How to Resolve Conflict in Organizations

The Power of People Models and Procedure

Annamaria Garden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351206099
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Corporate Governance
• Index: Business

This is a comprehensive guide using People Models to understand and resolve conflict at different levels of the organization. It starts at the inter-organizational level explaining conflict between organizations that are involved in mergers and acquisitions. It looks at this kind of conflict not from the point of view of a business and economic rationale but from the point of view of there being a relationship between the two organizations. Here, this relationship is described by a People Model which outlines three different relationship types. In the subsequent chapters we look at the organizational level; first at structural conflict and then at team conflict. In each chapter there is a People Model to explain and resolve conflict. Structural conflict is explained by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and team conflict is explained by the Schutz model of Inclusion, Control and Openness. In the next chapter the conflict is explained in terms of Gestalt psychology and looks at interpersonal conflict. Carl Jung is then used to explore inner conflict; followed by a chapter on life conflict exploring conflict in terms of how you live a life. The final chapter is focused on the applications of the People Models analysing Donald Trump and Tony Blair.

Following through the entire book is a step-by-step procedure called a People Procedure, which is contrasted with a Business Procedure. The former guides you through a process to unravel and resolve conflict.

1People Models and People Procedure

Getting the angels to win

Freud was famous for approaching social conflict as an expression of forces “deeply ingrained within the individual. So deeply ingrained are they that it is common to refer to them as basic instincts. For Freud, human conflict fed on the innate aggressive drive lying within us all” (Schellenberg, 1996, p. 42). Pinker (2015) describes and rejects the same phenomenon as the Hydraulic Theory of Violence: that humans “harbour an inner drive toward aggression … which builds up inside us and must periodically be discharged” (p. 373).

Pinker also describes the fact that, in his view, humans get the better of this Hydraulic Theory in practice. He describes five inner demons that lead to conflict and four better angels that rescue us from it. Pinker explains the demons’ psychological systems that differ in their triggers: one is predatory or instrumental violence

deployed as a practical means to an end. Dominance is the urge for authority, prestige, glory, and power.… Revenge fuels the moralistic urge toward retribution.… Sadism is pleasure taken in another’s suffering. And ideology is a shared belief system … that justifies unlimited violence in pursuit of unlimited good.

(Pinker, 2015 p. 373)

However, there are also four better angels. “Humans … come equipped with motives that can orient them away from [aggression] and toward cooperation and altruism. Empathy … a moral sense … the faculty of reason” (Pinker, 2015, p. 373). In addition, humans have evolved to become less violent or aggressive. In other words, the angels win.

In this book, instead of these four angels, the same intent that propels forces for good to exist we will find as we follow the People Procedure and People Models that resolve conflict. The demons and angels here are quite different from Pinker’s but help us get to the same place: the angels win.

Key points in this chapter

Key points in this chapter are illustrated in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1Key points in this chapter

•Getting the angels to win

•Key points in this chapter

•Business language and people language

•People Models

•Conflict

•Other models of conflict resolution

•Not fitting the traditional mould

•People Procedure

•Stopping the Department working on Sunday

•The six different People Models

•Values

•Conclusion

•Exercises

Business language and people language

The approach to conflict that I take in this book is based on personal experience. It posits a clear distinction between business thinking and people thinking. The former I learnt on my MBA at Cranfield School of Management, UK, and is what I call my ‘business language’. Prior to the MBA, I was an economist working in the Treasury in New Zealand and in the UK. However, I turned from that largely because I didn’t believe in it, especially the assumption of economic rationality. At Cranfield, I was looking to switch careers. There, I discovered Organizational Behaviour which was the subject I most wanted to read about and spend time on. Once I had figured this, I proceeded to switch careers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) doing my PhD in Organizational Studies. People thinking and people language came on my PhD where I was trained in what I call People Models as well as consulting by Professor Ed Schein, Professor Dick Beckhard, Professor Ed Nevis and Professor Lotte Bailyn. The PhD language won and, in this book, I contrast the two languages with an eye to the People Models winning the contest. Table 1.2 illustrates.

Table 1.2Demons and angels in this book

Demons		Angels
•Business focus exclusively or primarily •Focus on power, resources, size to justify differential behaviour •Try to trick the other person/organization •‘Get the better of’ the other person •Act even if you don’t understand events		•Focus on people and relationships •Honourable behaviour and solution; an assumption of equality •Confrontation and directness between people •Understand the other person •Psychological intelligence for what is going on; comprehension of events

People Models

Conflict exists everywhere in organizations; from interpersonal dynamics to massive disagreements between organizations. I use People Models to look at conflict because people are usually standing out in the middle of it. There is no one right way to understand or to resolve it. Because of this, this book describes six ways (or People Models) not one way. One of these models might work for you or your organization and the others might not. Or, all might work.

Organizations are full of human beings functioning as human beings not business machines, so we need theories and models that are based on this fact not models that are technical or business-like. To understand conflict we need to understand why people do things. We need also frameworks that can assess conflict at an interpersonal level, as well as for a team, a Division or even the whole organization. These different levels are what this book is about.

Reasons to read this book:

•It helps me deal with people issues.

•It helps me understand the organization, team or individual.

•It is constructive.

•It is hands-on rather than being analytical.

•It gives me six People Models – tools I can apply.

•It gives me examples of applying the People Models.

•It gives me a People Procedure – another tool.

•It is psychological, but doesn’t require navel-gazing.

Conflict

Conflict exists when there is some argument, or disagreement between interested parties. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a serious disagreement or argument, typically a protracted one”. It is noise in the system that we do not want. It is a difference that creates tension, not simply a difference per se. Conflict would arise only when there is an issue around positions; where there is some emotion or affect, some angst. It arises also when there is the need for a united front or view and this does not exist. Resolution means that the parties agree to proceed down a particular path. There needn’t be 100 per cent agreeme...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of checklists
• List of commentaries
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 People Models and People Procedure
• 2 Relationships between organizations
• 3 Conflict within organizations – structure
• 4 Conflict within organizations – teams
• 5 Interpersonal conflict
• 6 Inner conflicts
• 7 Life conflicts – individual
• 8 Applying the People Models
• Index