Editorial

Citation

Peters, J. (1999), "Editorial", Team Performance Management, Vol. 5 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/tpm.1999.13505caa.001

Editorial

Conflict in group work

An organization is not an assembly of saints. Conflict of view and opinion is inevitable at times, and the quality of an organization is related to how individuals and teams address conflict, resolving it when this is possible, but also living with it when it can't be resolved. Much has been written about the stages that are quite normal in collaboration and groupwork. For example, it is common for groups to progress through stages of "forming, storming, norming, and conforming" ­ not necessarily in one particular order! The following suggestions may help to minimise the dangers associated with conflict in your organization, and to maximise the benefits that can be drawn from people who sometimes disagree.

1. 1.

   Legitimise conflict. It is important to acknowledge that people don't have to agree all of the time, and to open up agreed processes by which areas of disagreement can be explored and resolved (or be agreed to remain areas of disagreement).

2. 2.

   Distinguish between collaboration and co-operation. Collaboration can be difficult in circumstances where conflict is in the air, but co-operation can still be quite manageable.

3. 3.

   Establish the causes of conflict. When conflict has broken out in a group, it is easy for the root causes to become subsumed by an escalation of feeling. It can be productive to backtrack to the exact instance which initiated the conflict, and to analyse it further.

4. 4.

   Encourage groups to put the conflict into written words. Writing up the issues, problems, or areas of disagreement on a flipchart or marker-board can help to get them out of people's systems. Conflict feelings are often much stronger when the conflict is still bottled up, and has not yet been clearly expressed or acknowledged. When something is "up on the wall", it often looks less daunting, and a person who felt strongly about it may be more satisfied. The "one the wall" issues can be returned to later when the group has had more time to think about them, or more wisdom about how best to tackle them.

5. 5.

   Establish the ownership of the conflict. Who feels it? Whom is being affected by it? Distinguish between individual issues, and ones that affect the whole group.

6. 6.

   Distinguish between people, actions, and principles. When unpacking the causes of conflict in a group situation, it is useful to focus on actions and principles. Try to resolve any actions which proved to cause conflict. Try to agree principles. If the conflict is caused by different opinions, it can help to accept people's entitlement to their opinions, and leave it open to people to reconsider their opinions if and when they feel ready to do so.

7. 7.

   Encourage a climate of unconditional positive regard. This is easier to say than to do! However, if people try to maintain a healthy respect for each other as people, it is safer to explore deeply the differences of view that they may hold, and also safer to acknowledge differences that will not be bridged.

8. 8.

   Use conflict creatively. It can be useful to use brainstorming to obtain a wider range of views, or a broader range of possible actions that can be considered by the group. Sometimes, the one or two strong views which may have caused conflict in a group look much more reasonable when the full range of possibilities is aired, and areas of agreement are found to be more abundant than they seemed to be.

9. 9.

   Capture the learning from conflict. When conflict has occurred, it can be beneficial to ask everyone to decide constructive things they have learned about themselves from the conflict, and to agree on principles which the whole group can apply to future activities to minimise the damage from similar causes of conflict arising again.

10. 10.

    Refuse to allow conflict to destroy group work. You may wish sometimes to tell groups that achievement of consensus is an aim, or a norm, or alternatively you may wish to ask groups to establish only the extent of the consensus they achieve.

11. 11.

    Consider arbitration processes. When conflict is absolutely unresolvable, the facilitator may need to set up a "court of appeal" for desperate situations. The fact that such a process is available often helps groups to sort out their own problems without having to resort to it.

12. 12.

    Make it OK to escape. When people know that they can get out of an impossible situation, they don't feel trapped, and in fact are more likely to work their own way out of the conflict. It can be useful to allow people to drop out of a group, and move into another one, but only as a last resort. Beware of the possible effects of someone who is seen as a conflict generator entering a group which has so far worked without conflict.

John PetersActing EditorE-mail: jpeters@mcb.co.uk

Adapted from the forthcoming book, 500 Tips for the Learning Organization, by Abby Day, John Peters and Phil Race, Kogan Page, 1999.