Why Leaders do not Talk about Workplace Conflicts

Recently, I spoke to a very senior HR person of an American Company.

And I was shocked.

He told me that his team spends almost 50% of their time resolving conflicts in the workplace.

Invariably for most of the conflicts HR has to facilitate the resolution.

This does not include the conflicts that Line Managers solve independently: sales quota allocation issue, territory issues, etc.

As per a study published in the Times of India, managers spend almost 40% of their time solving workplace-related conflicts.

According to another report by the American Management Society, managers spend almost 25% of their time solving conflicts.

What is baffling to me is that most of the Business Leaders in India do not talk about it openly.

Even HR folks do not talk about much.

When there is an overdrive to increase productivity, why is such an issue not discussed?

In fact, until recently, I could not fathom the depth of the problem.

I spent more than twenty-five years in large matrixed organizations.

I have seen how employees get frustrated every day with the underlying conflicts between different departments.

The sales team fights with Pre-sales and Delivery, Legal, and Finance all the time.

Then, there are conflicts between other teams, Sales and Marketing, Manager and team, etc.

Most of the time, the manager's job was to influence, coerce, plead and use all possible tactics to create a common ground.

It seems there were no shared objectives, and everybody was driving their own objectives.

Some of the conflicts were very deep-rooted and systemic.

I am sure people at leadership knew about the issues, but they are conspicuously silent.

I remember, in one open house with the CEO, the entire Sales ganged up against the Operation, Delivery, Finance, and Legal team.

They were raising a flurry of issues.

The CEO wanted someone from the sales team to volunteer to collate all conflicts and issues raised by the sales team so that a task force could be formed and solve them.

I volunteered for the same.

I wanted to help the sales team debottlenecking some of the stubborn issues they face every day.

I spoke to many salespeople, spent a week, and came out with a complete compilation of issues only to realize later that it was going to the archival of the mailbox.

So, that is the commitment of a Senior Leaders at times to look at the systemic issues of the organization.

Can not only blame them, because of the day they will be measured on the quarter number, not on how many people or system issues he solved.

How many times have you had to let go of some deals because you could not convince your internal stakeholders like the finance and legal departments on certain clauses of customer contracts?

I am not advocating that Salesmen should go overboard, pick up junk deals, and put the organizations at high risks.

I am only saying that the single-handed onus of negotiating a good contract lies with the Sales guys, whereas most of the companies have a battery of Lawyers and CAs.

I sometimes thought that the very idea of frictionless organization is an esoteric one, and senior management might think they have other real things to do.

Maybe they think solving conflicts can lead to higher workplace happiness, greater employee satisfaction. Still, those factors may not pay in an immediate hard currency like increased Sales or Bottom-line.

It is difficult to agree on this argument because happier workplaces and higher employee satisfaction are not only soft currencies; they bring real business values like increased productivity and greater commitment.

So, I thought, let me ask people, so I conducted a survey and asked people, “If workplace conflicts are real, why do Business Leaders not talk about them so openly?”

And to my surprise, 71% thought that leaders do not know how to solve this internally.

21% of people thought that effort required to solve the problem might be far higher than the benefit accrued out of such an exercise.

In short, there may not be enough benefit in solving the problem.

4% of people voted that Senior Management does not think that the issue is so serious.

Rest 4% of people felt that neither internal resources nor qualified external professionals could help them solve the problem.

Coming back, even if we leave the more noble causes like employee satisfaction or happier workplaces, the very fact that there is a colossal productivity loss because of organizational conflicts that itself should drive the change.

And the first bold step would be to bring them to the fore, acknowledge them, and be ready to talk about it.