Functional and Dysfunctional Conflict

Functional conflict can benefit your organization. When maintained at an ongoing minimal level, functional conflict results in innovation, teamwork and cooperation.

Dysfunctional conflict can hurt your organization. When managed effectively, however, the detrimental effects can actually be turned around and get your organization back on track.

Dysfunctional conflict results from many different factors. They may be interpersonal conflicts based on emotion. They may be interdepartmental conflicts based on competition for limited resources. They may be structural conflicts based on needs for recognition. Whatever the source, dysfunctional conflict must be detected and resolved in its earliest stages.

As a manager, your immediate response to dysfunctional conflict and your correct approach to addressing it will deliver positive results for your company. Let’s look at five different methods that you might implement for successful conflict management.

First, be competitive when you know you’re right. At times you may have to impose your opinion when unpopular programs or enforced discipline are necessary for the company’s benefit. Remember also, some of your colleagues may take advantage of noncompetitive behavior and could end up taking the floor while you remain in your chair.

Second, be collaborative when both sides have concerns that are too important to be compromised. Listen to insights from people with perspectives that differ from your own and synthesize them. Work towards building a consensus and getting commitment from all parties involved.

Third, be evasive when issues are trivial or when you are pressed with more important issues. Your hesitation may allow others to cool down and the conflict may resolve on its own. You also allow yourself the luxury of more time to gather information when contemplation supersedes the need for an immediate decision.

Fourth, be accommodating when you are wrong. Allow those with better ideas to take the floor, and demonstrate how diplomatic and reasonable you are. When issues are more important to others than they are to you, give leeway. Allowing others to benefit from your accommodation builds credit that you can use later on. Conceding to others with better opinions also helps to develop your subordinates, who learn from your occasional mistakes.

Finally, be compromising when goals are important, but the collaborative effort may be disruptive. Compromise for temporary settlements and as a backup when competition or collaboration have been unsuccessful.

As a manager, knowing how to choose the best method to manage dysfunctional conflict makes you one of your company’s most valuable assets.

Three Ways to Understand Conflict

The role of conflict and its effects on organizations is open to different points of view. Let’s look at three of them.

First, the traditional view argues that conflict is always bad and should be avoided. The presence of conflict indicates an imperfect social structure and this impedes cooperation. Conflict management under this point of view simply means correcting or removing conflict behaviors to improve group performance.

Second, the human relations view suggests that conflict is an inevitable occurrence in all groups and organizations and, consequently, must be accepted. This positive understanding of conflict even suggests that it might be used to foster innovation and adaptability. When properly managed, conflict may even benefit a group’s performance.

The most recent research into conflict and organizational behavior has produced a third perspective called the interactionist view. This states that a harmonious, peaceful and cooperative group is prone to becoming static, apathetic and nonresponsive in the absence of conflict. In other words, the interactionists encourage conflict.

Not all conflict, of course. They differentiate between functional and dysfunctional conflict by observing what supports or hinders group performance. The upshot, however, is that the interactionist approach encourages group leaders to maintain an ongoing minimal level of functional conflict. Just what that conflict should be, however, is difficult to determine. What works today might not work tomorrow. What works for one group might not work for another. The benchmark, in any case, is how to what extent the functional conflict improves group performance.

Interactionists argue that functional conflict is good for an organization because it provides higher quality decision making due to differences in opinion. It establishes the foundation for innovation and teamwork. Successful conflict resolution paves the way for future cooperation. Some interactionists go as far as to say that conflict is the basis for a company’s existence. Research shows that long-lasting companies are those with institutionalized conflict and diversity in their structure.

The most current thinking in organizational behavior does not see conflict and cooperation as opposites. They are only opposites in the traditional view, where conflict is demonized. When applied judiciously for the benefit of group performance, however, conflict and cooperation become two opposite sides of the same Oreo cookie.

At the Heart: Conflict Resolution

Some time ago, I lived on the corner of a blind intersection in Alexandria, Egypt. Cars collided below my kitchen window once a week, and the ensuing drama consistently repeated itself:

The drivers would jump out of their cars, and without even inspecting the damage, begin shouting into each others faces loud enough to draw a crowd. Once a large enough crowd had assembled, the drivers would raise their fists at each other and start swinging.

At that precise point, the crowd would pull them apart to prevent the fight. The drivers would shout and curse at each other from opposite sides for another five minutes, then jump back into their cars and drive off.

The crowd would go on their way.

The end.

I asked an Egyptian colleague about this behavior. Why bother with all the commotion if nothing is ever resolved?

“Ah, but it is resolved,” she told me. “With all of the shouting, they have released the anger from their hearts.”

Now, here’s something for you to think about. Does unresolved conflict exist in your business? Do interpersonal conflicts prevent teamwork? Do interdepartmental conflicts impede operations? Do management-level conflicts delay your progress?

If so, it’s okay. As much as we’d like to think that conflict is dysfunctional, it’s actually the normal state of corporate affairs. It becomes dangerous, however, when left unacknowledged and, therefore, unresolved.

Unresolved conflict works at the heart of your business. As those in conflict brood, it worsens. Rumors start; relationships deteriorate. Motivational levels plummet. Workers spend more time discussing each other than they spend discussing their work. That’s why it’s critical for your management to be in tune and consistently on the lookout for unresolved conflict.

As soon as you spot it, deal with it. Get it out in the open immediately. I don’t recommend the shout-and-swing-driver method. However, I do recommend reasonable, honest, diplomatic, collaborative conflict management and resolution.

That’s how you keep your company's heart beating.

Conflict Resolution Builds Relationships

I want to introduce you to a married couple I know. For obvious reasons, I’ll just call them Sam and Mary.

Sam and Mary, it seems, are in a perpetual state of disagreement. Sam goes on the offensive and criticizes Mary’s shopping habits. Mary, in turn defends why she needs to spend so much. Mary scolds Sam because he hasn’t been pitching in to help with the housecleaning. Sam counters by saying if it wasn’t for his work, they wouldn’t have a house to clean. Whenever an argument comes up, they go back and forth at each other increasing in volume until one or the other stops – and then it all settles down. Until next time.

Spending time with Sam and Mary makes me wonder how they’ve lasted for the six years I’ve known them. And what’s even more surprising is (are you ready for this?) they’ve been married for 45 years.

How do they do it? They consent to conflict. “No point trying to avoid it,” Sam tells me. “We bring it on, we deal with it, we kiss and make up. We’re experts in conflict resolution.”

In other words, the quality of their relationship is not measured by the amount of conflict they face, but by their extraordinary ability to resolve it.

Sam and Mary experience interpersonal conflict, which can have a number of different causes in a relationship. In business, you can experience conflict at four different levels. Interpersonal conflict, of course, is common, which is why we have staff meetings and teambuilding programs.

On a second level, you might experience intrapersonal conflict, or coming into conflict with yourself. This will occur most frequently when you are faced with an important business decision for which you may have to weigh out the pros and cons.

A third level is structural conflict, where status, roles and competition come into play. Structural conflict can happen between individuals, between departments (think of marketing and engineering), between companies and even between nations.

The last level is strategic conflict. Unlike the other three, which develop naturally out of emotions, values or needs, strategic conflict is purposely initiated to achieve a goal. One company I know of, for example, implemented a company-wide competition (a form of conflict) to see which team could identify the highest number of potential safety hazards in their plant.

Whatever the type or whatever its source in your business, conflict is a natural state of affairs. Your ability to step into it and resolve it productively and consistently helps ensure the quality of your business relationships.