CONFLICTS ARE EVERYDAY.

Whenever people meet, there is potential for conflict. The causes of conflicts are very complex, here are some obvious examples:

  • Different goals or different ideas about the way to the goal
  • Personality profiles that appear unconscious, since different needs and priorities compete with each other depending on the profile.
  • Inadvertent communication in which one party says or writes something that leaves the other party feeling offended, belittled, disrespected, or otherwise negative.
  • Behaviors by individuals or entire organizations geared towards short-term benefits that are not concerned with long-term relationships.
  • Numerous outdated organizational and process models, e.g. strictly hierarchical structures or waterfall project processes that are not sufficiently adaptable to current developments or are simply no longer compatible with people’s expectations and needs.
  • Untrained executives who are overwhelmed or working at the edge of their capacity even in the sandwich position.

THE SOLUTIONS ARE MULTI-LAYERED.

Acute conflicts can be settled through mediation or arbitration. More and more companies are currently installing so-called conflict management systems (KMS), which simply consist of a protected reporting channel for conflicts, trained conflict controllers and a recording and evaluation system in order to record organizational causes and the quantitative and financial effects of conflicts and to continuously improve the KMS . These efforts are primarily about not allowing existing conflicts to escalate and about pacifying them.

We analyze your hidden or obvious conflicts, clarify acute conflicts through mediation or arbitration and help you to establish conflict management systems, which we later develop into conflict prevention systems (KPS) together with you.

In crisis projects or conflict-ridden teams, we can provide solutions in a very short time, and our conflict competence ensures a secure, transparent and goal-oriented approach in company-wide measures.

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The effects of conflicts are dramatic.

70-80%

of all employees in companies passively work through their tasks. They are referred to in research as “presentists” because they are only present but do not make a significant contribution to value creation.

Only 10-15% (depending on the study) work productively and actively on the company’s success and 5-12% are absent due to illness.

85%

of the company sick leave, i.e. the recorded days of absence due to illness, can be traced back to unresolved conflicts between employees and their managers. The reported and recorded “diseases” are mainly either psychological or premeditated.

20%

of the total personnel costs – depending on the study only 10% or even 30% – are lost through conflicts. In a company with 100 employees, this adds up to several EUR 100,000 per year, depending on the salary structure. With e.g. an average salary of EUR 40,000 the loss is EUR 800,000 per year.

THE CAUSES OF CONFLICTS RUN DEEPER.

There are cultural, organizational, systematic and individual triggers that have to be considered separately and usually always work together.

Culture

In all social groups, the topics of status, respect, appreciation, empathy, togetherness and many more are important. Injuries are inevitable and the resulting conflicts are a natural response.

The cultural dimension lies in the fact that we respect humanity in social groups and accept and appreciate conflicts as a valuable indicator of grievances.

There must be an open and active handling of conflicts. It takes the insight that no one has done anything wrong in conflicts, but that there are always deeper-lying causes that can be learned a lot by working on them.

Organization

Many organizations are still based on the classic hierarchy, the origin of which goes back to the military organization of the Prussian army. Their goal was the error-free implementation of specifications (commands) and the creation of clear and mostly narrow framework conditions.

The individual characteristics of people played no role in it and the reaction to current events always took place in the chain of command from top to bottom, but not on site in the team.

Due to the distance to the decision-makers, organizational bottlenecks are often not recognized and individuals work under enormous pressure, completely overloaded or without the necessary connections to others.

Systems

Here, we refer to systems as all procedures, tools and processes that are used in companies as a kind of tool or instruction.

With many such systemic tools, there is no continuous improvement or the means necessary for changes are not available.

Processes in particular have often become immobile and inflexible due to the existing and expensively developed IT support. As a result, employees start to work around the processes or the speed and quality of the process is affected because there are no alternative options.

Individuals

People are inherently different. Some are status-oriented and strive for recognition and influence, others are future-oriented and want to shape things, still others are relationship-oriented and want to feel community, and still others need secure framework conditions and exact information so that they can work precisely.

Successful teams know what positive potential lies dormant in their differences and how this can be used through development. Trained team members see differences as a positive complement, while differences in untrained team members lead to arguments and anger.

We analyze your conflicts in these 4 dimensions, provide information and recommendations for action regarding changes and clarify acute conflicts through moderation, mediation or arbitration as required.

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