dysfunctional conflict within the group, information-based fault lines provide the diversity of information needed for effective performance – in other words, they provide functional conflict .

These studies provide useful hints on how diversity can be effectively managed. Specifically, when forming teams, avoid obvious demographic fault lines that would allow group members to split into categories. When broader diversity exists, fault lines can simply disappear.

Related Conflict Resolution Article:  Conflict Management and Negotiation: Personality and Individual Differences That Matter – How much do personality differences matter in negotiations? Negotiation research has found that negotiators perform similarly from one negotiation to another negotiation and that performance was only slightly impacted by other variables at the bargaining table like personality traits. Unchanging traits, like gender, ethnicity, and level of physical attractiveness, were not tied to negotiation performance. Some traits did affect negotiating performance, however, and in this study, those factors identified by the latest negotiation research are outlined and discussed. How can your beliefs about negotiation impact your ability to negotiate? Read more for negotiation skills and negotiation techniques a negotiator can do to mitigate the impact of these variables on her negotiating performance.

What is your favorite case study of conflict management? Let us know in the comments.

Originally published in 2012.

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No Responses to “A Case Study of Conflict Management and Negotiation”

One response to “a case study of conflict management and negotiation”.

I would love to consider the details of the research that suggests that “demographic fault lines” produce dysfunction in groups. The conclusion has a very subtle bias that could benefit from further investigation. Is it at all possible that the information and proposals are considered differently by people operating in different social contexts and that by “avoiding obvious demographic fault line” the management practice is to simply allow the internal power dynamics – which often have differential impacts along certain demographic fault lines – to play out unimpeded?

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Conflict Management in the Workplace

Introduction, definition of conflict and conflict management.

• Interpersonal Conflict and Conflict Behavior with Colleagues
• Interpersonal Conflict in Hierarchical Relations
• Team Conflict
• Intergroup Conflict
• Negotiation
• Diversity and Conflict
• Culture and Conflict
• Workplace Mistreatment: Bullying, Harassment, and Other Behaviors
• Start-Ups and Innovation
• Conflict Management in Family Business
• Conflict Management Systems
• Measuring Conflict Styles
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Conflict Management in the Workplace by Patricia Elgoibar , Ryan Armstrong , Martin Euwema LAST MODIFIED: 12 January 2022 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199828340-0293

Conflict is a component of interpersonal interactions, and therefore natural in the workplace. While neither inevitable nor intrinsically bad, conflict is commonplace. Conflicts may arise in different forms, exist between and among different levels of the organizational hierarchy, and involve supervisors, peers, or subordinates, as well as customers, clients, suppliers, and other stakeholders. The central idea of conflict management is that organizations can improve in the way conflict is managed by accepting conflict as part of organizational dynamics and by learning to deal with it effectively and efficiently. Given the ubiquity of conflict, it is perhaps unsurprising that the study of its management and resolution has become a popular topic in the last decades, particularly in the fields of management, human resources, and psychology. The aim of this article is to cover current topics in the area of conflict management in the workplace. To do so, the article is divided into different sections. In the different sections of the article, the reader will find academic sources on conflict and conflict behavior, types of conflict in the workplace at different levels, such as interpersonal, team, and intergroup, and a variety of resolution strategies, particularly negotiation and mediation, covering interventions by supervisors, colleagues, and (internal and external) third parties. Further, studies on the link between diversity, culture, and conflict, mistreatment in the workplace, and conflict in specific contexts, such as family business or start-ups, are presented. This article concludes with a collection of works on conflict management systems and tools to measure and evaluate conflict behavior in organizations. The sections included were chosen given the relevance from an academic point of view as well as from a practitioner perspective, where these aspects all are inevitable parts of the understanding of organizational conflict at different levels of complexity, and from understanding these conflicts and the conflict behavior to third parties. Complexity also adds in specific types, as harassment and bullying, often related to diversity and inclusion in organizations, and in specific contexts, as start-ups or family businesses, both rapidly growing fields of academic interest and of high importance to the global economy. Conflict management should also be understood as a system, as the alignment of different possible actors and interventions is essential for effective prevention and intervention. The article ends giving a closer look at validated instruments of use in research and practice to assess conflict behaviors. Regarding the methodology, a systematic approach was followed to select the works appearing in this bibliography. The following keywords were included in the search: “conflict resolution,” “conflict management,” “workplace conflict,” “conflict resolution,” “relationship conflict,” “leader conflict,” “conflict process,” “interpersonal conflict,” “conflict dynamic,” “negotiation,” and “mediation.” Articles were gathered from the academic databases Scopus and Web of Science, and their titles and abstracts were reviewed against the authors’ selection criteria.

This section presents studies addressing the general topic of conflict and conflict management and introduces readers to these concepts in the context of organizations. Among the first and most well-known works on the topic were Lewin 1948 , which identifies three types of conflict types; Follett 1973 , which already in the 1920s defined conflict as not being inherently bad; and Rapoport, et al. 1965 , which developed approaches to the well-known Prisoner’s Dilemma, a game that models real-world situations of cooperation and conflict which continues to enjoy widespread use in conflict management education and research. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, mutual cooperation leads to greater collective rewards, but acting in self-interest can drive non-cooperative behavior. Pondy 1967 later studied conflict not merely as a state of being, but also as a process. More recently, work psychology research such as De Dreu and Gelfand 2008 defines conflict as a “process that begins when an individual or group perceives differences and opposition between him or herself and another individual or group about interests, beliefs, or values that matter to him or her” (p. 6). Conflict management, on the other hand, is described as deliberate action to deal with conflictive situations. This can include the purposes of preventing, managing, or escalating the conflict event, as Elgoibar, et al. 2017 suggests. Korsgaard, et al. 2008 (cited under Team Conflict ) agrees that conflict management encompasses the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses in conflict situations. Thomas 1992 created a taxonomy of conflict handling modes. Here, conflict handling modes are classified by the dimensions of assertiveness and cooperativeness, where actors in conflict can choose between different behaviors to approach conflict.

Carnevale, P. J., and T. M. Probst. 1998. Social values and social conflict in creative problem solving and categorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74.5: 1300–1309.

DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.74.5.1300

This paper describes four experiments that support the idea that how we view conflict and cooperation affects our cognition. Expecting conflict, rather than cooperation, reduced participants’ ability to solve problems and to think creatively. Importantly, the results suggest that a generally competitive orientation affects cognitive flexibility, with a cooperative approach linked with greater flexibility. The authors suggest several mechanisms that may explain their outcomes.

Coleman, P. T., M. Deutsch, and E. C. Marcus, eds. 2014. The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice . New York: John Wiley.

Coleman and colleagues offer an expansive text including works covering a range of topics related to conflict and conflict resolution in eight parts and fifty-six chapters. Each chapter provides an overview of the conflict topic (e.g., trust, creativity, culture) and so is a helpful resource for those seeking to deepen their knowledge of a particular area.

De Dreu, C. K., and M. J. Gelfand, eds. 2008. The psychology of conflict and conflict management in organizations . New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

A collection of recent works edited by two of the preeminent scholars on conflict management. A text of reference for those wishing to familiarize themselves with the state of the art of conflict management.

Elgoibar, P., M. Euwema, and L. Munduate. 2017. Conflict management . In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology . New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

This article offers an introduction to the topic of conflict management, focusing on its definition, characteristics, and behaviors and emphasizing constructive conflict management strategies, including trust building and methods of constructive controversy.

Follett, M. P. 1973. Power. In Dynamic administration: The collected papers of Mary Parker Follett . Edited by E. M. Fox and L. Urwick, 72–95. London: Pitman.

The author proposes three main ways of dealing with conflict—domination, compromise, and integration—and identified other secondary ways such as avoidance and suppression. Originally published 1924.

Lewin, K. 1948. Resolving social conflicts: Selected papers on group dynamics . New York: Harper.

Despite its age, this classic collection of essays remains relevant to conflict resolution, offering highly readable explorations of topics such as power relations, systems, the role of the environment, and social science as a means of improving the human condition.

Pondy, L. R. 1967. Organizational conflict: Concepts and models. Administrative Science Quarterly 12.2: 296–320.

DOI: 10.2307/2391553

Apart from making important distinctions about conflict, an interesting aspect of this early article is that it highlights the interconnected nature of conflict: it is not the antecedents, the episode, the environment, the awareness, but rather all of these things. Like Lewin 1948 , it draws attention to the role of would-be conflict resolvers in attending to the environment.

Rahim, M. A., J. E. Garrett, and G. F. Buntzman. 1992. Ethics of managing interpersonal conflict in organizations. Journal of Business Ethics 11.5–6: 423–432.

DOI: 10.1007/BF00870554

The authors focus on intervention practices in conflict management and determine which style is ethical in the different situations to serve the proper end of the organization. They take a practical approach and clarify the difference between conflict management and conflict resolution.

Rapoport, A., A. M. Chammah, and C. J. Orwant. 1965. Prisoner’s Dilemma: A study in conflict and cooperation . Vol. 165. Univ. of Michigan Press.

DOI: 10.3998/mpub.20269

This book describes a series of experiments using the Prisoner’s Dilemma and explores the complex nature of conflict even as it relates to a seemingly simple game. Heavy use of technical language means that some grounding in economics would make this book more accessible.

Thomas, K. W. 1992. Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. Journal of Organizational Behavior 13.3: 265–274.

DOI: 10.1002/job.4030130307

The author explains the updates in the literature on conflict and conflict management since his popular 1976 work (Conflict and conflict management. In Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology . Edited by M. D. Dunnette [Chicago: Rand McNally]). It describes conflict handling modes based on the classic two-dimensional taxonomy and expresses how the conceptualization of conflict can influence one’s choice of conflict handling mode. In addition, he describes the dynamic of conflict process as well as the environmental influence model and concludes that conflict intentions are determined by economic/rational thinking, normative thinking, as well as emotions.

Van de Vliert, E. 1997. Complex interpersonal conflict behaviour: Theoretical frontiers . Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

This book offers a new theoretical approach to conflict management as it explains complex conflict behavior as the simultaneous or sequential occurrence of different conflict behaviors.

Wall, J. A., Jr., and R. R. Callister. 1995. Conflict and its management. Journal of Management 21.3: 515–558.

DOI: 10.1177/014920639502100306

This paper focuses on illustrating conflict as a social process, and thus explains in detail the causes, such as personal values, goals, and communication, as well as the effects of conflict on the individual, relationships, behavior, and structure. It also describes the process part understood as the interpersonal behavior in which the parties face conflict. Particularly of interest are the explanations of causes of conflict. The paper also reviews the work done on escalation and de-escalation of conflict processes.

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Conflict Resolution In The Workplace: What Causes It And How To Resolve It

Discover expert strategies for resolving workplace conflicts, such as open communication, collaborative problem-solving, and fostering a positive environment.

Navigating interpersonal dynamics and conflict has become an essential skill for employees and managers alike in the modern workplace. As teams become more diverse and projects more complex, the ability to effectively resolve disagreements has never been more critical.

According to research , a staggering 85% of employees experience conflict in the workplace. This statistic not only underscores the ubiquity of workplace disputes but also highlights the crucial need for effective resolution strategies. 

These conflicts, if left unaddressed, can spiral into larger issues, impacting productivity, morale, and the overall work environment.

From minor disagreements to more significant disputes, the ability to constructively resolve conflicts stands as a cornerstone of a healthy work culture.

In light of this, we delve into the causes of workplace disagreements and uncover 9 strategies aimed at fostering understanding, cooperation, and positive outcomes. This guide seeks to empower individuals at all levels of an organization to address conflicts with confidence, empathy, and efficiency. 

Embarking on this journey promises not just a reduction in workplace tensions but also a pathway to building stronger, more resilient teams. Join us as we explore practical, actionable strategies that can transform challenges into opportunities for growth and collaboration.

What Are The Main Causes Of Conflict In The Workplace?

Conflicts in the workplace arise from a variety of sources, each contributing to tension and disagreement among team members. Understanding these causes is the first step towards developing effective strategies for resolution. The complexities of workplace dynamics, combined with individual differences, often set the stage for conflicts, impacting team cohesion and productivity.

• Communication barriers: Misunderstandings or lack of clear communication can lead to misinterpretation of information and intentions.
• Personality clashes: Differences in personalities and work styles can result in friction between colleagues.
• Competition for resources: Limited resources, including time, space, and materials, can lead to competition and conflict.
• Differing values and beliefs: Employees with different backgrounds or personal values may find it challenging to agree on certain issues.
• Unclear job roles: Overlapping responsibilities and unclear job definitions can lead to confusion and disputes over territory.
• Performance issues: When team members perceive that others are not contributing equally, resentment and conflict can arise.
• Stress and pressure: High-pressure environments can exacerbate personal tensions and lead to conflicts.

Each of these causes requires a tailored approach to conflict resolution. By identifying the underlying issues, organizations can implement specific strategies designed to address and mitigate these common sources of workplace conflict. Creating an environment that promotes open dialogue, mutual respect, and a shared goal of resolution is essential for maintaining a productive and harmonious workplace.

9 Strategies To Resolve Conflict In The Workplace

Recognizing that conflict is a natural part of any professional environment, the focus here is on constructive resolution techniques that not only address immediate issues but also lay the groundwork for a more collaborative and understanding workplace culture. From communication enhancements to mediation, each strategy is aimed at transforming conflict into a positive force for team development and organizational growth.

1. Open Communication Channels

Establishing open lines of communication is paramount in resolving workplace conflicts. Encourage team members to express their thoughts and feelings openly, yet respectfully, in a designated safe space. This approach allows for the airing of grievances without fear of retaliation or judgment, fostering a culture of transparency and trust. Regularly scheduled meetings where employees can discuss issues or concerns can also prevent misunderstandings from escalating into larger conflicts.

Further, training in active listening skills for all employees can enhance the effectiveness of communication. Active listening involves fully concentrating, understanding, responding, and then remembering what is being said. This skill ensures that all parties feel heard and understood, significantly reducing the likelihood of misinterpretations that could lead to conflict. Additionally, the use of “I” statements helps in expressing personal feelings without blaming or offending others, facilitating more constructive conversations.

2. Conflict Resolution Training

Investing in conflict resolution training for managers and employees can equip them with the necessary tools to handle disputes effectively. Such training typically covers a range of topics, including negotiation techniques, problem-solving skills, and how to maintain neutrality in heated situations. By providing employees with these resources, organizations empower their workforce to address conflicts proactively, reducing the need for higher-level intervention.

Conflict resolution training also emphasizes the importance of empathy and understanding diverse perspectives. This understanding can transform potential conflicts into opportunities for growth and innovation . As team members learn to appreciate different viewpoints, they can collaborate more effectively, leveraging their diverse strengths to achieve common goals. This not only resolves conflicts but also enriches the team’s overall dynamic.

3. Leverage Neutral Mediators

Introducing a neutral third party as a mediator can significantly improve the outcome of conflict resolution efforts. A mediator who does not have a stake in the conflict can provide an unbiased perspective, facilitating discussions that focus on finding a mutually acceptable solution rather than determining who is right or wrong. This can be particularly effective in situations where the parties involved have reached a stalemate or when emotions run too high for a direct conversation to be productive.

Mediators are skilled in navigating difficult conversations, ensuring that all parties are heard and understood. They can guide the discussion in a way that reveals underlying issues, often helping to uncover solutions that might not have been apparent to those directly involved in the conflict. By fostering an environment of understanding and respect, mediators can help transform contentious situations into opportunities for growth and reconciliation.

4. Implement Collaborative Problem-Solving

Collaborative problem-solving involves bringing conflicting parties together to find a shared solution to a mutual problem. This strategy shifts the focus from individual grievances to collective goals, encouraging teamwork and cooperation. It requires each party to understand the other’s perspective and work together towards a resolution that satisfies everyone involved. This approach not only resolves the immediate conflict but also strengthens the relationship between the parties by building trust and understanding.

Key to this strategy is the belief that conflicts can be resolved in ways that benefit all parties. By involving team members in the solution process, they become invested in the outcome, increasing the likelihood of a lasting resolution. Collaborative problem-solving also encourages creative thinking , as individuals from different backgrounds and with different viewpoints contribute to a pool of solutions, often leading to innovative and effective resolutions.

5. Foster A Positive Work Environment

Creating a work environment that values respect, diversity, and inclusion can significantly reduce the occurrence of conflicts. When employees feel valued and understood, they are more likely to express concerns openly before they escalate into conflicts. This involves more than just establishing policies; it requires active efforts to build a culture where differences are celebrated, and every individual feels they belong and can contribute to their fullest potential.

Activities that promote team bonding and understanding, such as team-building exercises, shared goals, and celebrations of achievements, contribute to a positive atmosphere. Encouraging a culture of appreciation and recognition also plays a crucial role. When team members feel appreciated and respected by their peers and leaders, it creates a supportive environment that naturally minimizes conflicts and promotes harmony and productivity.

6. Promote Transparency And Accountability

Transparency in communication and actions fosters an environment of trust, which is essential for resolving and preventing conflicts. When leaders and team members openly share information, decisions, and processes, it eliminates speculation and misunderstanding that can lead to conflicts. Promoting transparency involves regular updates about company developments, clear explanations of decisions, and open forums for questions and feedback . This openness should be coupled with accountability, where individuals are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions and their contributions to conflicts, facilitating a culture of mutual respect and understanding.

Accountability also means addressing conflicts directly and constructively, without assigning blame. When individuals understand the impact of their actions on others and the team’s dynamics, they are more likely to engage in self-reflection and behavior modification. Establishing clear guidelines for behavior and communication, and consistently applying these standards, helps maintain a culture where conflicts are less likely to arise and are more easily resolved when they do.

7. Utilize Conflict Resolution Frameworks

Adopting structured conflict resolution frameworks can provide a clear path for addressing disagreements and disputes. These frameworks, such as the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) or the Interest-Based Relational (IBR) approach, offer strategies based on the nature of the conflict and the desired outcome. By understanding and applying these models, individuals can approach conflicts with a toolkit of strategies, selecting the most appropriate one based on the situation. This structured approach demystifies the resolution process, making it more accessible and less daunting for all involved.

Frameworks encourage a systematic exploration of the interests underlying the positions taken by each party, promoting solutions that satisfy the core needs of all involved. They also emphasize the importance of maintaining relationships and separating the problem from the people. By focusing on interests rather than positions, these frameworks help prevent the escalation of conflict and guide parties towards cooperative solutions that foster long-term harmony and understanding.

8. Encourage Reflective Listening

Reflective listening is a communication strategy where listeners repeat back what they’ve heard to the speaker, to confirm understanding and demonstrate empathy. This technique is powerful in resolving conflicts as it ensures that all parties feel heard and understood, a fundamental need in any dispute. By practicing reflective listening , individuals can avoid misunderstandings that often escalate conflicts. It encourages a thoughtful response rather than an immediate reaction, allowing for a more measured and considerate exchange of ideas and feelings.

This strategy not only aids in conflict resolution but also promotes deeper connections between team members, as it demonstrates respect and care for the speaker’s perspective. Reflective listening can transform potentially volatile situations into opportunities for open dialogue, mutual understanding, and strengthened relationships. Training teams in this technique can significantly improve communication skills across the board, making it an invaluable tool for any organization aiming to reduce conflict.

9. Set Clear Expectations And Boundaries

Clear expectations and boundaries are crucial for preventing conflicts in the workplace. When team members understand what is expected of them and the limits of their responsibilities, it reduces the chances of overstepping boundaries that could lead to disputes. Establishing these guidelines requires transparent communication and regular reinforcement from leadership. It also involves collaboration with team members to ensure that expectations are realistic and aligned with the organization’s goals and values.

Boundaries also extend to interpersonal behaviors and conflict management styles. Setting clear guidelines on acceptable behavior and how conflicts should be addressed promotes a respectful and professional work environment. This clarity helps prevent conflicts from arising by providing a common framework within which all team members operate. When everyone is on the same page about what is expected and how to conduct themselves, it fosters a more harmonious and productive workplace.

How Can Managers Prevent Conflicts In Their Teams?

Preventing conflicts requires proactive management strategies that foster a positive work culture . This includes clear communication of roles and expectations, providing regular feedback, and creating an inclusive environment that values diversity and open dialogue. Training sessions on conflict resolution and team-building activities can also strengthen interpersonal relationships and understanding among team members.

Additionally, encouraging a culture of transparency and trust, where employees feel comfortable voicing concerns before they escalate into conflicts, is key. Managers should strive to be accessible and approachable, acting as role models in demonstrating constructive conflict management behaviors. Through these practices, conflicts can often be minimized or prevented altogether.

Dos And Don’ts Of Resolving Conflict In The Workplace

• Encourage open communication and ensure all parties have the chance to speak.
• Listen actively and empathetically to understand each person’s perspective.
• Focus on the problem, not the person , to avoid unnecessary personal attacks.
• Seek to find common ground and work towards a mutually beneficial solution.
• Use neutral language and avoid blaming or inflammatory remarks.
• Respect all opinions and show empathy, acknowledging the feelings and concerns of others.
• Follow up on the resolution to ensure the conflict has been fully resolved and to prevent recurrence.

Don’ts

• Ignore or avoid conflict , hoping it will resolve itself without intervention.
• Take sides or show favoritism , as it can escalate the conflict and damage trust.
• Jump to conclusions or make assumptions without all the facts.
• Communicate important discussions via email or text ; face-to-face conversations are more effective.
• Let emotions dictate your responses ; strive to maintain professionalism.
• Overlook the root cause of the conflict ; address underlying issues to prevent future problems.
• Forget to document the conflict and resolution process , especially for serious disputes.

Navigate And Resolve Conflicts With Confidence

Throughout this guide, we’ve journeyed through the landscape of workplace conflict, uncovering the roots, exploring strategic resolutions, and marking the pathways to a more harmonious professional environment. From the importance of open communication to the power of reflective listening and setting clear boundaries, each strategy presented is a step towards transforming potential discord into opportunities for growth and understanding.

A Workplace Conflict Resolution Recap

• Embrace open communication for clarity and understanding.
• Leverage neutral mediators to guide resolution processes.
• Engage in collaborative problem-solving to find win-win solutions.
• Promote a positive work environment as a foundation for resolution.
• Encourage transparency and accountability for actions and outcomes.

In addition to these strategies, remember the importance of fostering an inclusive culture that celebrates diversity and encourages feedback. Equip your team with the skills they need through conflict resolution training, and always aim to lead by example. By embracing these practices, you not only navigate workplace conflicts with ease but also contribute to a stronger, more cohesive team dynamic.

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These case studies offer insights into why clients contact us, how we approach their situations and the results of our work. Identifying details have been modified.

Business Case Study

Though conflict had been stewing for years, it came to a head one morning when Donna, the Operations Manager, intentionally withheld some key data from Doug, the Sales Manager.  The fights and work disruptions that began that morning grew to the point where these senior managers refused to meet one-on-one with each other. They barely acknowledged each other or answered direct questions during executive team meetings. Worse, they had dragged their teams into the pit of their interpersonal feud, miring the organization in their muck. Despite all of this, both long-term employees were extremely talented, respected, and vital leaders.

The CEO’s efforts to talk them back from the brink hadn’t worked. However, with a referral from the VP of Human Resources, the CEO contacted Chris for a candid conversation about the situation. The CEO outlined the situation, explained internal efforts that had been enacted to resolve it, and shared what was at stake. It turned out to be a case custom-made for In-Accord.

In-Accord coached the CEO in the delicate matter of how to inform the managers about our involvement. Then, we held private interviews to hear each manager’s point of view and describe the options ahead. These conversations helped them understand their situation and consider their next moves. Both agreed to enter a facilitated, face-to-face negotiation and discussion process. The In-Accord mediator then led a series of three separate meetings with the sparring managers. These professionally facilitated negotiations culminated in an eight-point agreement in which both employees committed to steps that would clarify the parameters of their respective roles, improve their communication, and give them tools to treat each other with professional respect. They committed to being responsive to one another’s information requests and reinforced this pledge with a tailor-made process for ensuring the commitment would withstand the realities of their work environment. More significantly, each emerged with an understanding of the urgent need for change, and they both made contributions to their fractured relationship. As one of the managers said, “My team won’t believe it when they see us working together.” They voluntarily agreed to share their outcomes with the CEO and seek his support. After they had spent two months on the job implementing their agreements, In-Accord held a check-in session and learned their relationship remained much improved.

Higher Education Case Study

By David Hallett, JD

Executive Dean, General Education

Chemeketa Community College

It’s been a pleasure working with you and In-Accord. As an executive administrator at a large organization, I have the opportunity to work directly with all of our employee groups and various divisions.  I was first drawn to In-Accord when I had the chance to see you present at a mediation training years ago.  I was struck by your kind demeanor and how well you seemed to work with others.  Recently, in one of the divisions I work closely with, there was an interpersonal conflict involving several professionals that I tried to work through.  Our in-house attempts were not successful (mainly because it’s so difficult to be truly neutral in such situations), and the problems escalated to the point where no real communication was occurring between the folks involved.  Thankfully, when I called In-Accord, you walked me through what the process would be like and helped me to clearly understand what to expect.  I knew it was imperative to get some movement from the parties involved because important work was simply not getting done, the result of stalled communication and growing animosity.

In our initial phone conversation, you sought to gather important background information about the conflict and obtained contact information for the folks who would be involved.  You asked detailed questions and shared your ethical guidelines and how you would approach the situation.  In all of this, you worked within my schedule, and I never felt rushed or uncertain about the process.  Following these conversations, with me, you established contact with the parties and held your initial meeting with them.  Following a series of facilitated dialogue sessions, you helped these employees come to a place of mutual agreement and understanding about how best to work together in a respectful, safe environment.  You also helped clarify expectations in relation to their roles within the organization.   I believe it was through the mediation process you facilitated that these individuals regained a sense of trust and a deeper understanding of the roadblocks that had previously prevented them from working together effectively.  They also developed a sense of appreciation for the challenges that the other person faces in their unique role.

Recently, I received communication from the employees that each one of them felt that they were in a better place as a result of the mediation process.  A supervisor remarked that he felt a greater sense of awareness about workplace relationships that transcended the particular conflict you helped resolved and allowed him to be a more effective supervisor overall. Another party expressed gratitude for the opportunity and great relief that he felt could now “get back to the meaningful work” he so loves to do because the interpersonal conflicts do not get in the way.  Each of them expressed that they felt equipped to effectively problem-solve their way through future conflicts if they should arise.  My own observation is that both parties have grown tremendously as a result of working with you, and I know that I’m having to spend much less time negotiating resolutions between them.  To me, it seems like a real win-win for all of us! Thank you again for all of your great work!

With deep appreciation and respect,

Client Testimonial

“I want to thank you for all the help you’ve provided for our group.  I think we’ve made great strides in communication, and I’m sanguine that we’re off to a more stable, amicable future.  Thankfully, I think our need for a facilitator is largely done here, though I’d appreciate your availability in the future should we need more help. Thanks again for your skill and patience with us!” — Dr. Justin Cook, Northwest Acute Care Specialists, Good Samaritan Hospital

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Managing Workplace Conflicts: A Case Study In The City Of Johannesburg

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The uncertainty that accompanies organizational change heightens prospects for intra organizational conflict. Notwithstanding this, the knowledge base on the sources (or causes) of organizational conflict is underdeveloped – largely as a result of a low incidence of empirical research, and in particular in South Africa. The current study explored the perceived sources of conflict in two South African organizations operating in different economic sectors. An experimental survey focusing on both the causes and the impact of conflict was administered to a sample of 203 employees, representing both companies. Comparative analysis revealed significant differences between the two organizations’ views with regard to the causes and consequences of conflict. The implications of these findings for future research and conflict management are discussed.

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Employee performance is a real behavior displayed by everyone as work performance is produced by employees following their role in the organization. This study aims to determine and analyze the effect of a work conflict and organizational culture on employee performance through job satisfaction at the Office of the Civil Service Police Unit, Mandailing Natal Regency. The nature of this research is associative research with a quantitative approach. The primary and secondary data are used from questionnaires and documentation and are measured on an interval scale. The sample size for this study was 200 employees, and the data analysis techniques used to test the hypothesis were descriptive analysis and structural equation model analysis. The results showed that work conflict had a negative and significant effect on job satisfaction. Organizational culture has a positive and significant effect on job satisfaction. Work conflict has a negative and significant effect on employee performance. Organizational culture has a positive and significant effect on employee performance, and job satisfaction has a positive and significant effect on employee performance. The indirect effect shows that work conflict has a negative and significant effect on employee performance through job satisfaction. Organizational culture has a positive and significant effect on employee performance through job satisfaction.

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This article presents a case study on organisational conflict in a selected international organisation in the South African automotive industry to increase the contextual understanding of the topic. Data was gathered through in-depth interviews with 45 senior and middle managers in the selected international organisation at the head off ce and two branches in Gauteng and at one branch in KwaZulu-Natal. The data analysis was conducted through content analysis as well as triangulation of data. The research results show that managers in this industry in post-apartheid South Africa experience organisational conflicts that are associated with their managerial values and identities.

Natanya Meyer

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Prof. Oyedokun E M M A N U E L Godwin , Modupeola Adeolu-Akande , Esther Sanya

Organisations evaluate different opposing views, behaviours, and debates in making decisions. Public sector establishments are characterized by bureaucracy and top-down hierarchical structure of command, and therefore conflict exists with varying degrees. Hence, this study seeks to examine the effect of conflict management on the organisational performance of public sector establishments. Relevant empirical and theoretical literatures were reviewed and the study is anchored on conflict theory. The descriptive survey research design of the ex-post facto type was adopted. A sample size of 342 was arrived at using Taro Yamane model. It was selected from 2345 staff of the six purposively selected ministries in the Oyo state civil service which is the study population, using stratified random sampling. Data was collected through questionnaires. Only 318 questionnaires were considered usable, representing a 93.00% response rate. A descriptive and regression analysis through SPSS was used to test the relationship between conflict management and organisational performance. The findings indicate that there exists a significant relationship between conflict management and organisational performance (r= 0 .672; p<0.05). Findings further revealed that causative factors of conflict do not have a significant relationship with organisational performance (p-value (0.51>0.05). However, there is a significant relationship between conflict management styles and organisational performance (p-value =0.000<0.05). This study concludes that effective conflict management contributes to enhanced employees' productivity and would eventually improve organisational performance. The study recommended that management should effectively manage conflicts before they escalate to an unmanageable level, by using appropriate strategies. They should create additional channels of communication with employees as means of obtaining prompt feedback on organisational workings and policies, to prevent communication gaps and avoid conflicting interests.

DANIEL KYAGYA

This study investigated the impact of conflict management on employees' performance in a public sector organisation, a case of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). This study adopted the survey research design. A total of 100 respondents were selected for the study using stratified sampling technique. Questionnaire was used to collect primary data. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. Hypotheses were tested through regression analysis and correlation coefficient. The findings revealed that effective conflict management enhance employee's performance in an organisation and that organisation's conflict management system influences employee performance in the organisation. It was recommended that organisation should embark on training and retraining of its employees in area of conflict management so as to create a conductive working environment for the employees and that there should be efficient and effective communication between and among all categories of the employees the organisation. This will reduce conflicting situations in the organisation. Introduction Conflicts are inevitable. Conflicts are an everyday phenomenon in each organisation. There is growing recognition of the importance of conflict in an organisation. A recent survey indicated that managers spend a considerable portion of their time dealing with conflict and that conflict management becomes increasingly important to their effectiveness. Obisi (1996) argues that despite this fact peace forms one of the fundamental factors for enhanced productivity with resultant benefits to both the labour and management as well as for the economic development of the country. It will not be out of place therefore, to consider conflict as an inevitable and desirable factor in the work place. Conflict could be viewed as a situation of competition in which the parties are aware of the incomparability of potential future position in which each party wishes to occupy a position that is incompatible with the wishes of the other. Conflict could arise because of the employee quest to maximise profit while workers representatives are out to ensure continuous improved condition of living for their member. Conflict could also arise as a result of failure to honour agreed items on collective bargaining. Damachi (1999) emphasises that if those workers rights and employee prerogative are trampled upon, could also cause conflict. These include pay, condition of service, and fringe benefits among others. Azamosa (2004) observed that conflicts involve the total range of behaviours and attitudes that is in opposition between owners/managers on the one hand and working people on the other. It is a state of disagreement over issues of substance or emotional antagonism and may arise due to anger, mistrust or personality clashes. Otobo (1987) writing on effects of strikes and lockouts examined resultant effects of industrial conflict at three levels namely psychological, political and economic. In all, every party to industrial action is affected. The need for an effective conflict management to ameliorate the problems emanating from conflict and assist organisation in their struggle for the attainment of corporate objective cannot be over emphasised. The general objective of this research paper is to access the effect of conflict management on employee

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Conflicts in organizations or workplaces can have serious consequences. Workplace conflicts can lead to hostile relations among individuals within a group. Sometimes, conflicts can hamper overall efficiency of organizations. Its negative consequences can gravely affect relationships resulting in inhospitable work environment and psychological stress. On the other hand, conflicts, when managed properly, can open the doors of opportunity to strengthen relationships in workplaces. Conflict management depends on a range of causal factors, the nature of which varies from conflict to conflict. Sometimes, conflicts may become difficult to resolve without the help of impartial mediators. As a result, negotiators may be required; they can play a significant role in managing and mitigating conflicts, especially organizational conflicts. This paper attempts to explain causes of organizational, institutional, and workplace conflicts. It also focuses on workplace conflicts' outcomes and organizational conflict management strategies.

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Conflict Management: Difficult Conversations with Difficult People

Amy r. overton.

1 Division of Health Policy and Management, Department of Health Administration, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Ann C. Lowry

2 Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota

Conflict occurs frequently in any workplace; health care is not an exception. The negative consequences include dysfunctional team work, decreased patient satisfaction, and increased employee turnover. Research demonstrates that training in conflict resolution skills can result in improved teamwork, productivity, and patient and employee satisfaction. Strategies to address a disruptive physician, a particularly difficult conflict situation in healthcare, are addressed.

Objectives: Upon completion of the article, the reader will: (1) Understand the importance of conflict resolution and management. (2) Recognize skill sets applicable to conflict management. (3) Summarize the steps necessary involved in a successful confrontational conversation.

Conflicts of various magnitudes occur frequently. You share a workspace with a colleague who consistently leaves the space disorganized and messy, which seems unprofessional to you since patients are seen in that office. Or a senior colleague insists being the first author on a research paper when you did all the work. In the preoperative area, the anesthesiologist disagrees with your surgical plan in the presence of the patient. A more extreme example would be a disruptive physician who yells or throws charts or instruments.

The frequency of conflict has been measured in several settings. In an observational study of operating rooms, conflicts were described as “high tension events”; in all surgical cases observed there was at least one and up to four high tension events. 1 Another study found on average four conflicts per operation emerged among operating room team members. 2 In a survey of 5,000 full time employees in nine different countries, 85% of employees dealt with conflict at work to some degree and 29% dealt with conflict frequently or always. 3 Another viewpoint focuses upon “toxic personalities” defined as “anyone who demonstrates a pattern of counterproductive work behaviors that debilitate individuals, teams, and even organizations over the long term.” 4 Conflict occurs frequently when working with such people. In a survey, 64% of respondents experienced a toxic personality in their current work environment and 94% had worked with someone like that during their career. 4 In another study, 91% of nurses reported experiencing verbal abuse. 5 The impact of these interactions on mood is significant. In a real-time study, employees recorded interactions with a coworker or superior at four random intervals daily; the employees rated the interactions as positive or negative and recorded their mood. The negative interactions affected the employee's mood five times more strongly than positive encounters. 6

Some would argue that conflict may be beneficial in certain situations, but in others it has negative consequences. 7 The proposed benefits of conflict include improved understanding of the task, team development, and quality of group decision making. The other line of thought suggests that conflict distracts from the immediate tasks and wastes resources on conflict resolution. Whether or not it is occasionally helpful, it is clear that many instances of conflict are harmful.

Conflict is associated with significant cost to organizations. In the study of employees from nine countries, the average number of hours spent per week on workplace conflict varied from 0.9 to 3.3 hours. In the United States, the average was 2.8 hours. 3 The calculated expense based on average hourly earnings in 2008 was $359 billion in lost time. High rates of employee turnover and absenteeism are associated with environments where conflict is poorly managed.

Health care is a complex system that requires effective teamwork and cooperation to function well. Patient safety research reveals that patient outcomes are negatively impacted when conflict mismanagement and other dysfunctions occur. 8 9 10 Another consequence of poorly managed conflict is disruption of care. In a national survey of physicians, almost two-thirds of respondents reported seeing other physicians disrupt patient care at least once a month. 11 More than 10% of the respondents reported witnessing that behavior daily.

Frequent causes of conflict include lack of clarity with expectations or guidelines, poor communication, lack of clear jurisdiction, personality differences, conflicts of interest, and changes within the organization. 12 Behavior that results in conflict could include bullying, limited communication or not sharing important information, and verbal or physical violence. 13 Employees cite personality clashes, stress, heavy workloads, poor leadership at the senior and managerial levels, lack of honesty and openness, and lack of role clarity as the most frequent causes of conflict. 3

Although conflict cannot be avoided, it can be managed. Since conflict will always be present on an individual and organizational level, it is important to develop the skills to appropriately manage a difficult conversation or interaction. Experts agree that the skills necessary can be acquired; they believe that conflict competence can be defined and learned. One definition of conflict competence is “the ability to develop and use cognitive, emotional, and behavioral skills that enhance productive outcomes of conflict while reducing the likelihood of escalation or harm.” 14 The goal is to be competent in having difficult conversations. One model uses the terminology “crucial conversations and “crucial confrontations.” A “crucial conversation” is defined as “a discussion between two or more people where (1) the stakes are high, (2) opinions vary, and (3) emotions run strong.” 15 Confrontations are those face-to-face conversations in which someone is held accountable. 16

Real life examples prove their statements and the benefits of improved conflict management. One group demonstrated that teaching the necessary communication skills resulted in 10% improvement in their habits of confronting difficult issues. 16 With that change, customer and employee satisfaction, productivity, and quality also improved. An information technology (IT) group found that improved communication practices resulted in 30% improvement in quality, almost 40% increase in productivity, and near 50% decrease in costs. 16 CPP Global report “Workplace Conflict and How Business Can Harness it to Thrive” study found “training does not reduce the occurrence of conflict, but it clearly has an impact on how conflict is perceived and can mitigate the negative outcomes associated with conflict.” 3

Various models of successful conflict management have been proposed. 14 16 The models typically include discussions of common responses to conflict and ways to effectively address conflict. These models will be combined and summarized in this article.

The common underlying principles of all the models are that

• Conflict is inevitable and that both positive and negative consequences may occur depending on how the conflict is managed.
• The results are likely to be better with active engagement rather than avoidance.
• People must be motivated to address conflict.
• Behavioral, cognitive, and emotional skills can be acquired.
• Emotional skills require self-awareness.
• The environment must be neutral and feel safe.

Response to Conflict

To begin this process, it is important to cultivate self-awareness in regards to one's physical and emotional reaction to situations involving conflict. The most common responses on approaching conflict include: avoiding, accommodating, competing, compromising, and collaborating. 17 Avoidance (or silence) refers to an individual recognizing conflict in a situation and actively deciding to not engage or deal with the problem. Avoidance may be prudent when the issue is minor in nature, as a temporary response when emotions are high or when others can resolve an issue more efficiently. This approach would be the opposite of someone whose response is to compete, which is categorized as being forcing, uncooperative, and assertive in the situation. Competition might be appropriate in emergent situations or actions known to be unpopular need to be taken on an important issue. People whose response is to accommodate others generally do not have their own needs met. Accommodation may be necessary when one is wrong, if the issue is more critical to others or if the value of harmony in the situation outweighs the benefit of a conflict. When accommodation is used, the conflict is resolved but if the pattern repeats itself frequently residual resentment may affect the relationship. Accommodation is also referred to as yielding. 18 Compromise and collaboration are both a balance of assertiveness and cooperativeness. The difference between the two is that compromise is often a negotiation between two parties with equivalent power, whereas collaboration is focused on finding a solution where all parties involved have their needs met. Compromise is focused on fixing a problem with a set amount of resources and collaboration allows for a broader view on problem solving. A combination of compromise and collaboration has also been defined as a problem-solving response. 18 Although there is not a correct response, responses characterized by open-mindedness to the ideas and perspectives of others promote positive outcomes. 17

Conflict Management Skills

When a conflict exists, the first step is to decide whether to address it. That decision involves balancing the reward against price of addressing the issue; that balance is unique to each circumstance. Some general rules are that if the issue is troublesome enough that it is affecting your behavior or weighing on your conscience, it should be addressed. It is important not to confuse the perceived difficulty of the conversation with determination of whether it will be beneficial and appropriate to proceed. Perceived differences in power often impact a decision to address a conflict; however, lessons from aviation and other industries illustrate the benefits of open communication and the risks of silence even in situations of different levels of authority or power. 19 20

Once it is been decided to address the conflict, there are several steps involved in preparation for the conversation. One step is to determine the exact nature of the conflict. When considering the exact nature of the conflict, some authors offer the following guidance. 16 If the issue occurs once, it is appropriate to discuss the content of the issue; if it has occurred repeatedly, one should focus on the pattern of events. If the problem impacts your relationship with the other person or team members, then the topic should be your relationship. One pitfall of conflict management is allowing task or pattern type conflict to deteriorate to relationship conflict by overpersonalizing the issue. Another system appropriate for team conflict divides conflict into task, process, and relationship conflicts. Task conflict is similar to content conflict, while process conflict refers disagreement over team processes. 21

One must also thoroughly understand one's own position. It is critical to gather all of the background information and any data necessary to discuss the conflict. Then one needs to achieve clarity about what is desired from the confrontation as well as what one is prepared to give up or compromise. Another key element is awareness of which outcomes one considers undesirable. Part of the preparation is consideration of one's own motivations and goals as well as the motivations and goals of the other party. This step seems obvious but is frequently not done or only superficially evaluated. Considering why a rational and ethical person would have behaved in the manner troubling you often opens an alternative view of the situation. The authors of Crucial Confrontations label this preparation as “mastering your story.” 16 In short, it is understanding from as many vantage points as possible how the problem situation might have developed.

The level of intensity of the conflict is another consideration in determining how best to approach the issue. One model divides the intensity of conflict into five levels. 14 Level 1 is differences. Those are situations in which two or more people have different perspectives on the situation; they understand the other person's viewpoint and are comfortable with the difference. This level of conflict can be an asset for a team or organization because it allows individuals to compare or analyze without an emotional overlay. Level 2 are misunderstandings in which two people understand the situation differently. Misunderstandings are common and can be minor, but can also escalate when stakes are high. If there are negative consequences such as missed events or obligations people tend fault and accuse one another which adds negative emotions to the situation. If the misunderstandings are frequent, it may indicate problems with communication. Level 3 is disagreements; these are times when people have different viewpoints of the situation, and despite understanding the other's position they are uncomfortable with the difference. This level can also easily escalate if ignored. Level 4 is discord. In those instances, conflict results in relationship issues between the people involved even after a specific conflict is resolved. There is often constant tension between those individuals. Level 5 is polarization, which describes situations with intense negative feelings and behavior in which there is little to no hope of resolution. For those conflicts, the mandatory first step is the agreement to communicate.

Another aspect of preparation is to recognize your emotional response and how it might affect your view of the situation. Addressing a difficult situation when one is angry or frustrated is more likely to be ineffective than when one is calm. Several famous quotes illustrate the point.

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”

–Ambrose Bierce

It is therefore important to postpone the discussion until one is able to think more calmly and clearly. It is helpful to have an awareness of behaviors that “push your buttons.” One list of possibilities comes from an assessment instrument, “Conflict Dynamic Profile (Center for Conflict Dynamics Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL)” that includes the following behaviors: abrasive, aloof, hostile, micromanaging, over analytical, self-centered, unappreciative, unreliable, and untrustworthy. 22 A technique to reduce tension is cognitive reappraisal or reframing which refers to looking at alternative perspectives and outcomes of the situation to “reframe” it in a different, generally positive, light. Some other suggested techniques to manage one's emotions are consciously identifying and addressing one's fears about the outcome of the conflict or possible consequences. Centering techniques, which are based on martial arts, offer a way to calm oneself and focus on the positive aspects of the situation. 14

“The great remedy for anger is delay”

–Thomas Paine

All conflict management research confirms that setting a safe environment is a critical element in successful management of conflict. In a safe environment, all participants believe they will be respected and treated fairly. The authors of Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace present a model that includes three different types of necessary trust. 23 One is contractual trust or trust of character which is confidence in the intentions of others. The second is communication trust or trust of disclosures. In an environment with communication trust, everyone is comfortable that people will share information, be honest, and keep private information confidential. The final type is capability trust; when present, the participants have confidence in others' abilities to deliver on promises. That model recognizes that trust can be harmed by betrayal, but also rebuilt.

Another description of a safe environment is one with mutual respect and mutual purpose. 16 Mutual respect involves using a tone of voice and words and facial expressions that convey respect for others as human beings. Mutual purpose is having the common goal of problem solving. Although the first model may seem difficult to achieve in all situations, mutual respect and mutual purpose are basic required elements for an effective discussion of a conflict.

How does one establish a safe environment? The conversation must be held in a private, preferably neutral, setting with enough protected time for the discussion. Some experts suggest that a potentially neutral way to establish the goal of joint problem solving is to start the discussion by describing the gap between the expected and observed behavior. Other options include asking for permission to discuss a topic or beginning with the facts from your perspective or your observations. It sets the wrong tone to start the conversation with your conclusion, particularly if it is harsh. One should share all appropriate and relevant information and avoid being vague. 16 Other tips to maintain a safe environment include asking open-ended questions, focusing initially on points of agreement and using “I” statements. Some examples of “I” statements are “I feel frustrated” and “I am concerned.” One must be aware of one's body language as well as tone and volume of voice.

Common mistakes to avoid are trying to soften the message by mixing it with complimentary statements or using an overly familiar tone of voice initially before addressing the problem. Most people feel they are being manipulated or treated dishonestly when the messages are mixed. Inappropriate humor or comments disrupt the rapport needed for a safe environment. Another common error is using nonverbal hints or subtle comments with the belief they can successfully address a conflict. This technique is risky because one is never clear on the other person's interpretations of the hints or comments. It also does not work to blame someone else for a decision or request you are making. It ultimately undermines any respect or authority you may hold. Asking people to guess the reason for the meeting, essentially to read your mind, is irritating and ineffective at problem solving.

Once a decision has been made and a neutral environment decided upon for the conversation, there are key elements to conducting the conversation. One organization (CMP Resolutions) terms this first phase as scoping. 24 It includes the time to understand what is happening, each person's perspective of the conflict, and what is important to them, as well as establishing ways the involved parties can work toward a solution. The first step in the conversation is to allow all parties to state their opinions and their perspectives on the conflict. Before beginning, the ground rules regarding confidentiality and decision making should be outlined. Listening, respectively, to each participant during this step is very important. Asking clarifying questions without imposing one's own view of the situation is a skill that often requires practice. One must be aware of the tone and volume of voice to ensure that the environment remains respectful. Expressions of empathy such as “that sounds really difficult” are helpful in setting the tone and encouragement of information sharing. One should avoid judgmental or blaming statements. Listening skills are one of the primary skills to be developed when working on one's ability to manage conflict. Utilizing “AMPP” helps to remember four main listening skills that are helpful when faced with a problem. 16 “A” stands for ask which starts the conversation and allows the other person to discuss their feelings about the situation. Mirroring (M) is a tool to encourage the speaker to continue or offer more information when they seem reluctant. The technique involves statements about what you are observing (e.g., you seem down today) in the other person and then asking a question. The third technique, paraphrasing (P), is the restating of their responses in your own words which shows active listening and makes clear whether you both have the same understanding. Finally, prime (P) refers to priming the pump. It is useful when someone is clearly emotional about the issue but reluctant to talk despite the use of the first three techniques. With this method, one makes a guess out loud about what the other person might be thinking or feeling. One must choose the words carefully and use a calm tone to avoid worsening the situation. The goal is to make the other person feel comfortable speaking. Other potentially helpful acronyms to use during conflict management are seen in Table 1 .

The next part of the conversation is defining the problem. A consensus on the definition of the problem is necessary for participants to be able to compare and discuss solutions. As noted earlier, the problem might be defined as the issue with one occurrence, a pattern of episodes or the working relationship. After creating a mutually agreed upon definition, the next step is to brainstorm possible solutions to the conflict. If possible, these solutions should address the needs of all parties involved.

After a list has been created of alternative solutions, each participant should discuss their preferred solution. There also needs to be a “reality check” with the decision makers. Perhaps the ideal solution is too expensive or not feasible because of existing regulation or organizational policies. The goal is finding commonality and acceptable compromises that allow for all participants to feel like their needs are met and the conflict is being addressed. Once this solution is chosen, an action plan that outlines the “who, what, and when” of fixing the problem needs to be devised. Making sure that everyone involved understands their role and tasks are an important step to accomplish the solution.

Many models suggest that reflection on ways to prevent or more effectively handle similar conflicts in the future at the end of the conversation is beneficial. A follow-up plan is critical. If a plan with timelines is not designed and implemented, the behavior will typically change for a period of time but then slip back into old patterns. Whether the plan is another meeting, completion of certain tasks, or a system of monitoring, it should be defined clearly.

A particularly complex issue in conflict management is the disruptive physician. Historically, that issue has been addressed reluctantly if at all. The physician is often a high revenue producer and organizational leaders fear the consequences of antagonizing the physician or there is concern about a potential conflict of interest. The term is defined in various ways. One definition of disruptive physician behavior is “a practice pattern of personality traits that interferes with the physicians' effective clinical performance.” 25 The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons defined it as “inappropriate conduct whether in words or action that interferes with or has the potential to interfere with, quality health care delivery.” 26 An occasional bad day or overreaction does not constitute disruptive behavior. Rather it is the pattern of repeated episodes of significant inappropriate behavior.

The typical behaviors are often divided into aggressive and passive aggressive categories. Aggressive behaviors include yelling, abusive language, intimidation, and physically aggressive actions. Passive-aggressive behaviors include intentional miscommunication, impatience with questions, racial, general or religious jokes, and implied threats. Despite estimates that only 3 to 6% of physicians qualify as disruptive physicians, 27 the negative impact on the health care system is significant. The behavior undermines morale and productivity as well as the quality of care and patient safety. For example, nurses are less likely to call physicians with a history of disruptive behavior even when they need to clarify an order or report a change in a patient's condition. According to the Joint Commission, these behaviors “can foster medical errors, contribute to poor patient satisfaction and to preventable adverse outcomes, increase the cost of care, and cause qualified clinicians, administrators, and managers to seek new positions in more professional environments.” 28 In an academic environment, this behavior is associated with poor role modeling for students and trainees. Because of the impact, both the Joint Commission and the Federation of State Medical Boards addressed the issue in their standards and policies. 28 29

If the pattern of behavior is recognized early, a conversation with a trusted colleague or physician leader using the techniques described above might be sufficient to change the pattern of behavior. One model of corrective feedback starts by preparing the physician for the meeting with advanced notice and provision of a private setting and respectful atmosphere. Often asking the physician to provide a self-assessment of their interactions with others is a good starting point that can be followed with the observations of specific disruptive behaviors. Strategies for change and improvement as well as set expectations and a monitoring program need to be discussed and articulated before concluding the meeting. 30

There is evidence that an organization that sets standards for behavior and uses the principles of “action learning” to address variances will have desirable outcomes with disruptive physicians. Briefly, the principles of action learning, which was developed by Reginald Revans, are that the best learning occurs through active questioning and reflection rather than instruction. 31 The people involved tackle a real-life problem by asking questions, discussing alternative solutions, reflecting on change, and monitoring progress. In an interview study of independent, single-specialty surgical practices representing 350 physicians, the investigator determined whether the use of action learning principles correlated with desirable outcomes with disruptive physicians. 32 Desirable outcomes include retention of the physician with a change in the troublesome behavior. In 20 practices, action learning resulted in successful management of the problem.

However, most disruptive physicians require more intensive intervention. Reynolds argues that “constructive change in disruptive physicians comes through requiring adherence to expected behaviors while providing educational and other supports to teach the physician new coping skills for achieving the desired behaviors.” 25 A comprehensive evaluation including medical, chemical, and psychiatric evaluation is the first step. It is important to identify an underlying treatable condition. A program of remediation including educational and psychological training to foster new coping skills is outlined. A critical part of the program is long-term follow-through and monitoring. For most disruptive physicians, it is the threat of imposed consequences rather than internal motivation to improve that guides their compliance with the program. 25 Several well-established programs offer resources for the training including the Physician Assessment and Clinical Education (PACE) program at the University of California School of Medicine, San Diego 33 and the Distressed Physician Program at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville. 34 A composite case study of transformative learning to address disruptive physician behavior illustrates the process used. 35

Conflict occurs frequently and often results in significant disruption and cost for individuals and organizations. Although often avoided or poorly managed, evidence suggests the skills for effective management of conflict can be learned. Multiple studies confirm when conflict is successfully addressed, and multiple benefits accrue to the organization and individuals.

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Case Study on Conflict Management in the Workplace

Conflict management in the workplace case study:.

Conflict management in the workplace is the activity aimed at the resolution of the conflicts which occur between employees or employees and their boss. Naturally, conflicts cause harm to the process of production, because they consume much time and efforts which could be spent on work.Moreover, the majority of conflicts in the workplace reduce productiveness, because the quarrelling sides fulfill their duties in the insufficient way and very often the quality of work reduces on purpose.The manager who wants to restore the healthy working atmosphere is supposed to possess a range of communicative skill and knowledge about the human psychology and behaviour. The manager is supposed to be aware about the cause and effect of the definite types of conflicts and his solutions and decision should be based on the intensive conflict resolution when both sides understand their mistakes and start cooperating further.

Most often conflicts appear because of the employee’s ambitiousness and envy or the disability of self-realization. If the employee does not see the opportunities for self-development and career growth, he starts getting angry and quarrels with co-workers and managers. Then, every employee has his own ideas concerning the choice of the right decision and here the manager is supposed to do his best choose the most adequate decision proving both sides with arguments. The most appropriate solution of every conflict is compromise, because if two employees can not cooperate, they at least should not spoil each other’s life and results of their work, though very often the best way to resolve a conflict is to make both sides create a single project together.Conflicts occur every day and the workplace is not the exception.

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Frankly speaking conflicts occupy more than 30% of the working time and it is obvious that this time can be used for the more useful purposes. The student is able to observe the problem on conflict management in the workplace on the definite example, which has been suggested by the professor. The student’s duty is to prepare a well-organized and smart piece of writing which contains the reliable information about the cause and effect of conflicts in the workplace and think about the solution of the problem with the help of the methods and techniques able to manage the conflict under research.When there is a problem related with the research of the definite case on the conflict in the selected institution, the student is able to look through a free example case study on conflict management in the workplace analyzed by the experienced and well-educated writer. One is able to see the right structure and format of the text following the tips and advice of a free sample case study on conflict management in the workplace written online.

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Does Counter-Terrorism Work?: a masterful and concise analysis

Richard english’s case studies yield deep insights into the flawed tactics of states in their efforts to eradicate terrorism.

The Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank last September: Pushing for total strategic victory over terrorism is a fool’s errand. Photograph: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP

In the wake of the West’s frantic, humiliating exit from Afghanistan in August 2021, the defence and security community lost interest in terrorism. The exhausting and costly War on Terror could finally be drawn to a close.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine six months later deepened the sense that the international environment was turning in a different direction, where large-scale, state-on-state conflict would become the norm. The shocking events on October 7th last year and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza serve as a reminder that terrorism’s place in world politics is not over yet. As Gerry Adams said of the Irish Republican Army in 1995, “They haven’t gone away, you know.”

Terrorism intends to produce a visceral reaction to violence, to achieve political goals through feelings of horror, fear and resignation. Calmly evaluating the effectiveness of terrorism and governmental responses to it is thus a demanding task, one which Richard English has set himself over several decades.

This new book is a counterpart to his earlier study, Does Terrorism Work? (2016), and provides a masterful, concise analysis of counter-terrorism by comparing the post-9/11 War on Terror, the modern Northern Ireland Troubles and Israeli practice towards Palestine. For those familiar with one of these cases, the contrasts with less-known events elsewhere will prove deeply instructive.

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The relative ease with which enemies can be damaged by arrests, assassinations and other means has frequently deluded policymakers about the chances of these small gains adding up to a meaningful political endpoint

While English presents a balanced assessment without resorting to frequent moralising, he is not afraid to describe terrorist atrocities as atrocious nor state security forces as brutal, mendacious or incompetent. Indeed, a stand-out feature of the book is the decision to home in on what counter-terrorists might consider the “inherent rewards” in their work, whether satisfaction from a job well done, or bitter vengeance wrought on an enemy without consideration for the long-term consequences.

Beyond the emotional rewards sometimes derived by those who fight terrorism, English deploys a three-part framework to assess whether counter-terrorism might be said to work in any given setting.

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Strategic victory is assured when a state achieves their primary goal against terrorists. Partial strategic victory means that central goal is reached to a certain extent, that secondary objectives are met instead or that the opponent is prevented from triumphing. Tactical success can involve undermining the enemy’s capabilities, gaining control over a population, achieving favourable publicity, securing temporary concessions from the opponent or strengthening one’s own organs of state. In practice, these forms of success can often be in tension with one another.

English addresses these different outcomes in a more historically minded way than is often the case in a field dominated by political science and psychology, disciplines concerned more with universal generalisations than context-specific nuance. Historians look at longer trajectories than time-pressed government employees can usually manage – one reason among many why this book is essential reading for those charged with safeguarding the state against terrorist threats.

The historical sensibility also draws out contingency over inevitability in ways which strengthen political accountability (who authorised what) and suggest alternative futures (past patterns need not determine the future).

After the September 11th attacks, no US president could have pursued a purely diplomatic path to neutralising al-Qaeda. America’s unmatched military power made that response as unlikely as did public outrage at the atrocities. George W Bush chose expansive aims for his war: “It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

In the view of South Africa, the punishment has reached the level of genocide and the International Court of Justice is investigating whether such a characterisation is accurate

English reminds us that the immediate measures taken to intervene in Afghanistan and overthrow al-Qaeda’s hosts, the Taliban, were remarkably successful. The real trouble came as the counter-terrorism mission morphed into something more ambitious, complex and contradictory: counter-insurgency, nation-building, a campaign against the opium trade, not to mention regional entanglements with Pakistan, India, Iran and other interested parties.

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Only after protracted suffering did American leaders seriously ponder whether a Taliban regime might be persuaded to refrain from hosting international terrorists again. English suggests this realisation might have come sooner with a deeper understanding of Afghanistan’s culture and history.

A short chapter on Iraq shows the interconnections between the two theatres in the War on Terror, notoriously during the 2003 run-up to the invasion in an imaginary rather than real sense. The Iraq War clearly made the terrorist threat to western interests worse while unleashing catastrophic civil war dynamics within the country. Success in degrading Islamic State (Isis) from 2017 might be considered a rather limited consolation for the damage wrought by those who chose to topple Saddam Hussein.

Why did western intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq endure for so long when the limited gains being made were evident at the time? Here English rightly links these far-flung missions to politics back home, where normal life went on. In the United States, jihadist terrorist violence killed 19 people between 9/11 and 2015. Those who sacrificed themselves overseas did so as volunteers in professional armed forces, not as conscripts. Consequently there would be no meaningful public backlash against the “forever wars” remotely akin to the protests against Vietnam.

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Domestic counter-terrorism most often worked. Major attacks like those in Madrid in 2004, London in 2005 and Paris in 2015 were fortunately rare. In the longer term though, the War on Terror came back to bite apathetic citizens. Armoured vehicles and other War on Terror relics sold by the Pentagon to police forces featured prominently in the policing of protests across the US after George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in 2020. Counter-terrorism can affect societies for far longer than expected.

Unlike these wars of choice, in Northern Ireland the British state had far less discretion over whether to give up and leave entirely. A persuasive case is made for the UK achieving partial strategic victory by reducing terrorist capacity, protecting the population to a substantial degree and maintaining order. There is no question that counter-terrorism tactics could be radically self-defeating – internment without trial, torture and the “shoot-to-kill” controversy over security forces shootings being only the most obvious examples.

English is firm, however, in his argument that over the longer term more refined, discriminating tactics played a part in undermining and containing the IRA, not defeating them – an important distinction. If both the British and republicans eventually recognised that the conflict was stuck in a stalemate position where only negotiation offered a way out, then informers, surveillance, arrests and the like contributed to that outcome.

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Northern Ireland conformed to the broader pattern whereby the state becomes better at containing and enduring terrorism over a long time. But the trend cannot obscure the lingering failures, as the revelations about state complicity in murders surrounding agent Stakeknife attest.

The book’s final case study, Israel-Palestine, raises the question of when counter-terrorism ceases to explain what states are doing in international conflicts. Is Israel trying to deal with terrorist organisations in the occupied Palestinian territories? The Israeli Defence Forces might instead be applying collective punishment against the Palestinian people as a whole, with little or no regard for individual participation in terrorism.

In the view of South Africa, the punishment has reached the level of genocide and the International Court of Justice is investigating whether such a characterisation is accurate. Even if South Africa’s position about Israel’s current conduct is accepted, there is value in finding out how decades of counter-terrorism brought us to this point. The historian’s longer perspective pays dividends here. The 1930s Arab Revolt, Jewish desperation for a safe national home after the Holocaust, and Israel’s founding amid mass Palestinian displacement (of more than 700,000 people) form the essential context for today’s events.

Both the terrorist threat and Israel’s counter-measures changed over the years. Though efficiently executed and certainly terrorising, airliner hijackings and other operations outside Israel were abandoned by Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation after 1974, recognising the harm done to Palestine’s cause in international opinion.

Historians look at longer trajectories than time-pressed government employees can usually manage – one reason why this book is essential reading for those charged with safeguarding the state against terrorist threats

Israel’s slow progress in bringing the PLO into political dialogue bred complacency about the impacts of occupation and settler expansion in Palestinian lands, contributing to the emergence from 1987 of Hamas, a skilful social provider as much as a terrorist group. The 1993 Oslo Accords on the two-state solution came into play alongside continuing repression, such as mass incarceration and assassinations (159 of the latter between 2000 and 2004, for example). Hamas’s suicide bombings proved much harder to prevent than its missile strikes. On the whole, the Israeli approach has resulted in tactical effectiveness coupled with strategic self-harm, a judgment likely to be vindicated by the current offensive in Gaza, and only possible with US support.

Together, the three conflicts suggest pushing for total strategic victory over terrorism is a fool’s errand. Even partial strategic success, as in Northern Ireland and to a lesser degree the War on Terror, can come at a heavy price after many long, miserable years. Tactical success is much more common. The relative ease with which enemies can be damaged by arrests, assassinations and other means has frequently deluded policymakers about the chances of these small gains adding up to a meaningful political endpoint.

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English is therefore rightly cautious in offering lessons for the future, stressing the need for realistic goals, containment over eradication and constant vigilance about terrorists’ desire to provoke governments into over-reactions. In the end, terrorists often do go away, when the state proves resilient enough to carry on, when the underlying social problems are addressed and when enough people sicken of violence. Does Counter-Terrorism Work? is an acute guide for all who want to understand why the misery inherent in terrorism often cannot be expunged as quickly as we should like.

Huw Bennett is author of Uncivil War: The British Army and the Troubles, 1966–1975 (Cambridge University Press)

Further reading

Terrorist minds: the psychology of violent extremism from al-qaeda to the far right by john horgan (columbia university press, 2024).

We might want to believe anyone who engages in terrorism is simply deranged. Unfortunately, the truth is more complicated. John Horgan has spent decades studying terrorism and interviewing terrorists. This book gives an accessible entry into the terrorist mindset, bringing in examples as diverse as West Germany’s Baader-Meinhof group of radical leftists, far-right conspiracy theorists and Isis.

Fighting Terror after Napoleon: How Europe Became Secure after 1815 by Beatrice de Graaf (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Terrorism is frequently treated as a contemporary problem and a very specific one. Delving back into the 19th century, de Graaf dissects the nature of political violence after the Napoleonic Wars and shows how European states co-operated to create a security order to stabilise the continent against major conflicts and violence from revolutionary movements.

A Woman’s Place: US Counterterrorism Since 9/11 by Joana Cook (Hurst, 2021)

How did women participate in and shape the War on Terror? Joana Cook provides the answers in a path-breaking book that smashes assumptions about militaries and terrorist groups as places where men always dominate. Both sides weaponised gender to gain tactical advantage, and women had to navigate and exploit the roles assigned to them.

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Why do women go through menopause? Scientists find fascinating clues in a study of whales.

The existence of menopause in humans has long been a biological conundrum, but scientists are getting a better understanding from a surprising source: whales.

Findings of a new study suggest menopause gives an evolutionary advantage to grandmother whales’ grandchildren. It's a unique insight because very few groups of animals experience menopause.

A paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature looked at a total of 32 whale species, five of which undergo menopause. The findings could offer clues about why humans, the only land-based animals that also goes through menopause, evolved the trait.

“They’ve done a great job of compiling all the evidence,” said Michael Gurven, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara who studies human evolution and societies. “This paper quite elegantly gets at these very difficult issues.”

Whales might seem very distant from humans, but they have important similarities. Both are mammals, both are long-lived, and both live in family and social groups that help each other.

How long does menopause last? Menopause questions and concerns, answered.

Studying these toothed whale species offers a way to think about human evolution, said Gurven, who was not involved in the study.

In five species of toothed whales – killer whales, beluga whales, narwhals, short-finned pilot whales and false killer whales – the researchers’ findings suggest menopause evolved so grandmothers could help their daughters' offspring, without competing with them for mates.

Only daughters' offspring are aided because in these whales, while the males stay with their family group, they mate with females in other groups. But mothers do tend to give more support to their male offspring than to their female offspring.

Post-reproductive-age females help their family group in many ways. Off the coast of Washington state and British Columbia in Canada, grandmother killer whales catch salmon and "break the fish in half and share that catch with their families. So they're actively feeding their families,” said Darren Croft, a professor of behavioral ecology at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and senior author on the paper.

The whale grandmothers also store ecological knowledge about when and where to find food in times of hardship by using the experience they have gained over the lifetime of their environments.

“We see just the same patterns in (human) hunter-gatherer societies,” Croft said. “In times of a drought or in during times of social conflict, the people would turn to the elders of that community. They would have the knowledge.”

The 'grandmother hypothesis'

The researchers’ findings support what’s known as “the grandmother hypothesis .” It states that menopause is evolutionarily useful because while older women are no longer able to have children, they can instead focus their efforts on supporting their children and grandchildren. This means their family lines are more likely to survive, which has the same effect as having more children.

“What we showed is that species with menopause have a much longer time spent to live with their grand offspring, giving them many more opportunities for intergenerational health due to their long life,” said Samuel Ellis, an expert in human social behavior at the University of Exeter and the paper’s first author.

The difference in humans, Gurven said, is that both grandmothers and grandfathers contribute to the well-being of their children and grandchildren.

“In the human story, I think it’s multigenerational cooperation on steroids,” he said.

Though the study doesn’t prove once and for all that the grandmother hypothesis is the reason for menopause in women, it does lay out the evidence, he said. “It’s part of the story, but no one would say it tells the whole story,” Gruven said.

Does menopause lead to a longer life in humans?

There are two proposed pathways for how menopause evolved in humans: the live-long hypothesis and the stop-early hypothesis.

The live-long hypothesis suggests menopause increased total life span, but not how long a woman could have children. That leads to a prediction that species with menopause would live longer but have the same reproductive life span as species without menopause.

In the stop-early hypothesis, the theory is that menopause evolved by shortening the reproductive life span while the total life span remained unchanged. For this to be true, it would be likely that similar species without menopause would have the same life span as those that have menopause, but a shorter reproductive life span.

In looking at species of toothed whales that don’t have menopause and five that do, the researchers' findings make the long-life hypothesis seem most likely.

“This comparative work we’ve been able to do shows that females minimize this competition over reproduction by not also lengthening their reproductive period. Instead, they've evolved a longer lifespan while keeping a shorter reproductive life span,” Croft said.

This appears to be exactly what humans did.

“One of the striking features of this work is the fact that we find this really incredible and rare life-history strategy that we see human societies and in the ocean, but not elsewhere in mammal societies,” he said.

Whale study doesn't reflect men's life spans

The similarities with humans are not across the board, which is good news for men.

No one knows why in humans only females undergo menopause even though both sexes live to be approximately the same ages.

That’s not the case in some of these whales species, where male life spans are typically much shorter than those of females.

“In the killer whale population, for example, females regularly live into their 60s and 70s," Croft said. "The males are all dead by 40.”