Every year conflict within teams cost companies thousands of pounds. Supervisors can spend up to 25% of their valuable time involved in conflict situations which affect both staff morale and turnover. Needless to say if morale is low the staff engagement will suffer. This is when going to work becomes a dead end job and worse still if conflict escalates staff are likely to phone in sick in order to avoid the conflict situation.

As we know effective communication is one of the most important skills any manager can possess in order to manage a team efficiently and create staff engagement providing a happy and stable working environment. The communication of course has to be both verbal and non verbal; if the two are not conveying the same message then what will the staff perceptions be? Considering that words represent 7% communication, it is worth noting that Tone of Voice represents 38% and body language 55% of communication. So sometime it is not what we say but how we say it.

Conflict can arise through many areas of mis communication, especially if a team is culturally diverse. Different countries have different rules of etiquette and values can differ. So, if we look at staff not trained in the art of successful and effective communication, staff with different cultural backgrounds, staff with different agendas and perceived favouritism as staff who always deliver tend to be favoured by management we already have a lot of areas which can create potential conflict within a team.

Of course one of the biggest areas of conflict is through different behaviours. When we think that every individual has a primary behaviour and secondary behaviour it is worth understanding how different behaviours can affect each other and be perceived by someone of an opposite behaviour. In terms of behavioural profiling there are four main types of behavior known as the Dominant, Influential, Steady and Compliant. The Dominant and the influential both in the upper quadrant tend to be past faced people. Dominant behaviours characteristically are action takers and results driven. The influentials are very charismatic and can be risk takers. In the lower quadrant the compliants that are slow paced are analytical and process driven with the steadiness characteristic being a moderate pace and very people focussed and good relationship builders. So for example, a person whose primary behaviour is a compliant, could consider a person who is high in the influential behaviour to be reckless, and the influential person perceive the compliant behaviour to be mundane, and hence the opportunity for conflict can arise.

So how would your organisation fair if a conflict situation arose? Would your management know the different stages in conflict, know how and when to recognise the warning signs, understand the difference in hidden and open conflict and know how to manage it effectively? Would they know how to manage and adapt their own behaviours accordingly?

For any organisation whose staff are trained in conflict management, who have undergone behavioural change work and trained in the art of effective communication costs can be significantly reduced and profitability enhanced.