Conflict Managementas a Core Competency forHR Professionals

Howard M. Guttman, Guttman Development Strategies, Inc.

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Human history is rife with conflict. From the biblical story of Cain and Abel to the Hundred Years'

War to the front pages of today's newspaper, divergent opinions, cultures, ideas and interests

collide on scales both grand and mundane. The fallout from these clashes can be tragic, as

when nations fight for resources or societal inequities explode into violence on city streets.

onflict can be devastating in businessas well. It can destroy morale, polarizeco-workers and divert precious energy

from meeting business goals. A University ofNorth Carolina survey of 1,400 workers foundthat more than half had lost time at work dueto conflicts with colleagues. More than a thirdsaid that their commitment to their employerhad decreased due to these conflicts. And 22percent said conflict had reduced their produc-tivity (Takeuchi Cullen, 2008).

Managers suffer equally from the stressof workplace conflict, according to the Fac-Ulty and Staff Assistance Program of theUniversity of Colorado, which reported that,"It has been estimated that managers spendat least 25 percent of their time resolvingworkplace conflicts-causing lowered officeperformance" (University of Colorado atBoulder, 2008).

As the first decade of the 21st century comesto a close, conflict is more pervasive than ever.However, defusing it has never been moredifficult. Much of this is attributable to thespeed-and-stealth model that modern organi-zations must follow to compete in alightning-fast, global business environment.

Cross-functional teams, composed of membersfrom across the organization, with a diversityof knowledge and skill sets, are a vital part ofthe new model. Members of these teams oftenfeel that their first allegiance is to the managerof their function, not to the leader of the teamon which they serve part time. Team leadersend up having no direct control, only influence,leaving them impotent to enforce deadlines orcorrect unproductive behavior.

Teams working in shifts, asynchronously, arealso fertile ground for conflict. Workers maynever see the person who is demanding resultsfrom them. It is easy to understand how work-ers can feel estranged from colleagues who arepunching in just as they are going to sleep.

The lack of connectedness is even greater onglobal teams, where colleagues are divided bycontinents. Differences in time, language,culture, systems and policies become poten-tial sources of conflict. The more differencesthat exist among team members, the morelikely there will be misunderstandings, fail-ures to communicate and interpersonalconflicts. Global product launches, wheretiming is everything, ratchet up the pressureon team members who may never even havemet one another face to face.

I (:CoIiif t7

The biggest misconception that people holdabout conflict is that it is intrinsically bad.However conflict in and of itself is an inevi-table social and organizational reality. It isrooted in the human condition and is not nec-essarily an indicator of dysfunction. It just is.

While conflict can cause great harm, it hasanother side-one that is often overlooked.The dynamic tension that results whenexecutives go head-to-head can be a sourceof great creativity, excitement and evenstrength. It can help an organization developthe muscle it needs to vanquish less well-endowed competitors.

Takeo Fujisawa,co-founder of the Honda MotorCompany, understood the positive role conflictcan play in keeping an organization vital:

I like Bartok and Stravinsky. It's a discordantsound-and there are discordant soundsinside a company. As president, you mustorchestrate the discordant sounds into akind of harmony. But you never want toomuch harmony. One must cultivate a tastefor finding harmony within discord, or youwill drift away from the forces that keel) acompany alive. (Tanner, 1990, p. 256)

Fujisawa believed strongly that examining andaccepting differences is healthy, beneficial andnecessary. Probing management disagreementscan spur effective problem solving and be aboon to creative strategic and operationaldecision making. Sharing competing view-points shapes and sharpens action as it opensup thinking to new possibilities.

Volumes have been written on the subject ofhuman conflict, and our intention in thesepages is not to delve into its social and psy-chological causes and effects. Our observ-ations relate to one type of conflict only:conflict in the workplace. And the solutionwe offer is intended to help businesses turndysfunctional conflict into healthy confron-tation and business results.

In two recent books (Becoming a ConflictCompetent Leader, Jossey-Bass, 2007 andBuilding Conflict Competent Teams, Jossey-Bass, 2008) Craig E. Runde and Tim A.Flanagan of the Center for Creative Leader-ship explore the roots of conflict, its dualnature and its inevitability. And they concludethat, "Your workplace may be a Fortune 500company or a family-owned small business.It may be government offices, schools or non-profit agencies. It really doesn't matterbecause conflict occurs in all workplaces."(Runde and Flanagan, 2007, p. 1)

Whether workplace conflict works for oragainst an organization, shores it up orundermines its foundation, depends on howthat conflict is managed. While conflict with-in organizations is becoming increasinglyprevalent and more and more of a disadvan-tage, some organizations and their teamshave learned to effectively manage conflict.The transfer of conflict management skills isone step in the process, but changing the way

VOLUME 32/ISSUE 1 -2009 33

S 40

1 Stages1 and 2evolvenaturally

6

1. Clear team goals.

2. Right "players" in place3. Clear roles/responsibilities4. Commitment to "winning" for the

business team over self-interest.

5. Agreed-upon decision-makinglleadership mechanism.

6. Sense of ownership/accountabilityfor business results.

7. Comfort dealing with conflict.8. Periodic self-assessment.

1. Clarifying roles/goals2. Developing skills.3. Establishing procedures.4. Giving feedback.5. Confronting issues, not people.

TESTING

1. Air is "thick".2. Team members maintain

a facade.3. Fear of confronting

issues/ individuals.4. Denial of conflict.5. Team members wary of one

another.

1

3 INFIGHTING 21. Personalization of issues.

2. Members feel attacked, frustrated.3, Finger-pointing.4. Tension.

5. Control issues.

Guttman Development Strategies, Inc. @2008Executive Management/ Organization

conflict is viewed and resolved organization-wide requires a more robust, multi-pronginitiative. It requires that all teams, on everylevel of the organization, be Stage-4, high-performance teams.

In working with hundreds of teams, at everylevel and in organizations of all types, wehave found that teams can be located withinone of four stages of development. The workof Susan A. Wheelan (Wheelan, 2005) offersa similar conclusion. However, our experi-ence has led to the description of these fourstages that is represented in Exhibit 1.

Stage-1 teams are underperformers, as teammembers remain wary of one another; con-flict is buried underground; and issues are notdeal with openly. At the other extreme of theTeam Development Wheel, Stage-4, high-performance teams have clear goals and

accountabilities; have protocols in place fordealing with conflict; and have built relation-ships based on transparency and candor. It'simportant to note that such teams are notconflict free. They may have as much, ormore, conflict than Stage-1 teams. What is thedifference? Stage-4 teams have learned howto turn conflict into healthy confrontation-and into business results.

As indicated on the Team DevelopmentWheel, Stages 1 and 2 evolve naturally. Anewly formed team may remain in Stage I fora while; then, as the members become morefamiliar with one another, the group maymove into Stage 2. There, members drop thefaiade and play more authentically. As aresult, conflict is no longer hidden. It is likelyto increase. Teams may remain stuck in Stage1 or 2-or vacillate between the two stages-for years, until someone intervenes.

Movingto stages

3 and 4requires

intervention

34 PEOPLE & STRATEGY

It is common for teams to naturally movebetween Stages 1 and 2. However, our manyyears of observation have convinced us ofthis: It's a rare team that can accelerate toStage 3 without outside intervention. Theattributes that players require in these stagesdon't come naturally. The personal transfor-mations that leaders and players must gothrough are difficult and uncomfortable.These changes require commitment, courageand a disciplined process.

While moving a team out of Stages 1 and 2 isbest done by an outside consultant, the organi-zation's own human resources department canbe an internal source of support for the effort.

Gerard Kells, vice president, HR, Operationsand Technology, for Johnson & Johnson, waspart of a senior team that we took throughconflict-management training. Armed withthe skills he learned during those sessions, hebegan to spot red flags on other teams. In oneinstance, members of a cross-functional teamcontinually sought him out for advice. Theywere unclear about their individual and col-lective responsibilities and decision-makingauthority. As a result of the team's concerns,Kells went to the team leader and recom-mended training to correct the situation.

Kells recognized the telltale signs of unresolvedconflict within a team and held up a mirror tothe leader by providing feedback from the teamon his failure to set clear responsibilities. The"reflected self" was an eye-opener, and theleader readily bought in to Kells' recommenda-tion to convene the team for a quick reviewsession. Kells led the session, in which the groupagreed on the decision-making and approvalprocesses it would be using going forward. Thiseliminated a good deal of the discomfort theteam members had been feeling.

But Kells realized that there was a largerproblem that still needed to be solved: Theleader and the team members had never dis-cussed the way they dealt with conflict. Theyhad never set guidelines for the resolution ofcontentious situations. He recommendedthat the team go through an alignment, andthat the alignment be led by an outside con-sultant who would be viewed as totallyobjective by both the leader and the team.

Once senior management commits to theneed to raise the level of play, HR profession-

als can continue to fill an important role in

helping to move teams from Stage 1 to Stage

4. In the process, they can contribute signifi-cantly to the health and effectiveness of theirorganizations and raise the stature of the HRfunction to that of strategic contributor.

As an internal keeper of the high-performanceteam-development process, and in partner-ship with an outside consultant, there are fiveactions that HR professionals can and shouldtake to help teams manage conflict andachieve higher levels of performance.

1. Be a custodian of teamalignment.The goal, or "should be," for every team is toacquire the eight attributes of a Stage-4 teamthat are listed below the Team DevelopmentWheel. If a team is not yet there, even if it iscommitted to changing fundamentally itslevel of play, there is only one way to acceler-ate its progress around theTeam DevelopmentWheel: The team must become aligned. Thatis, all its members must be in agreement in thefive key areas depicted in Exhibit 2.

On an aligned team, all members are clear onbusiness strategy and the operational goalsthat flow from that strategy. Accountabilitiesare clearly defined. Members operate withagreed-upon protocols and intra-team rela-tionships are based on transparency. Mostimportantly, dysfunctional conflict is reducedand redirected into a productive force forproducing results.

The consultant helps the team assess howtightly it is aligned-the "as is"-by holdinga mirror to a team's collective face, and byasking the following questions:

"* How would you rate the clarity of yourorganization's business strategy?

"* How clear are your team's goals? Yourindividual goals as a team member?

"* How clear are you about your role!accountability on the team? What aboutother people's roles/accountabilities?

"* Do you have agreed-upon rules in place forwhich decisions are made by whom, andhow (unilaterally, consultatively or byconsensus)?

STRATEGY

Guttman Development Strateies Inc. @2008FEecutivel Management Organization

"* Do you have rules in place for the wayconflict is handled? (e.g., no accusing inabsentia; resolve it in 24 hours or let it go;no "hands from the grave" or second-guessing once the team has made a decision;no "triangulation" or going to a third-party rescuer)

"* From "independently" to "interdependent-ly," how do you think team members cur-rently work together?

" From "there is no tolerance for confronta-tion; conflicts are suppressed" to "tensionsare surfaced, confronted and resolvedwithin the team," how do you think con-flict is handled by the group?

After the consultant and the team go throughthe initial alignment session, and on an ongo-ing basis, HR's radar needs to be finely tunedto each of the key alignment factors to makesure the team continues to be in sync. To do soeffectively, the team's HR professional mustconstantly be taking a step back and viewingthe team's dialogue and interaction as thoughhe or she were the director behind the cam-era-not an actor involved in the passion andemotion of the scene. Many teams request thatthe HR professional sit in on their meetingsand, at the end, conduct a quick and informalreality check by asking questions:

" "How do you think you are doing as ateam?

"* Do you have any questions about what youare expected to accomplish?

"* Are you clear about next steps?

"* Are the ground rules you've establishedholding up?

"* Does anyone have a problem with anyoneelse?

" Are there any issues that you don't feelcomfortable raising?"

Then, from HR, "Here's what I saw: John cutSally off in the middle of a sentence. Alexseemed very annoyed when Eleanor askedhim for this week's sales figures. Sam andKatherine both seem to think that they areresponsible for hiring the new head of engi-neering. You never agreed on the date whenthe due diligence on the acquisition has to becompleted. You spent 45 minutes rehashinga decision that was made by the sub-team youassigned to it last month."

And, finally, "What are you going to do abouteach of these areas of misalignment? You o

VOLUME 32/ISSUE 1 - 2009 35

GOALS/ BUSINESS PRIORITIES /Focus

INDIVIDUAL ROLES/AccOUNTABILITIES

need to take action to get back on trackright away."

HR professionals must develop superb assess-ment, coaching and consulting skills in orderto become custodians after the initial teamalignment. The internal HR consultant mustlocate the hot spots, calibrate the pressureand look for ways to relieve it.

2. Drive/monitor accountability.A unique characteristic of a high-performanceteam involves a mindset change that is diffi-cult to bring about. It centers on one word:accountability. When it comes to holding oth-ers accountable, we are programmed to thinkvertically, not horizontally, and downwardrather than upward. Members of great busi-ness teams have broken free of theseconstraints. They think of themselves as oper-ating on a horizontal playing field, where theybecome accountable not only for their ownperformance, but for that of their colleagues-even those who do not report to them.

In this new high-performance, horizontalmodel, the head of IT feels perfectly comfort-able and, in fact, is obligated to questionactions by the head of marketing that may beputting a new product launch at risk. Thecontroller has no qualms about asking thedirector of HR to explain the ROI of a newtraining program.

Members of Stage-4 teams have climbed to thehighest rung of the Accountability Ladder.

As the ladder illustrates below, on a high-performance team, no one's-not even theleader's-performance is exempt from scru-tiny and feedback.

Team members can use a boost as theyattempt to move up each rung of the ladder,but nowhere more than when they attempt toreach the point where they hold the leaderaccountable. As a member of the team and as

its internal consultant, HR can offer thatboost, as the following example illustrates.

The top divisional team of a major consumergoods company met to discuss a new productconcept being advanced by the vice presidentsof R&D and marketing. The new conceptwas supported by the majority of seniorexecutives on the team, but the president sim-ply didn't think it would add "oomph" to thecurrent product portfolio. After a quick dis-cussion, he attempted to dodge the issue bymoving to shelve further debate.

Into the breach stepped the vice president ofHR. Rather than let the team shut down in theface of the president's cavalier dismissal, hepolitely but forcefully confronted his leader."We have a stalemate, Bob," he addressed thepresident. "You're not ready for a full discus-sion of the issue, yet it's apparent that the teamis not willing to let go of the idea. What do wesee as the next steps to get closure?"

As a result of this HR executive's demand foraccountability, the president and his teamdecided to reconvene a smaller sub-team,which would include the president and befacilitated by the vice president of humanresources. Shortly afterward, the issue wasbrought to closure by the sub-team, presentedto the full team, and the company movedforcefully ahead.

5th Individuals accountable for the success of the organization

4th Individuals accountable for their leader's success

3rd Individuals accountable for peers (HPT kicks in)

2nd Individuals accountable for direct reports

1st Individuals accountable for their own performance

3, Help assess the team'sconflict-management behavior.a. How does the team, as a whole, deal withconflict?There are essentially four ways in which theplayers in a conflict-laden situation can dealwith the conflict:

1. Play the victim: Say nothing, act powerlessand complain.

2.Leave: Physically remove oneself frominvolvement.

3. Change oneself: Move off one's position; shiftone's view of the other party; "let it go."

4.Confront: Address the issue openly,candidly and objectively; communicatewith the other party.

Playing the victim generally exacerbates asituation by sweeping conflict under the car-pet. It causes hard feelings and delays theinevitable. The second option is often unavail-able. Besides, conflict is a given. You betterlearn to deal with it here and now. Changingyourself is fine, but don't count on being ableto do it. The question is: What price are youwilling to pay?

This leaves confronting as the most effectiveway to resolve issues without igniting ther-monuclear war.

We have already spoken about the value HRcan add by continuing to hold up a mirror sothe team can see the areas in which it is slippingback into misalignment. After the initial align-ment, the same technique-asking the teammembers to self-assess, and then reflectingtheir responses back to the entire group-canbe used by the internal HR consultant to helpthe team assess how well it has succeeded inchanging the way it deals with conflict. Askeach team member the following questions,then share results with the full group:

36 PEOPLE & STRATEGY

HR professionals must develop superb assessment,coaching and ConsultifIg skills in order to becomecustodians after the initial team alignment. Theinternal HR consultant must locate the hot spots,calibrate the pressure and look for ways to relieve it.

* Is your business strategy fuzzy or unclear?Does the senior team frequently debate itsmeaning?

* Do meetings multiply because closure isnever reached? Do they frequently devolveinto free-for-alls?

- Are the atmospherics "thick" when a certainexecutive enters the room or a particularissue is raised? Can you feel the tension?

* Are post-mortems, especially followingdecision-making sessions, de rigueur?

*Are priorities constantly changing? Arepeople unclear about who owns issues?About what they are authorized to do?

e Do to-do lists never get done?

* Is decision "hang time"-the time spanfrom making to implementing decisions-increasing? Are decisions made by a selectfew? Or, at the other extreme, does everyExecutive Committee decision requireconsensus?

* Do disagreements between executivesrequire a referee or a third-party Solomonto be resolved?

e Are discussion and debate discouraged? Is

silent agreement the norm?

The more questions to which the teamanswers "yes," the greater its need to reexam-ine its behavior and take corrective actions.

b. How do individual players deal withconflict?Helping the team as a whole examine itsongoing behavior is just the first step. Just asa team tends to favor one option for dealingwith conflict, individual team members tendto adopt one behavioral style when dealingwith one another. Here, too, HR can helpplayers identify persistent gaps between the"as is" and the "should be" of their interper-sonal behavior.

While human behavior doesn't lend itself toneat typologies, we have found it helpful tothink about the method we use to communi-cate in terms of a continuum, which we callThe Behavioral Continuum:

Just as a team generally favors one method ofdealing with conflict, in the workplace indi-viduals tend to operate within the same areaof the continuum:

• Nonassertive individuals allow others'points of view and decisions to takeprecedence, even when they disagree. They

e�' 6

Nonassertive Assertive Aggressive

T IS *'

Nonassertive

X

Assertive

"pretend" that others' viewpoints orbehaviors are OK, but inside they areresentful. Nonassertive individuals areoften treated in ways they dislike becausethey do not set boundaries. This is lose-winthinking.

"Aggressive individuals play out "my way orthe highway." They use their power to senda negative message: "My needs are moreimportant than yours." While aggressivepeople may initially get their way moreoften, a win-lose mentality will ultimatelydamage relationships with others and theirown credibility.

" Assertive individuals stand up for theirneeds and, at the same time, are respectfulof the needs of others. They listen to andconsider others' points of view. On high-performing teams, individuals take anassertive stance with each other. This is themost effective style for creating a "win-win"environment, for successfully influencingothers and for resolving conflict.

One of the toughest tasks is accurately iden-tifying one's personal style, and it may benecessary to spend a significant part of thealignment session on this activity. Afterward,the internal HR consultant can once againadd value.

An exercise that the outside consultant per-forms with a team-and that the internal HR

Y

Aggressive

consultant can repeat periodically-involvesasking the team members, one by one, to pin-point where on the continuum fromnon-assertive to assertive to aggressive theybelieve their behavior generally falls. Then,the consultant can ask each of the other teammembers to comment on the person's self-assessment. Often, the results are revealing.

On one high-level cross-functional team, amanager named Dan rated himself highlyassertive, as represented by the "x" on theBehavioral Continuum shown in Exhibit 5.

As the rest of the team discussed Dan's self-assessment, it quickly became apparent thatthere was a fairly large disconnect between hisimage of himself and theirs. The majority ofthe group said that they considered Dan to bevery aggressive. They pointed to his intensityand the fact that he was "wound tight." Theysaid that when he presented his viewpoint hewas not open to discussion or critique. One ortwo of his colleagues confessed that they feltvery intimidated by Dan. The group's averageassessment of Dan is represented by the "y" atthe far right of the continuum.

Dan was surprised by the disconnect betweenhis own assessment of himself and that of thegroup, and this gave him new insight into theway he was communicating with others.

VOLUME 32/ISSUE 1 -2009 37

The way we communicate-or fail to com-municate-with others often varies with ourcultural heritage. Different cultures have verydifferent levels of comfort with self-assertion.It's well known that in the Far East peopletend to be much less forthcoming duringbusiness meetings, especially with outsideassociates or higher-level executives in theirown organization. And behavior that manyAmericans view as hospitality and friendli-ness can come across as too pushy or overlyfamiliar to people who are used to buildingrelationships over a long period of time.

Philosophical or religious differences also affectthe way people prefer to deal with conflict. Onone senior team I worked with recently, a fairlyheated discussion arose during the alignment. Inoticed that two of the players remained stonesilent. When the argument subsided, I askedthem if they had anything to add. One of themdemurred, saying he was new to the team anddidn't feel qualified to offer an opinion. Theother, a native of China, simply said, "No, Idon't." When I asked if he ever became angryor frustrated, he replied, "Angry, of course not.

Anger is not Buddhist; it is not Taoist." He didadmit to sometimes being frustrated when con-versations went on and on without resolution.How did he handle those emotions? "I feel theminside and keep them to myself," he confessed.

I pointed out that expressing frustration wasn'tnecessarily anti-Buddhist or anti-Taoist. Infact, he could add considerable value by lettingthe group know he was frustrated with endlessdiscussion and suggesting the team move on

either to making a decision orplanning next steps for

future resolution. I alsosuggested that he might

help others who feltthe same but didn't

have the courageto interject by

prefacing hisremarks with

the question, "Isanyone besides me feeling

frustrated by this discussion?"

It isn't always easy to see ourselves as otherssee us. However, until we do our perceptionswill remain limited-and limiting.

4. Ensure the right capabilityset on teams.Helping teams and players assess their currentstage of performance enables them to identifygaps and make plans for the corrective actionsthat can get them moving from Stages 1 and 2into Stage 3, and eventually, into Stage 4 of theTeam Development Wheel. But they will neverbe able to execute those plans without certainskills. "Regardless of how smart you are intel-lectually," says Manuel Jessup, chief humanresources officer at Chico's, "if you don't havethe 'soft' skills of influencing, active listeningand assertion, it won't work. People who wantto have a conversation, but don't possess theseskills, can't do it."

A major role for HR is ensuring that, after the"should be-as is" analysis, teams receive theskills needed to fill the gaps. The internal HRconsultant can supply skills in any number of

ways: formal workshops, informal on-jobfeedback sessions, full-team coaching andindividual coaching sessions with players whoare having difficulty meeting the requirementsof the new, high-performance environment.

Every member of a high-performance teamneeds the "soft" skills Jessup enumerates:

1. Influencing Skills-the ability to get needsmet with and through others, especially when

you have no direct authority over them.

2. Active Listening Skills-the ability toclarify, understand and acknowledgeanother's point of view.

3. Assertion Skills-being able to balancecourage and consideration. In other words,br assertive, rather than nonassertive oraggressive.

5. Work to make sure thatteams are high performers.As the Team Development Wheel depicts,every high-performance team possesses eightkey attributes:

1. The mission, goals and business prioritiesof the team are clear to all team members.

2. The team is comprised of the right players.This implies that they are technically/functionally competent, with the abilityand willingness to influence acrossfunctional lines.

3. The roles/points of intersection/turf ofevery player on the team are clear to allteam members.

4. Team members are committed to the teamwinning (achieving the business goal) overtheir own parochial/functional self-interest.

5. The decision-making/leadership mechanismthat the team employs is understood andaccepted by all team members.

6. Every team member feels a sense ofownership/accountability for the businessresults that the team creates. As a result, allteam members feel that they have licenseto speak on any matter concerning how thegroup functions. They operate like amanaging board of directors.

7. All team members are comfortable dealingwith conflict. They are willing to be candid,are able to depersonalize, and can attemptto reach resolution on outstanding issues.

8. The team is willing to periodically self-assessits progress, focusing on how well itfunctions as a total group. This includesassessingthe businessdeliverables,individualcommitments, and relevant protocols.

After the alignment, getting teams to con-tinue striving for these eight attributesrequires HR to dig deeply into its reservoir ofcapabilities. It requires the internal HR con-sultant to wear many hats: consultant, coach,facilitator, trainer and, perhaps most impor-tant, role model.

38 PEOPLE & STRATEGY

A unique characteristic of a high-performance teaminvolves a mindset change that is difficult to bringabout. It centers on one word- accountability.

I (,rw\Ild

In the spirit that one example is worth a thou-sand generalities, let's look at how PaulParker partnered with a business' generalmanager to move a dysfunctional, misalignedteam to a whole new level.

While Parker was vice president of HR respon-sible for Colgate-Palmolive's Africa-MiddleEast Division, the company had some prob-lems with its South African subsidiary, whichwas considered by New York headquarters tobe a team of mavericks. South Africa was anindependent business unit-a $150-millionbusiness run by functional vice presidents whowere very successful at delivering results. Butteam leaders shouldn't let their members growup to be cowboys: In Colgate-Palmolive's case,some members of the top team rode rough-shod over one another and others in theorganization, especially those in manufactur-ing. Although frequently called on the carpetby headquarters, the team's deaf ear led it tocontinue to engage in behaviors that violatedglobal company policy.

Fortunately, the general manager realizedthat what was good for South Africa wasn'tnecessarily good for the rest of the organiza-tion. He knew that unless the subsidiarycleaned up its act, it was never going to beviewed as world class and a source of globaltalent. With team survival hanging in the bal-ance, Parker and the general manager of thesubsidiary decided it was time for action.

As Parker describes it, "We met with thewhole team, and the general manager led theinitial discussion. He made a persuasivebusiness case for change. The South Africanmarket could only grow so fast, he explained.The real way to achieve growth was tobecome a global supplier for C-P, and theonly way to do this was to be viewed withinthe company as reliable global citizens. SouthAfrica could no longer be the wild,wild West."

The group went through a "should be/as is"exercise, in which corporate values andexpectations were placed alongside the team'sactual values and behaviors. When the teammembers got a glimpse of themselves as theyappeared to others, they realized thatdelivering bottom-line results was important,but so was the way they went about achiev-ing them.

Following this exercise and alignment ses-sions, the team made the necessarybehavioral changes. Before long, South Africawent from being a top-20 subsidiary to atop-5 subsidiary-one of the fastest growingin the corporation. The parent companymade major investments in it, enabling it tobecome a global supplier of dental cream anda test bed for new-product toothpaste trials.And, once considered mavericks who couldn'tbe trusted, many of the team members werepromoted to major positions in the globalcompany: The general manager became CFOof North America, the company's biggestdivision; the controller went to Canada, atop-5 subsidiary, to become its financial con-troller; the HR person became head of HRfor the United Kingdom.

As Parker sums it up, "They became a sourceof power because of their willingness to listento feedback and act on it."

For HR to make a real contribution to teamsuccess, HR professionals need to possess theskills needed in a high-performance environ-ment. Apart from transferring conflictmanagement skills-influencing, active listen-ing, assertion and depersonalizing issues-theyneed to role-model them in their own interac-tions throughout the organization.

HR must also be willing to step up and playat a much higher level, especially when deal-ing with senior executive teams. By assuminga key role in helping teams learn to manageconflict, HR can receive greater exposure,make a more substantial impact and contrib-ute to business results. Playing at this newlevel means taking greater risks, but it alsobrings greater rewards than sitting on thesidelines, uninvolved.

The skills, organizational position andexperience of HR professionals makethem uniquely qualified todeliver a higherlevel of contr-ibution to teamperformance.Now is the time forHR to take the ini-tiative and applythose skills to teamsat every level, begin-ning with the seniorexecutive team, ensuringthat these leaders are pro-

ficient at achieving results, navigating conflictand moving to a significantly higher levelof play.

Howard M. C;Mt. ArlingtoiDevelopment $Great BusinesCode for Stangreatbusinesst(released by Jobook, Whening ExecutiveDynamic Org,able in paperb;

uttman is principal ofi, NTJ-based Guttmantrategies, Inc. His book,

Teans: Cracking theDutP'erformance (www.ams.com), war recentlyin Wiley. His previousoliathbs Clash: Manag-,onflict to Build a More,niz~ation, is now avail-

Re gCrenCc,

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Runde, C.E. & T.A. Flanagan (2007). Becoming a ConflictCompetent Leader, San Franciso: Jossey-Bass.

Runde, C.E. & T.A. Flanagan (2008). Building ConflictCompetent Teams, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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VOLUME 32/ISSUE 1 -2009 39

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TITLE: Conflict Management as a Core Competency for HRProfessionals

SOURCE: People Strategy 32 no1 2009

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