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The Reason Your Dispute Management Training Keeps Failing: A Unvarnished Truth
Your Dispute Management Myth That's Ruining Your Organization: The Reason "Collaborative" Approaches Frequently Cause Greater Issues Than They Resolve
I'm going to question one of the most sacred cows in contemporary conflict resolution training: the concept that all business dispute can and should be fixed through "mutually beneficial" approaches.
That thinking seems sophisticated and humane, but following nearly two decades of training in dispute management, I can tell you it's usually complete nonsense that generates worse problems than it resolves.
This is the basic flaw with the "mutual benefit" fixation: it believes that all conflicts involve communication problems or opposing needs that can be somehow aligned if individuals just dialogue enough.
In actual practice, many workplace disagreements involve real, fundamental differences in values, valid competition for limited positions, or circumstances where someone genuinely needs to succeed and another party has to lose.
We worked with a significant advertising agency where the design group and the account management group were in ongoing conflict about client work direction.
Design people insisted on to develop innovative, impressive work that would build their creative standing. Account management people needed work that would please risk-averse clients and maintain ongoing client relationships.
Either sides had entirely reasonable priorities. Either perspectives were important for the firm's growth.
Executives consulted a series of conflict resolution specialists who spent weeks leading "joint problem-solving" sessions.
Such meetings generated elaborate "mutually beneficial" strategies that appeared sophisticated on in theory but were completely unworkable in actual implementation.
For example, they developed approaches where all campaign would theoretically combine "creative quality" with "client acceptance." The consultants established detailed assessment standards and approval committees designed to guarantee that all parties' priorities were addressed.
Their consequence: project approval timelines that required much extended periods than previously, artistic work that was watered down to the degree of being bland, and customers who were frustrated by unclear direction about project direction.
All teams were even more frustrated than originally because neither side was achieving what they actually required to do their roles well.
After 180 days of this dysfunction, the team persuaded executives to abandon the "win-win" approach and create what I call "Strategic Decision Management."
Rather than attempting to pretend that all campaign could concurrently satisfy competing priorities, they implemented definite guidelines for deciding when innovative innovation would receive focus and when customer relationships would be the top concern.
With high-profile accounts where the agency needed to maintain established relationships, account approval would get priority.
With smaller accounts or pro bono campaigns, artistic staff would have greater latitude to pursue innovative concepts.
With new award entries, artistic quality would be the main focus.
Each groups understood specifically what the objectives were for specific project, what criteria would determine choices, and what trade-offs were being accepted.
Tension between the teams almost ended. Each teams managed to concentrate on performing what they did professionally rather than constantly arguing about priorities.
Client retention improved because account management people could confidently communicate creative direction and deliverables. Creative innovation got better on designated projects because creative teams were given clear freedom to create cutting-edge approaches.
That point: attempting to develop "mutually beneficial" outcomes for genuinely conflicting objectives frequently leads in "compromise" outcomes where nobody gets what they actually need.
Smarter to be honest about priorities and make deliberate, intelligent decisions about when various goals will get precedence.
Here's one more example of how the "mutual benefit" fixation causes complications. I worked with a technology programming business where experienced programmers and new staff were in constant conflict about task assignments.
Lead programmers preferred concentrating on advanced, important tasks that would enhance their careers and improve their professional worth.
Entry-level employees wanted opportunities to complex work to develop their experience and progress their careers.
Scarce amounts of challenging opportunities meant that providing more assignments to entry-level people necessarily meant reduced opportunities for established developers.
Leadership brought in mediation consultants who dedicated extensive time working to develop "innovative" arrangements that would magically meet everyone's professional goals.
They developed complex systems for "collaborative project management," "development arrangements," and "skills development opportunities."
Zero of these systems resolved the fundamental reality: there were plainly not enough high-level projects for everyone to get what they desired.
The result: even more complexity in project distribution, slower work distribution, and continued frustration from each parties.
We helped them create a straightforward, merit-based approach for project allocation:
Experienced assignments on challenging work would be given based on established competence and track record
Entry-level employees would be assigned planned development opportunities intended to develop their capabilities methodically
Transparent requirements and timelines were created for advancement from entry-level to senior roles
Every employees knew precisely what they needed to demonstrate to gain access to various categories of work assignments
Conflict between various groups almost ended. Junior staff were able to work on reaching specific development objectives rather than arguing for limited assignments. Senior staff could work on complex work without continuously protecting their right to these opportunities.
Output and quality got better substantially across all skill categories.
That point: honest, fair competition usually creates better solutions than elaborate "win-win" arrangements that work to avoid inevitable competition.
Currently let's discuss perhaps the greatest dangerous element of the "collaborative" fixation: how it enables poor behavior and damages company expectations.
The team worked with a public sector organization where certain unit was regularly not achieving deadlines, delivering substandard results, and causing issues for different departments that depended on their work.
After impacted departments complained about these quality problems, leadership consistently reacted by arranging "collaborative solution-finding" sessions to create "mutually beneficial" solutions.
Such sessions would invariably result in convoluted "collaboration adjustments" that fundamentally demanded productive departments to work around the poor performance of the failing unit.
For example, rather than demanding the underperforming department to reach normal schedules, the "collaborative" approach would be to adjust all delivery timelines to accommodate their poor productivity.
Instead of requiring them to fix their quality output, different departments would be expected to provide more review, help, and fixes to compensate for their poor deliverables.
This approach was extremely unfair to effective departments and actively rewarded poor results.
More problematically, it caused resentment and dissatisfaction among effective staff who sensed that their additional work was being unappreciated while inadequate performers were being accommodated from consequences.
The team helped administration to scrap the "mutual benefit" pretense and create honest performance management.
They implemented clear performance requirements for every units, with specific accountability measures for repeated inability to reach these standards.
This underperforming department was offered concrete resources and a fair deadline to fix their work. Once they refused to achieve the established standards, appropriate management decisions were made.
Their improvement was immediate. Total efficiency rose substantially, team conflicts decreased, and staff engagement with high staff improved considerably.
That point: real "organizational success" outcomes result from maintaining high standards for everyone, not from compromising expectations to accommodate inadequate behavior.
This is what I've learned after extensive experience of observing companies struggle with misguided "mutual benefit" approaches:
Successful issue resolution needs leaders who are prepared to make tough decisions, maintain consistent standards, and acknowledge that rarely each person can get everything they desire.
Sometimes the best approach is for someone to win and another party to compromise significantly. Frequently the most effective outcome is to remove people who are unwilling to function professionally within reasonable expectations.
Furthermore often the most effective outcome is to accept that specific disputes indicate irreconcilable differences in priorities that will not be bridged through dialogue.
Stop working to create "collaborative" arrangements where they don't exist. Focus on creating workplaces with clear standards, equitable implementation, and the courage to make difficult choices when cooperative solutions aren't appropriate.
Your workplace - and your best staff - need no compromise.
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