Occasionally I get asked whether I do “conflict resolution” as part of my consulting work. This is a difficult question to answer since conflict is complicated and cannot be treated with any sort of generic program or response. To deal with organizational conflict, it is first important to understand the source of the conflict. The strategy for reducing conflict needs to address the fundamental causes of conflict.

The first thing to recognize is that conflict in itself is not bad. In fact, one could argue that it is essential and desirable to keep an organization from stagnating. Two of my favorite quotes on the subject are:

“If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.”

Lyndon Johnson

“When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.”

William Wrigley

Conflict can either be positive or negative. Positive conflict allows for creativity in solving organizational issues, creates energy, and builds team cohesiveness. Negative conflict is destructive, destroys relationships, and breaks down communication.

One source of conflict is difference in communications styles and preferences between two individuals or within a team. For example, one person may be loud and direct in his communication. He will have a natural conflict in communication styles with people who are soft spoken and non demonstrative. Likewise someone who likes to make decisions based on facts, data, and analysis will be frustrated in communication with a person who is not detail oriented and tends to make decisions based on emotions.

The strategy for overcoming conflict due to communication styles and preferences is to help each person understand his or her style and how the style is perceived by others. People can also be taught how to recognize the style of other people and how to adapt their style for better communication and influence with other people.

Another source of conflict among people is their value structure. To illustrate how this can cause conflict, if your work group, team, or company was just given one million dollars to spend and we polled each person individually how they would spend it, the answer would depend on values. Some may want to give it to employees. Others may want to invest in new equipment and may even want to give it to charity. Each person would look at this decision through the lens of their own value structure.

The strategy for overcoming values conflict is similar to dealing with communication style conflicts. It involves helping people to understand their own values hierarchy and how it impacts the way they see the world. They then can also develop appreciation for the values hierarchy of other people and be in a better position to act in a positive way towards others.

A third source of conflict is caused by incongruent goals. Incongruent goals often occur because there has not been agreement from top to bottom in an organization on the key goals for the organization. Also, many of the conflicts are not over the overall objectives, but rather the details of accomplishing the objective.

Our minister told a story recently about a previous church that he had served. It was a small church and they really wanted an organ. The entire congregation was in support of getting an organ and everyone pitched in through their own finances and helping with fund raisers to get the money necessary to buy the organ. Finally, they raised enough money and bought the organ. The problems began when there was a big debate over where to place it in the sanctuary. People lost sight of the original goal.

The strategy for dealing with goal incongruence is to regularly review and communicate the top level goals of the organization. If conflict over goals occurs, then find the highest common denominator – that is the highest level goal that everyone can agree on – and then work from there. There should be direct linkage between individual and functional goals to the overall goals of the organization.

The next time there is conflict within your team ask yourself, “Is it styles, is it values, or is it goals?”. Then apply the appropriate strategy to resolve.