What are the Effects of Conflict?

Positive effects of conflict

Stimulating Change

Conflict acts as a catalyst for change in organisations. It brings attention to problems and
highlights the need for change.

Inspire Creativity to Solve Problems

Some organization members view conflict as an opportunity for finding creative solutions to
solve problems. Conflict can inspire members to brainstorm ideas, while examining problems
from various perspectives.

Share and Respect Opinions

As organization members work together to solve conflict, they are more willing to share their
opinions with the group. Conflict can also cause members to actively listen to each as they
work to accomplish the organizations’ goals.

Improve Future Communication

Conflict can bring group members together and help them learn more about each other. From
learning each others’ opinions on topics relevant to the organization’s growth to understanding
each member’s preferred communication style, conflict within an organization can give
members the tools necessary to easily solve conflicts in the future.

Negative effects of conflict

Mental Health Concerns

Conflict within an organization can cause members to become frustrated if they feel as if
there’s no solution in sight, or if they feel that their opinions go unrecognized by other group
members. As a result, members become stressed, which adversely affects their professional
and personal lives.

Decrease in Productivity

When an organization spends much of its time dealing with conflict, members take time away
from focusing on the core goals they are tasked with achieving. Conflict causes members to
focus less on the project at hand and more on gossiping about conflict or venting about
frustration. As a result, organizations can lose money, donors and access to essential resources.
Employee Turnover Impacts

Organization members who are increasingly frustrated with the level of conflict within an
organization may decide to end their membership. This is especially detrimental when
members are a part of the executive board or heads of committees. Once members begin to
leave, the organization has to recruit new members and appoint acting board members.
Organizations have to bear extra cost on recruiting and training of replacement employees when
there is high turnover due to conflicts. Similarly, where several members leave or an executive
board steps down, organizations risk dissolution.

Conflict Escalation and Violence

When conflict escalates without mediation, intense situations may arise between organization
members. It’s unfortunate, but organizational conflicts may cause violence among members,
resulting in legal problems for members and possibly the organization.

What is Conflict Management?

Conflict Management is the use of processes, tools, and skills to find creative and respectful
ways to manage disagreements and disputes. It includes the ability to resolve conflict
collaboratively through effective communication skills, such as active listening and assertive
speaking. Successful leaders recognize the importance of these skills and the impact they have
on their organization's health and productivity. They also know that the lack of these skills can
lead to poor morale, decreased productivity, and low retention rates among employees. The cost
of developing conflict competent employees is a fraction of the cost of unresolved conflict.

What are the Conflict Management Strategies?

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model highlights five conflict resolution strategies: avoiding,

 High assertiveness and high cooperativeness: Collaboration

1. Accommodating

This style is about simply putting the other parties’ needs before one’s own. You allow them to
‘win’ and get their way.

Accommodation is for situations where you don’t care as strongly about the issue as the other
person, if prolonging the conflict is not worth your time, or if you think you might be wrong.
This option is about keeping the peace, not putting in more effort than the issue is worth, and
knowing when to pick battles. Using this strategy, small disagreements can be handled quickly
and easily, with a minimum of effort. Managers might be viewed as weak if they accommodate
too often. Using this technique with larger or more important issues will not solve any issues in a
meaningful way and should absolutely be avoided.

2. Avoiding

This style aims to reduce conflict by ignoring it, removing the conflicted parties, or evading it in
some manner. Team members in conflict can be removed from the project they are in conflict
over, deadlines are pushed, or people are even reassigned to other departments. Giving people
time to calm down can solve a surprising amount of issues. Sometimes pushing back conflict
indefinitely can and will lead to more (and bigger) conflicts down the line.

3. Compromising
 Compromising aims to find a middle ground where both parties make concessions to reach a
mutually acceptable solution. This style is sometimes known as lose-lose, in that both parties will
have to give up a few things in order to agree on the larger issue. This is used when there is a
time crunch, or when a solution simply needs to happen, rather than be perfect. Similarly it is
useful when maintaining the relationship is important, and neither party’s concerns can be fully
addressed without some level of sacrifice. Using this strategy, issues can be resolved quickly.
Compromise can set the stage for collaboration down the road. Cons of the strategy are that no
one leaves completely happy. In some cases, one side might feel as though they sacrificed too
much, and be unwilling to compromise again in the future.

4. Collaborating

This style produces the best long-term results, at the same time it is often the most difficult and
time-consuming to reach.

Each party’s needs and wants are considered, and a win-win solution is found so that everyone
leaves satisfied. This often involves all parties sitting down together, talking through the conflict
and negotiating a solution together.

This strategy leaves everyone happy. However this style of conflict management is time-
consuming. Deadlines or production may have to be delayed while solutions are found.

5. Competing

This style rejects compromise and involves not giving in to others viewpoints or wants.

One party stands firm in what they think is the correct handling of a situation, and does not back
down until they get their way.

Managers using this style show that they are strong and will not back down on their principles.
Disputes are solved quickly, as there is no space for any disagreement or discussion.

Managers using this style will be seen as unreasonable and authoritarian. Handling conflicts by
crushing any dissent will not lead to happy, productive employees, nor will it lead to finding the
best solutions in most cases.