The Two Major Types of Conflict

There are two major types of conflict. The first is intentional conflict, which is the type we normally associate with the word “conflict.” Intentional conflict is initiated with a decided intent to engage in conflict. The second, more elusive and pervasive type is unintentional conflict, which is initiated without such intent. Here is a definition:

Unintentional conflict in business occurs when opposing forces, most often people, are inadvertently activated against one another, causing unfortunate circumstances that interfere with a business interaction, operation, or outcome.

The key point here is that with unintentional conflict, there are opposing forces that are never intended. Nobody plans them or even knows they will occur. Instead, the opposing forces are created by circumstances.

The ultimate and ugly business result of conflict is the same, whether its source is intentional or unintentional. However, unintentional conflict is more prone to prevention. Therefore, it is important to know the difference between these types of conflict. Before we dive further into these differences, we need some clarity around conflict in general.

There Is No Good Conflict

Based on their definition and concept of conflict, some people say that some conflict in business is good. They point to a business world full of circumstances where people have different ideas and opinions, where they need to find common ground and agree on solutions. They call this process “good conflict.” Indeed, if you define conflict that way, the statement that it can be good and necessary is correct. However, in this book we draw the line differently because giving conflict both a negative and positive connotation is potentially confusing in our discussion of energy. To avoid such confusion, we offer a clarifying definition and suggest that there is no good conflict. Here is the definition.

In business, interactions among people become conflict when their personal agendas overcome a mutual regard for the common, larger business goal and agenda.

Let's break this definition down to highlight the important points. First, we all come to the table with our personal opinions and agendas based on things that we would like to see happen. Just having these opinions and wish lists is not wrong or bad. However, whenever we come across situations in business where we must achieve common business goals with others, we are able to collaborate effectively only when we each maintain a primary regard for the common, larger goal and agenda. It is fine if we also consider our own opinions and agendas in the process, but we must hold them loosely, keep them secondary, and be willing to let them go if a reasonable, suitable, and sufficient group idea presents itself during the collaborative process.

The moment we let our personal opinions and wish lists become more important than the larger business goal and agenda, we are crossing the line from collaboration to conflict. We are no longer working with others to create a business solution; we are working against others to get what we want. The energy of this selfish behavior is negative. When one person in a collaborative process does this, and others see or suspect that someone else's personal agenda is now at the forefront, those others are tempted to do the same thing. Before you know it, the entire collaboration has turned into a competition where conflict runs amuck.

Based on this definition, there is no good conflict. There are only good collaborations. A collaboration turns into conflict when its primary orientation becomes personal. Because this type of conflict is premeditated, it is intentional.

Intentional versus Unintentional Conflict

With the understanding that there is no good conflict, we now take a deeper look at the difference between intentional conflict and unintentional conflict. As described above and outlined in Table 2.1, the root cause of intentional conflict is a personal agenda. A personal agenda includes a premeditated goal and an orientation toward getting something for personal gain. The root cause of unintentional conflict, in contrast, is not personal at all. It begins as a reaction to circumstances that present themselves. Nobody plans the conflict. Nobody intends it.

Because the origins of these two kinds of conflict are different, any measures that may prevent the conflicts from occurring are also much different. In general, because of the personal genesis of intentional conflict, measures to address it necessarily tend to be personal and aimed at the person who is initiating the conflict. In contrast, because the origin of unintentional conflict is not personal, measures to avoid it tend to be impersonal and systemic in nature. Why is this distinction important? Let's use two examples to answer that question.

Intentional Conflict Example

Jane manages the Legal Department of a mid‐sized internet technology company specializing in software applications for contract development and management. Tanya manages the Product Development Department. There has been friction between the two managers in the past over decisions to build or not build certain new products. Jane feels that legal factors are not fully understood or considered, while Tanya views Jane as getting in the way of progress. Both Jane and Tanya are potentially in line for the president position in the company's succession plan. Jane is worried that Tanya is being viewed as more successful because her last product was a home run.

The president has called a meeting of the executive team for this Thursday to decide whether to go forward with the latest product concept from Tanya's department. Jane sees her opportunity to discredit Tanya at the meeting and shake the company's confidence in her. The stage is set.

At the meeting, Jane quickly goes on the offensive, stating that she has some grave concerns about the legal validity of the product and the liability it would place on the company. She asks to make a short presentation, preempting Tanya's scheduled presentation. The president agrees. Jane presents a list of legal issues and concerns with the product, implying that Tanya and her team were careless in their product design and due diligence. Tanya is completely surprised, since Jane had not raised these issues previously during the due diligence period. Jane responded that she had tried to discuss them with Tanya in multiple phone calls and that Tanya “just didn't want to hear it.” Even though that wasn't true, it was Jane's word against Tanya's, and right now Tanya wasn't looking very credible.

The president ended the meeting before Tanya could even present, saying “We need to regroup on this whole matter.”  Then he met with Tanya, telling her frankly that his confidence in her was shaken. Tanya defended herself saying that Jane never raised these issues so she could have a chance to work them. “She blindsided me at the meeting to make herself look good at my expense,” Tanya said. The president also met with Jane, who was adamant that she had tried to raise the issues. The president realized that there would be no proving this one way or the other.

The relationship between Jane and Tanya became increasingly adversarial. After many attempts to coach both managers and get them to work together, the conflict continued. The coaching conversations were always difficult and uncomfortable for the president as he needed to address the personal attitudes and behaviors of both managers. The president finally realized he had to make a staffing change, but was torn between two good managers. Whoever took the hit would take it as a big personal blow and a smudge on their career. Before the president could decide, an employee came forward with some printed emails that had been left in a conference room. They were exchanges between Jane and one of her friends, also a company employee. In them, Jane bragged and joked about how she had taken Tanya down with her maneuvers and how it wouldn't be the last time.

The president's decision was now clear. He terminated Jane with cause that day and she was escorted out of the building. He marveled at how close he had been to releasing Tanya, and at the damage caused by the ongoing conflict that Jane had initiated.

It should be clear from this example of intentional conflict that it was born from a personal agenda. Jane placed her personal agenda over the company's success. When the truth came out and the source of the conflict was revealed, the measure to stop the conflict was sudden, final … and very personal.

Unintentional Conflict Example

The chief operating officer (COO) of a mid‐sized healthcare IT company was assigned by the board of directors to establish a way for the company to handle urgent, high‐priority projects that could lead to game‐changing products for the company. At the next board meeting, the COO presented his “Skunk Works” protocol to execute high‐priority projects quickly using top talent in the company. The Skunk Works protocol would be executed any time the company identified what he called a “red‐hot project.” The protocol included the following provisions:

• Red‐hot projects would be managed personally by senior directors in the company.
• The directors have the authority to hand pick their project staff and reassign them from other projects as necessary.
• Given the urgency of the projects, the directors would be strongly encouraged to staff their projects with ample resources working in parallel tracks.
• Red‐hot projects had priority for conference rooms needed for team meetings and working sessions.
• The progress of red‐hot projects would be reviewed personally by the COO on a monthly basis.

The board applauded the COO for his Skunk Works Protocol and immediately assigned him his first red‐hot project.

Three months later, the first project had been completed and was considered by the board a “raging success.” With the Skunk Works protocol now tested and proven, the board assigned the COO three new red‐hot projects. The COO's stock had gone up considerably with the board.

Two months later the COO was notified that several client implementation projects were in trouble and that morale in the Professional Services Group was very low. HR reported a spike in resignations, noting that “some of our best talent just walked out the door.” Managers of the client implementation projects reported substantial delays on their projects, and clients were now escalating their concerns up the chain. It had become well known in the company that the implementation project managers were at odds with each other over who would be on their teams. It was as if they were competing more with each other than with the real competition. This began to affect other members of the Professional Services Group, who seemed to be organizing in factions around the project managers.

The COO was furious. The red‐hot projects were the talk of the company, and those guys over in Professional Services were dragging everything down! It was time to get to the bottom of this, he decided, and some heads might roll. He assigned his chief of staff to investigate the problems and report back on the problem areas and problem people. Meanwhile, the COO scheduled flights to several client sites to apologize for the delays and provide assurances that the problems would be fixed.

Two weeks later the chief of staff and COO sat down to discuss the problems. The COO reiterated that he just wanted to know the problem areas and problem people and that he didn't need to know all of the other details. With a somber look on his face, the chief of staff reluctantly told the COO that the root cause of all of this was the Skunk Works protocol. The COO reacted with disbelief and anger, prompting the chief of staff to explain:

• About six months ago, with the formation of the first red‐hot project, the client implementation teams lost several key staff to the project. Because they were some of the company's best people, they occupied key positions on the client implementation projects and had frequent client contact. This put a dent in the staff of several client projects. While the teams were generally able to recover and stay on schedule, they felt dumped on by the company. They felt that the company had sent a clear signal that their projects were not as important as red‐hot projects and that they were not as important as people who worked on the red‐hot projects.
• Three months ago the implementation project teams were looking forward to getting their people back. Problems had cropped up in their absence, and they were needed to help put out some fires. Instead, the company launched the three new red‐hot projects. The teams went crazy as they were “robbed” of even more good people.
• With holes in their project staffing, the implementation project managers started to feel the heat of missed deadlines and deliverable issues and began poaching staff from other teams. As the teams poached each other, the anger level grew, fingers were pointed, political maneuvering rose, and battle lines were drawn. “It appears that we have created a new set of silos and a great deal of conflict,” the chief of staff commented.

The COO could object no more. He realized that, more than anybody else, he himself had caused the problems. It would have been easy enough to fire the VP Professional Services as a scapegoat and move beyond this, but the COO had integrity. He went back to the board, explained the problem, and told them the company would have to slow down on the red‐hot projects while it fixed the problems with the implementation projects, staffing, and the Skunk Works protocol.

This example is, unfortunately, very typical of unintentional conflict. Notice that, in contrast to the example of intentional conflict, the root cause of the unintentional conflict was not personal. The COO and board did not set about trying to create conflict in the Professional Services Group. They thought, as we usually do, that they were doing the right thing. Who knew otherwise?

The conflict, initially between project managers and then among other Professional Service staff, grew out of the circumstances created by resource shortfalls and having project staff cherry‐picked. These circumstances centered on a key misalignment. Implementation project managers who were being held accountable for the success of their projects did not have control over staff commensurate with their responsibilities. In response, they did what they could do to keep their projects staffed and on track. As resources tightened further, they became more desperate and resorted to even more desperate means to staff their projects. If you asked them, they were just trying to do their jobs. The whole thing generated a tremendous amount of negative energy.

As is typical with unintentional conflicts, the solution was a systemic one. The COO would fix the broken Skunk Works protocol and resolve the resource shortfalls. These kinds of changes tend to be well understood and applauded by people in companies.

One thing that is interesting about this story, and virtually every story of unintentional conflict, is that this problem and conflict could have been avoided in the first place. What happened after the board's original request and the subsequent development of a flawed protocol bred the conflict. It's interesting that the protocol seemed so brilliant at the time. We must learn to look deeper and consider a new set of criteria for evaluating effectiveness and sufficiency when designing business changes.

Too Little, Too Late

The methods and approaches suggested by this traditional body of work on conflict and conflict resolution, while quite important and impactful, are generally too little and too late to resolve our pervasive conflict problem. Once conflict is raging, stopping conflict can be like trying to stop a runaway freight train traveling 100 miles per hour. It would be better if we could have just fixed the brakes in the first place. Traditional efforts to measure the cost of conflict have focused largely on the final “chronic” stages of the “disorder,” essentially ignoring the energetic damage and cost incurred up to that point. For the most part, we have been addressing and measuring only the tip of the iceberg.

Current Research Indicators

In spite of these limitations, it is useful to review current research, even if to simply get a sense of how big the tip of the iceberg is. Here are some examples:

• An overwhelming majority of employees (85%) have to deal with conflict to some degree and 29% do so “always” or “frequently” (CPP Global Human Capital Report 2008, 3).
• Some researchers believe that unresolved conflict represents the largest reducible cost in many businesses (Dana 2005, chapter 3; Slaikeu and Hasson 1998, xii).
• The typical manager spends 25% to 40% of his or her time dealing with workplace conflicts (one to two days of every workweek) (Kabcenell Wayne 2005).
• A representative study of 446 closed claims reported by small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises with fewer than 500 employees showed that 19% of employment charges resulted in defense and settlement costs averaging a total of $125,000. On average, those matters took 275 days to resolve (Hiscox 2015, 6).
• It is not unusual for conflicts to escalate rather than being swiftly resolved. In fact,

  Nine out of ten employees (89%) have experienced a workplace conflict that escalated…. as many as one in six (16%) report that a recent conflict remains unresolved, having lasted longer than expected and/or becoming increasingly intense.…

  The destructive emotions experienced by those involved in a conflict at work don't simply vanish. Over half of employees (57%) have left a conflict situation with negative feelings, most commonly de‐motivation, anger and frustration. (CPP Global Human Capital Report 2008, 5–6)

• Regarding the health effects from stress caused by sources such a workplace conflict:

  • Forty‐three percent of all adults suffer adverse health effects from stress.
  • Seventy‐five percent to 90% of all doctor's office visits are for stress‐related ailments and complaints.
  • Stress can play a part in problems such as headaches, high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, skin conditions, asthma, arthritis, depression and anxiety.
  • The Occupational Safety and Health Administration declared stress a hazard of the workplace. Stress costs American industry more than $300 billion annually.
  • The lifetime prevalence of an emotional disorder is more than 50%, often due to chronic, untreated stress reactions. (WebMD 2005–2019)

Needless to say, even the tip of the iceberg has some very large costs associated with it.

An Uphill Battle

The difficulty in dealing with conflict after it is in play is that it has already gained emotional momentum. Battle lines are drawn. Tensions are high. There are important things, or at least things that seem important, at risk. What is worse is that these conflicts are often self‐sustaining. There is a ready supply of emotional powder to fill the keg, and any little spark will set it off—again and again.

Most HR managers will tell you that managing conflict in the workplace is a time‐consuming process that is seldom fully successful, if at all. But why is that? Why does it consume so much time and effort, often with only marginal success?

Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann (2009–2019) have created the Thomas‐Kilmann Conflict Instrument, an assessment that determines how people tend to respond to conflict. According to the instrument, there are five key styles for managing conflict:

1. Forcing. Using your formal authority or power to satisfy your concerns without regard to the other party's concerns
2. Accommodating. Allowing the other party to satisfy their concerns while neglecting your own
3. Avoiding. Not paying attention to the conflict and not taking any action to resolve it
4. Compromising. Attempting to resolve the conflict by identifying a solution that is partially satisfactory to both parties but completely satisfactory to neither
5. Collaborating. Cooperating with the other party to understand their concerns in an effort to find a mutually satisfying solution

From an HR perspective, Forcing may be appropriate occasionally, perhaps in a crisis situation, but will likely be only a temporary solution. Accommodating didn't happen or it wouldn't have become an HR matter in the first place. Avoiding, which may be appropriate for minor conflicts, didn't happen either. That leaves Compromising and Collaborating as the logical goals. Collaborating is generally the optimal solution, but Compromising can be satisfactory. The rub is that both of these outcomes require open, usually mediated, conversations and a willingness among the involved parties to find a resolution. This process is generally a messy, time‐consuming affair since emotions, attitudes, and beliefs are at the table too.

Wouldn't it be easier if those involved found a way to collaborate from the beginning? Yes! Wouldn't there be a better chance of success if the process of identifying how to collaborate could occur before conflict arose and before emotional levels—things like anger, fear, and hate—spiked upward? Yes again!

This is why traditional conflict management is too little, too late. While it is necessary, it is not at all sufficient. Fortunately, there is another way.

Why Unintentional Conflict Has Been Unseen

It's easy to see conflict when people are locked and loaded in preparation for battle or firing away at their adversaries. But what is not obvious, in most cases, is how those involved came to draw arms in the first place. Recognizing unintentional conflict means understanding its origin, and its origins are circumstances that are largely unseen from a surface‐level vantage point. Our businesses create these circumstances unknowingly, and we don't automatically associate them with conflict.

As people, we tend to frame problems in terms of the things that are directly impacting us and causing us pain, discomfort, and/or difficulty. For example, to use a playful metaphor, if we were to get run over by a buffalo, we might blame the buffalo when, in fact, the problem was the renegade cowboy who started a buffalo stampede at the edge of town. Nonetheless, the buffalo that ran over us was highly memorable and certainly had an impact—in more ways than one. So we tend to focus on the buffalo, the thing that directly impacted us. Next thing you know, there is a warrant out for the buffalo's arrest or, worse yet, the local restaurant is running a special on buffalo burgers. Unfortunately for the buffalo, we solved the wrong problem.

This is what happens with unintentional conflict, and it is why people often think the problem is the buffalo (i.e., the conflict). In reality, the problem is what caused the conflict in the first place. Because the real problem is usually a step or two back, it often goes unnoticed. When that happens, unintentional conflict remains unseen. How, then, do we flush out these hidden origins? Where and how should we look for unintentional conflict?

Unintentional Conflict Can Be Anywhere

No part of a business enterprise is immune from unconditional conflict. While it tends to show itself in interactions among people, the contributing factors from even a single conflict can be many and varied. Given that, and to facilitate the identification, evaluation, and resolution of unintentional conflict, it is useful to apply a model that divides a business into discrete parts, with clear definitions of each part. Doing this provides a common language and a framework for evaluation. In the remainder of this section we present such a model and use it to provide examples of unintentional conflict in various parts of the business enterprise.

Conflict in Organizations

Unintentional conflicts that are created, at least in part, by elements at the organizational level tend to impact everyone in the business in one way or the other. At the top of the impact list is the organizational structure. More than any other element, the organizational structure organizes the business. It defines roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships at the senior (macro) level. A well‐designed structure supports and aligns with the mission and operations of the business. One complements the other. Conversely, structures with less thoughtful designs breed confusion and uncertainty in roles and responsibilities at the departmental level. Overlapping roles and responsibilities often lead to turf wars, while responsibility gaps can lead to finger pointing and accountability issues.

Another common problem arises when companies try to do too much with their structures instead of recognizing that some boundaries are better defined by operational policies, procedures, and protocols. For example, companies may slice the pie in too many ways, attempting to recognize in the structure everything from functional areas to regions to product lines. Too many subdivisions tends to enhance the silo effect, which creates an us/them mentality ripe for conflict.

Unclear roles and responsibilities at the department level, often coupled with unhealthy competition, often lead to issues in the leadership element. These issues tend to polarize executives and senior business leaders, making agreement on important business decisions difficult. And as much as leaders may try to keep their executive team dynamics private, employees often know when their leaders don't agree with one another. This dissonance can lead to the formation of factions around the various leaders, which multiplies the potential for conflict many times over. The formation of factions injects a cloudy bias into communications. Miscommunication becomes more frequent, fear and anger levels rise, and aligning people to accomplish important projects is much more difficult. Consequently, substantial change initiatives are much more challenging and the potential for conflict rises dramatically.

Company culture, which is essentially long‐term collective energy and norms, can become dysfunctional or even outdated. There will always be those who want to change things and those who want to protect the culture and status quo just the way it is. Any imbalance between what a culture is and what it ought to be is an opportunity for potential conflict. In a rapidly changing world, a business that holds onto outdated cultural beliefs, attitudes, and norms is enabling the erosion of its organizational expertise. In such environments, we often find that some people do things one way and others do them another. The stage is then set for conflict around how things are done. The dilemma is both intellectual and emotional.

Needless to say, the level of negative energy created by unintentional conflict spawned at the organizational level can be quite high, primarily because the breadth of its impact is so large. Virtually everyone in the company is affected on an ongoing basis.

Conflict in Operations

At the top of the impact list on the operational level are the overarching essential producing processes. In most cases, their contribution to the creation of conflict has less to do with what is there and more to do with what is not there. What needs to be in place is a high‐level definition of processes associated with the major things a business does for its customers and for itself. Things like service delivery, product development, system development, and internal change initiatives are among essential producing processes. These broad and important activities typically involve many parts of the business, so clear definitions of roles and responsibilities within the processes, usually at the functional department level, are extremely important. Unfortunately, such clarity is often not present in businesses, and the various departments are left to figure things out themselves. When that happens, let the games begin! Watch out for confusion, power struggles, and massive finger pointing.

Well‐defined essential producing processes with embedded departmental responsibilities provide an excellent starting point for documenting the missions and responsibilities of the various departments. With this clarity, each department can focus on developing and maintaining its functional capability and capacity. Building capability (detailed functional processes and tools) and capacity (qualified staff in sufficient quantities trained in the functional processes and tools) is absolutely critical to the performance of the business. Unfortunately, however, most businesses underemphasize and underincentivize these capability and capacity activities in favor of execution. Execution is often regarded as more interesting, exciting, and rewarding.

The problem is that effective execution is not possible without adequate capability and capacity. The other problem is that shortfalls in capability and capacity are fertile ground for conflicts. The work delays, errors, and waste that occur when people are under pressure to perform without adequate resources provide perfect reasons to argue, blame, and throw each other under the bus.

This resource problem is exacerbated in team‐oriented companies with weak or underdeveloped program delivery mechanisms. These weak mechanisms fail to adequately knit together people from the various departments into high‐performing cross‐functional teams. As businesses begin to recognize their need to support teams by moving into well‐designed matrix structures, many fall short, at least initially, on their program delivery functions. This breeds conflict within teams and between departments, primarily because people tend to bring their departmental identities and silo mentalities into projects.

As discussed earlier in the book, the way money flows in a business is very important. This flow generally starts with the operational planning and budgeting process. Many government agencies, school districts, and companies approach planning and budgeting as they did the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that. The major problem is that the annual plan often lacks important details, and the connection between the work to be done and the budget is underdeveloped. A department gets the same budget as it did the year before with a 3% increase. Never mind how much work workers have to do this year. As a result, the business may have relatively vague expectations around what the department will accomplish that are not aligned with the department's budget. Cue the conflict.

Budget battles get worse throughout the year when leaders have to decide what projects and programs to fund and which ones to stop funding. Without good program portfolio management, these decisions become highly political, bullies get the upper hand, and influence becomes destructive as opposed to constructive. People suffer, projects suffer, and the business suffers. This conflict and dysfunction is also seen on a broader scale when operational governance is inadequately defined. Few things trigger conflict more readily than ambiguity around who makes what decisions and how those decisions are made. Virtually any operational matter, including decisions around operational direction, how money is spent and how resources are utilized, how priorities are set, and even how deliverables and work products are reviewed and accepted can trigger fierce conflict if operational governance authorities and protocols are not established up front.

Another good way to start a series of barnyard brawls is to implement new technology/systems without careful planning, preparation, and involvement of end users. The list of potential conflicts seems endless—everything from how a function will work, to who has access to what, to when, and how it will be implemented. Similarly, knowledge management is becoming both more important and more of a lightning rod for conflict. Some people share knowledge and insights easily, while others hold onto knowledge as a form of job security. As the saying goes, knowledge is power. But trapped knowledge is bad for business. The stage is set for a host of conflicts.

Each of these elements at the operational level is related to how things work. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of people moving them. Operations can be a well‐oiled machine or a poorly designed one with friction among the parts. Unfortunately, many businesses have significant friction, which leads to an unhealthy dose of ongoing unintentional conflict.

Conflict Among People

As stated earlier, unintentional conflict, whatever its origin, almost always shows itself in the form of behaviors and attitudes among people. But while people are generally the recipients of unintentional conflict, they can also be the origin. At the individual level, unintentional conflict is created by the interactions of people and their reactions to one another. We address this at the individual level later in the book when we delve into positive collaborative behaviors and some of the more common negative behaviors. Here we address people as a collective and discuss the various elements of that collective.

Topping our list of individual enterprise elements is roles. Similar to poorly defined department roles at the organizational level, poorly defined and overlapping positional roles and assignments often lead to confusion, turf wars, blaming, and ongoing feuds. There is nothing like unclear roles and responsibilities to turn what could be a cooperative effort into a fight. “He has no business doing that. That's my job!” “I should have been the one going to that meeting!” “She is doing a power grab!” Once these situations start, there is plenty of fuel to keep the conflict going.

Foundation/performance skills, the interpersonal business and communication skills that enable people to conduct business, collaborate, and interact effectively, can go a long way toward helping people avoid creating circumstances that invite conflict. Conversely, when these skills are not present or are underdeveloped, people tend to create conflict inadvertently. Such people often lack adequate awareness and empathy. Typically, they know not what they do. Their behaviors can look annoying, challenging, uncaring, insensitive, stubborn, and self‐centered—and all of that is unintentional! Nevertheless, these behaviors spawn reactions from others that often constitute the first volley of a conflict exchange. The skills that help people collaborate and provide interpersonal services effectively are addressed in detail later in the book. What is important here is the level of these skills across the collective group of people in the business or in a targeted portion of the business (e.g., a department).

Inadequate technical knowledge and expertise, the “hard” skills of the business and a person's job, can also lead to unintentional conflict. People depend on the ability of others in the business to do their jobs. When others lack the skills or knowledge to do their jobs properly, others are negatively impacted. This often leads to anger, frustration, and blaming. Similarly, if someone has a bad attitude or lacks motivation, they usually deliver a subpar performance, and, again, others are negatively impacted. At the group level, poor attitudes and motivation due to difficult circumstances in the business are like unspoken agreements to behave in dysfunctional ways. For example, people may tacitly agree that they are all entitled to come in late, leave early, and spend lots of time gossiping with coworkers. Meanwhile, the business suffers, problems become worse, and the resulting pressure, mistakes, and anger make the workplace ripe for conflict.

Difficult, unrealistic, or undefined performance expectations can also lead to unintentional conflict. For example, consulting companies and professional service groups often require their consultants to work a high number of billable hours each week. This puts tremendous pressure on the consultants and can eventually move some to feel desperate. People who feel unfairly pressured and desperate tend to rationalize harmful behaviors like open competition for work, political moves to hurt others and give themselves an advantage, and targeted hostility.

These “justified” negative behaviors are also common when incentives are either inadequate or applied to conflicting goals. It is bad enough when people feel tremendous pressure to perform, but when they are poorly incentivized, they tend to throw up their arms and eventually give up. Worse yet, if they find themselves working at cross‐purposes with others due to conflicting incentives, arguments and battles will almost always occur.

By now it should be clear that unintentional conflict can and does originate in virtually every corner of the business enterprise. This is not to say that all businesses are created equal. Some are worse off than others. Nevertheless, unintentional conflict is having a major negative impact on our businesses. In the next section we explore the huge price associated with this conflict.

Calculating the Price Tag

What is it worth to you and your company, agency, or school to do something about unintentional conflict? How much money is unintentional conflict costing your business, and how much could be saved by avoiding it?

Naturally, the answers to these questions will vary from business to business. To help inform you about your own business, the remainder of this chapter provides a methodology that you can use to assess the cost of your own energy and financial drain. The model is called the Universal Model for Estimating the Cost of Unintentional Conflict. After presenting the model and its development, we apply it to an example company (a real company renamed to protect confidentiality) to provide a general idea about how big the unintentional conflict problem is in business. If you are not a numbers person, the methodology and calculations in this material may be a bit tedious for your tastes. If that is the case, you may want to skip to the end of this chapter to see the bottom‐line estimate and read about its implications. If you have an appetite for numbers, read on!

A Universal Model for Estimating the Cost of Unintentional Conflict

There are three steps involved in estimating the cost of unintentional conflict:

1. Apply the cost estimation framework. The process begins with the enterprise levels and their elements, as defined by the Enterprise Elements Model introduced earlier in this chapter. This model serves as an overall framework for cost estimation.
2. Establish cost buckets. Through analysis of several instances of unintentional conflict, we recognized that within each enterprise level, there are three basic types of costs: inefficiency, realized risk, and lost opportunity. Bracketing these three cost types within each of the three enterprise levels creates nine “cost buckets.” Ultimately, we will create a cost estimate for each cost bucket.
3. Estimate the cost. We estimate the costs for a particular business by forming a basis of estimate and then using that to guide and inform the generation of the cost estimates. Specifically, we do four things:
   1. We consider examples of unintentional conflict for each of the nine cost buckets to characterize the nature of cost impacts and their drivers in each cost bucket.
   2. We utilize conflict research cited earlier in the book to help calibrate the estimates.
   3. We utilize an estimation methodology, which provides structure when generating the actual estimates for each cost bucket.
   4. We generate cost estimates for the business.

The remainder of this section provides details on each of the cost estimation steps and shows how to apply the model to your specific business.

Implications of the Cost Estimate

Is there a more noble cause than reducing unintentional conflict? Is there a better way to improve the health and financial performance of our businesses? Who would have imagined that a growing cancer that has been largely unseen and unknown was so huge and pervasive? And what will the world be like when we begin to manage the energy of business and reduce unintentional conflict? We could pay off the U.S. debt, put everyone back to work, and have cash to invest in the kinds of things we need to keep our businesses, planet, and people healthy.

But let's start with you and your business. If you want to build organizational power and resources, make your workplace a more pleasant and productive place to work, or clear out the cobwebs that get in the way of serving your clients and making a difference in the world, manage the energy and take action to reduce unintentional conflict.

Next we look at a set of pragmatic steps for doing this in your business by creating shared space.