Darius and Gloria are coworkers in a large corporation, and their shared manager has been extremely frustrated with the high level of conflict between these two employees, who are otherwise two of the manager’s top performers.
In the past week alone, Darius and Gloria have had three separate conflicts the manager is aware of:
- On Monday, an argument broke out because Darius insisted it was his prerogative to determine the price discount to offer a potential new customer, while Gloria insisted this was her call.
- On Wednesday, they were both very “snarky” with each other throughout the morning staff meeting.
- On Thursday, Darius and Gloria got into a fight about the politics behind raises related to the U.S. federal debt limit!
Their manager tries to identify conflicts between Darius and Gloria before they get out of hand, but he feels like he’s playing whack-a-mole. He wishes there were a way to more proactively address their conflicts instead of rushing to react to them after the fact.
Although workplace conflicts can take multiple forms, experts typically group them into one of three types: task conflict, relationship conflict, and values conflict. Understanding the differences between these types of conflict and what drives them is important in addressing conflicts once they emerge, as well as preventing them in the first place.
Task Conflict
Task conflict is the most constructive form of conflict within organizations and refers to disagreements over the best path forward for the organization’s success.
For example, a senior sales leader might argue the company should offer a significant price discount to an important potential customer in order to close the deal. The head of marketing might push back and argue that such a discount hurts the company’s image as a premium brand. Such a disagreement can become quite heated, but the goal of those involved in the conflict is to look out for the company’s best interests.
Although task conflict often occurs at senior levels of an organization, it can and does occur at all levels. Customer service reps might fight with project managers over who owns a particular customer-facing task, and a grocery store cashier might be frustrated with the pace at which a bagger is bagging groceries.
Moreover, task conflict can often be a mask for other more personal issues and might be less directly work-related forms of conflict, which are discussed below.
For example, it’s possible the head of marketing and the senior sales leader don’t get along and that the head of marketing is simply creating an excuse about the impact of price cuts on brand image to make the sales leader’s life more difficult.
But absent these ulterior motives, task conflict can actually benefit the organization because it involves a healthy debate around the available courses of action to achieve success. That’s better than employees’ avoiding questioning each other for fear of creating conflict. Healthy debate is essential for ensuring the business’s plans are carefully vetted and thought through.
Relationship Conflict
Not all workplace conflict is work-related. Sometimes, coworkers simply don’t get along. It’s only natural for relationship conflict to exist within organizations. In fact, it would be more surprising if all employees magically got along well together.
Relationship conflict can emerge in many ways. Some employees may have a history with each other outside of work, while others may develop a heated relationship conflict after years of work-related task conflict.
Personalities often simply clash.
It’s important for managers and HR professionals to mitigate the impact of relationship conflict on the organization’s work. It should be clear that the company expects employees to act professionally while at work and not let personal relationship conflicts negatively impact the business.
Value Conflict
Another type of personal workplace conflict is value conflict. Value conflict is in the same broad category as relationship conflict, but it’s deeper and more fundamental.
Value conflict emerges around things like politics, religion, identity, ethics, and other core beliefs. For example, one team member might feel very strongly that honesty and integrity are of the utmost importance in all business dealings, while another may believe it’s not the end of the world to bend the truth a little to close a big deal as long as both parties benefit anyway.
Some employees may be excited about an opportunity to have exclusive exploration rights in a previously unexploited region, while others are appalled by the potential environmental impact of such a move.
Because value conflict involves deeply held beliefs relevant to the conduct of an organization’s business, it can easily bleed into task conflict and relationship conflict.
For example, whether to bend the truth to close a deal is also a form of task conflict because it involves a dispute over the best way to achieve a business goal. And those with widely differing views on key values like ethics and politics often end up slipping into relationship conflict.
Just because a manager or an office mediator understands what bucket of conflict a particular interoffice dispute falls into doesn’t mean conflict will magically disappear from the office. However, understanding the types of conflicts employees are engaged in is certainly an important step toward discovering the source of such conflicts, which is an important step toward a successful resolution and a more collaborative and productive workforce.
Lin Grensing-Pophal is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.