DESIGNING CONFLICT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Have you ever wondered whether there is a better way to resolve disputes in your organisation? Have you ever complained that the costs of disputes in the workplace in terms of legal action, management downtime trying to deal with lawyers, costs attributed to lack of morale and any other direct or indirect costs of industrial action? Well Gells is considering the implementation of a new service for its clientele. This new service is called Conflict ManagementResolution System Design. This new service essentially helps businesses deal with organisational conflict. Organisational conflict can show up in your business in several ways, including:- Disputes: inc, grievances, disciplinary actions, complaints, lawsuits, strikes, threatened legal action, and disagreements. Competition: competition may be healthy, but in some circumstances conflict may be generated by uncontrolled, aggressive competition between or among work units or colleagues within the company itself. Sabotage: may be seen as both internal and external conflict (eg, upset customers). May arise when there is a turf battle between divisions and when innuendos about managerial competence and integrity begin to surface and spread. Inefficiency / Lack of Productivity: Slow work, deliberate delay, or decreased output can be evidence of conflict. Low Morale: Similar to inefficiency or lack of productivity, low morale is often a reaction to hidden conflict – often it is the result of attempting to avoid or deny conflict or an effect of frustration. Withholding Knowledge: Within many organisations, knowledge is power and withholding information is practiced as a form of control. Such behaviour is often a sign of distrust, status hierarchies, and an information caste system. In today’s environment the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") is becoming the innovative means of resolving disputes and such ADR processes can be effectively used in conflict management systems. There are many reasons why there seems to be a change towards the use of ADR in the resolution of disputes, including increasing dissatisfaction with the litigation system (ie, using courts to resolve disputes); eg, overloaded court dockets, increasing costs associated to litigation, lack of satisfaction with results of litigation, societal backlash against lawyers, lawsuits and legal costs, desire to empower disputants to participate more in resolving their own disputes, increasing interest in more flexible forms of dispute resolution and a greater interest placed upon confidentiality and avoidance of publicity. The main types of ADR processes which can be used to manage or resolve conflict in a systems based design for your business, include:- Preventative Methods: including ADR clauses, partnering, consensus building, negotiated rule making, joint problem solving – used to attempt to preempt disputes, where dispute mechanisms are decided in advance by the parties in order to govern how any disagreement or conflict will be handled. Negotiated Methods: inc, principled (interest-based, mutual gain, win-win), positional (power based, win-lose) and problem solving (agreeing on the issues to be resolved and setting up an agenda for resolving those issues usually using principled methods) The disputants reach their own resolution, unaided by a third-party neutral or decision maker. Facilitated Methods: Where a third party neutral assists the disputants to reach a satisfactory resolution. The neutral merely help the parties and has no authority to impose a decision or result. Fact-finding Methods: Where a third party is used to make findings of fact regarding technical issues. Advisory Methods: Where a third party neutral reviews certain aspects of the dispute and renders an advisory opinion as to the likely outcome; ie, outcome-prediction mediation, mini-trials, summary jury trials and non-binding arbitration. Imposed Methods: Where a third party neutral makes a binding decision regarding the merits of a dispute The most important question for an organisation thinking about getting a such a system set up in their business, is whether it will be cost effective, and how such effectiveness can be measured. Essentially conflict management is measured by looking at the dispute resolution efforts, the durability of resolutions and the impact on relationships within an organisation. It can be measured both quantatively and qualitatively. The bottom line is that dispute resolution may have been successful according to traditional organisational definition (ie; the dispute "just went away") but was the resolution an effective one? Did it actually deal with the underlying conflict? Did it address the real problem or did it just mask a symptom of even greater conflict brewing?  Tim Hudson timh@gells.com.au

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