Genuine Contact™ Program: Processes for Reducing the Cost of Conflict - Part I

Dates: March 5-6, 2009
Where: Val-David, Quebec
Module 3 of the Genuine Contact Program

Additional Information: info@mbureau.com
Registration Form: http://www.integralvisions.com/sessions.htm

The story is familiar. People in a work group complain about backstabbing, brutal conversations, threats and retaliations. They blame each other, personalize conflicts, and won’t talk with each other. People are not invited to contribute, if they are, they offer the absolute minimum. Little problems quickly escalate into a major crisis as tempers flare quickly. People don’t know what is going on so they fill in the blanks creating an active rumour mill. People report feeling angry, battered, and worn out. They may even say they hate some of the people on the team. Reprimands go on personnel files, grievances against managers are filed, unplanned absences and sick days increase dramatically, and individuals start to leave the team for other jobs. The team is stuck in the cycle of conflict and it can seem like a cancer that keeps on growing.

Miraculously, the group seems to get the job done. People keep trying to do their best because they like the type of work, they like their clients, and they want to do the best they can. This gets harder every day! Internal conflict starts to bleed into client relationships. Service suffers, mistakes get made, and clients may even be brought into the disputes. Opportunities for innovation and better service are only a dream.

The Genuine Contact™ Program offers methods and processes to achieve organizational health and balance and to create conditions in an organization for lowering conflict and the resulting personal and organizational costs. This holistic approach for business success is simple and works with the wisdom and intelligence of the individuals in the organization to create and sustain an effective and successful organization.

What does it take to engage leaders in organizations to do something about conflict before it escalates and hurts both staff and clients? If the personal and emotional costs of conflict are not enough to motivate changes in the system, then can financial costs sound the alarm?

Engaging the attention of leaders to invest in creating a healthy and balanced organization often requires some proof or some way of measuring the return on investment. Recently I discovered a tool that has the potential to draw their attention to the “bottom line” and estimate the financial cost of conflict. That tool is the “Dana Measure of Financial Cost of Organizational Conflict”. It is available from the Mediation Training Institute International at http://www.mediationworks.com/dmi/toolbox.htm. They provide a PowerPoint presentation and an on-line calculator that can help you quantify the cost of conflict in your organization. The calculator includes the following cost factors:

1. wasted time/opportunity cost of wasted time
2. reduced decision quality
3. lost employees
4. restructuring
5. sabotage/theft/damage
6. lowered job motivation
7. lost work time
8. health costs

more tomorrow...

Source : Donna Clark : http://www.emergentfutures.ca/articles/Conflict.pdf
Photo :http://www.sxc.hu/photo/872361