BUSINESS CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

Every problem is part of a system – by being part of that system, you automatically take part in the problem.

On this page:

• Accountability or responsibility?
• Emotional turnaround
• The systemic approach to conflict resolution
• Consulting the consultant
• Don’t let conflicts get the better of your company!

A business, irrespective of its assets, processes and technologies, primarily consists of people working as a team. The effect of one person’s reality has a consequence for every other person in that team.

Business is currently going through a period of trying to nail accountability to individuals, often in the guise of empowerment. This has come about as a response to a perceived growing lack of responsible action to operational issues. Management teams often use accountability to instigate responsibility, however making someone accountable for the success of a project invites blaming and projecting one’s frustrations onto scapegoats. Subordinate employees often see themselves as victims of circumstance.
Internal or external conflicts in business hurt everybody involved in the conflict and generally everybody is losing in some way. As systemic organisational consultants we encourage you to integrate contradictory positions and extremes. We invite you to look at business conflicts, and any other conflict for that matter, from a different perspective:
It takes two to tango
Diversity is the “spice” of life
If in a conflict situation each party is convinced that their own perspective on the problem is the right one and the others are wrong, they loose respect from each other. This produces a detached and defensive atmosphere, hindering sincere reflection and honest inquiry.
In spite of that we all long to live our lives with meaning and dignity.
Taken from the assumption that all perspectives are part of an underlying whole, this position invites you to:
Assume responsibility for your own situation
Listen to the other party
Think together
We believe that only this approach can bring true wins – something new that evolved out of the contributions from all parties – a win-win situation.

Enterprises primarily consist of people and groups, be they teams, departments or subsidiaries, each involving emotional relationships which can either be positive and support your business, or negative and disintegrate into conflict.
An organisation can be compared with an organism, such as the human body, where each organ has its part to play for the good of the whole. Even a seemingly minor part, such as a toe, plays its influential role. Just ask a person who has had a broken toe or lost it in an accident about the effect of a missing toe. It effects their balance.
Likewise, every single person in an organisational system has a role and has to be content with his or her work and position for the enterprise to be able to be in balance and grow.
Your staff members have to be clear on the purpose of your enterprise or project, and their own purpose within it, to be able to support progress. They need to be able to do their work with love, to understand their task as a service to the whole, for the wellbeing of everybody.
To achieve this is not spectacularly difficult, it is simply working with people.
This approach contradicts today’s short term thinking driven by quarterly profit expectations. In the long term, the company can be a fun and satisfying place to work, where:
Earnings improve
Market value increases
Staff attraction and retention reflect your employer of choice status

To find the true scope of the service an employee, a team or a department is giving to an organisation is not easy. The application of systemic principles can address this and help to reveal hidden dynamics. Systemic constellation tools, and in particular systemic organisational constellations can be used to:
Find potential conflicts - instead of letting them fester in the dark
Introduce transparency into behavioural patterns
Observe relationships between team members and to the company as a whole
Discern, and possibly influence, informal structures of the enterprise
Make the resolving of conflict reasonable and doable
Create environments that enable new ideas
As a starting point to communication and cooperation, systemic organisational constellations take little time and can be done by one person only, preferably holding the highest position in the hierarchy. We also use other group processes, such as dialogue, to work with the whole team.
Systemic conflict resolution is about optimising the communication processes within and between organisations.

Systemic organisational constellations can also be very helpful for organisational consultants, who are often employed in times of conflict. They can:
Show dynamics of the client system
Put into view subliminal feelings of fear, competition or resistance
Give you an idea about the whereabouts of resources of the organisation, who is loyal to the enterprise, who is exploiting the system etc.
Besides using systemic organisational constellations as a diagnostic tool, it offers the possibility to expand on rational thinking to incorporate systemic intelligence.

We are systemic organisational consultants that can help you resolve internal as well as external conflicts. We use:
Systemic organisational constellation work to find weak links, raise understanding and promote a movement towards resolution
Team facilitation to promote thinking together
Systemic coaching for vulnerable members of staff
For a description of the services we offer as in-house assignments, please refer to tools and techniques.
In heavy and far reaching conflicts personal and family issues can arise for you or some of your staff members.
We offer personal transformation programs and systemic family constellation workshops outside the structure of your company
For the public workshops we offer please refer to our schedule
Contact us for more information or to book an initial conversation without obligation.