How Come Your Conflict Resolution Training Won’t Stop Disappointing: A Unvarnished Assessment
After over a decade of working in dispute management, I’m fed up of watching organizations throw away enormous amounts on useless training that appears modern but creates absolutely no actual outcomes.
Let me share the harsh truth: most mediation training is founded on fantasy about how human beings really respond when they’re upset.
Standard mediation training assumes that individuals in disputes are essentially rational and just need enhanced communication tools. That is total rubbish.
We consulted with a major production business in Brisbane where staff conflicts were losing them massive sums in lost output, time off, and staff resignations.
Executives had invested significantly in comprehensive mediation training for team leaders. The training covered all the standard approaches: empathetic listening, “individual” messages, finding shared goals, and cooperative problem-solving.
Sounds sensible, right?
This consequence: conflicts continued exactly as previously, but now they required three times longer to resolve because managers were attempting to follow ineffective protocols that didn’t address the actual issues.
This is what really takes place in real conflicts: individuals are not emotional because of conversation issues. They’re frustrated because of genuine, specific issues like inequitable treatment, staffing distribution, task balance, or poor leadership.
Organizations won’t be able to “dialogue” your way out of systemic problems. Each the empathetic listening in the world won’t fix a issue where certain staff member is really being burdened with responsibilities while their peer is doing minimal work.
At that Melbourne industrial company, we scrapped the majority of their previous conflict resolution training and changed it with what I call “Practical Conflict Resolution.”
Instead of showing supervisors to facilitate endless dialogue encounters, we showed them to:
Immediately identify whether a conflict was interpersonal or systemic
Regarding organizational issues, focus on modifying the root structures rather than trying to persuade people to live with unfair conditions
Regarding actual interpersonal conflicts, establish clear requirements and results rather than hoping that dialogue would magically solve behavioral incompatibilities
The results were instant and dramatic. Employee conflicts decreased by over 60% within 90 days, and conclusion times for persistent issues improved by nearly three-quarters.
However this is a different significant issue with standard dispute management training: it assumes that every disagreements are deserving of settling.
That is naive.
After decades in this industry, I can tell you that approximately one in five of organizational conflicts involve individuals who are basically unreasonable, dishonest, or refusing to modify their actions regardless of what solutions are tried.
Working to “resolve” conflicts with those people is not only pointless – it’s directly counterproductive to company environment and wrong to good employees who are trying to do their roles professionally.
The team consulted with a hospital organization where one department was getting completely undermined by a senior worker who wouldn’t to follow updated processes, repeatedly disagreed with team members, and created each department gathering into a argument.
Leadership had attempted several intervention sessions, brought in external facilitators, and actually arranged individual coaching for this person.
Nothing worked. The employee continued their toxic actions, and good department members began resigning because they were unable to endure the ongoing tension.
The team persuaded executives to end working to “mediate” this situation and alternatively work on supporting the majority of the staff.
They established specific performance requirements with swift disciplinary action for breaches. After the problematic individual persisted with their behavior, they were terminated.
The change was remarkable. Team morale skyrocketed significantly, productivity increased notably, and the organization stopped suffering from quality employees.
That point: in certain cases the most effective “problem solving” is getting rid of the source of the disruption.
Currently, let’s discuss about one more significant flaw in standard mediation approaches: the fixation with “collaborative” solutions.
That seems pleasant in theory, but in actual situations, many business disputes concern genuine competing interests where someone needs to succeed and others needs to compromise.
Once you have restricted resources, opposing objectives, or basic differences about strategy, assuming that every person can get all they want is unrealistic and wastes significant amounts of time and resources.
I consulted with a IT startup where the business development and technical departments were in ongoing tension about product building focus.
Sales needed functionality that would assist them win contracts with major clients. Development wanted focusing on system improvements and system quality.
Either groups had reasonable arguments. Both goals were necessary for the organization’s survival.
Executives had worked through several “cooperative” planning sessions working to find “mutually beneficial” solutions.
This outcome: months of meetings, zero clear directions, and growing tension from each sides.
The team worked with them implement what I call “Strategic Priority Management.” Instead of working to assume that every priority could be concurrently significant, management created specific regular focuses with obvious decisions.
During the first quarter, business development goals would take priority. During the second quarter, technical priorities would be the focus.
Each groups understood exactly what the focus were, during which periods their requirements would be handled, and what trade-offs were being made.
Tension among the departments virtually ended. Output increased dramatically because people were able to work on specific goals rather than continuously arguing about direction.
Let me share what I’ve discovered after years in this field: good dispute management isn’t about keeping all parties happy. Effective resolution is about establishing transparent systems, equitable protocols, and reliable implementation of rules.
The majority of workplace disputes arise from unclear requirements, biased handling, insufficient communication about choices, and inadequate structures for resolving valid complaints.
Fix those fundamental issues, and nearly all conflicts will end themselves.
Persist in working to “resolve” your way out of organizational issues, and you’ll use years managing the recurring issues repeatedly and repeatedly.
That decision is in your hands.
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