Clarity on Both Sides Helps Resolve Conflicts

by Moshe Cohen

Too often people leave conflict resolution to chance, relying on people's skills and ad hoc efforts. Conflicts happen every day, and good planning can both reduce the incidence of conflict and bring conflicts to resolution more quickly and productively, generating better outcomes and preserving relationships. Consider the survey results from a recent Cutter Benchmark Review survey ("Client-Vendor Relationships: Toward a Relationship Paradigm," Vol. 9, No. 11). Amazingly, less then a quarter of the companies surveyed have processes for conflict resolution in place and train people in how to use them, while, more specifically, only 27% have formal processes expected to be used. Now, although more than 70% of companies have some type of conflict resolution process, many do not use these systems in practice and still leave most of the dispute resolution to ad hoc efforts by their employees. Note that nearly a quarter of companies have no systems for conflict resolution at all. While giving people skills through training is critical, an overreliance on people and their skills, without the systems to back up and support them, is likely to diminish the effectiveness of their efforts and degrade satisfaction with client-vendor relationships.