
The business end of a spark plug, a component of an internal combustion engine. The spark plug is responsible for igniting the fuel-air mixture that fills the combustion chamber in each one of the cylinders of an internal combustion engine. The curved metal arm at the top of the photo is one electrode, and the central post, surrounded by a white ceramic insulator, is the other. A spark is visible arcing between the two electrodes.
The electrodes of a spark plug provide a useful metaphor for understanding conflict in a human system. Both electrodes are necessary for sparking. Assigning greater responsibility to one electrode or another isn't a useful approach to understanding the internal combustion engine. Nor are the electrodes alone sufficient for sparking. A complex system consisting of wires, coils, a battery, an alternator, and much more, is absolutely necessary to make the spark jump the gap between the electrodes of the spark plug.
So it is with most conflicts in organizations. The two people who play the roles of the electrodes are probably only part of the "circuit." Photo courtesy Auto Care Experts.
When toxic conflict erupts within work groups, we usually look for causes in the behavior of the people engaged in conflict. Often, though, the root causes lie elsewhere. One area worth examining is the behavior and policies of the supervisor. Here is Part II of a little catalog a management behaviors, beliefs, and policies that tend to create toxic conflict, written as advice and guidance for the truly bad manager seeking to create toxic conflict. See "Creating Toxic Conflict: I," Point Lookout for March 25, 2015, for more.
- Tolerate abusive behavior
- When one subordinate attacks, bullies, or otherwise abuses another, it's none of your business. Let them work it out. Nuff said.
- Sow distrust
- When subordinates trust each other, they quickly become unmanageable. It becomes difficult to get them to promise to do the impossible, because they trust each other enough to speak truth to power. And we can't have them speaking truth to power. Subordinates must believe at all times that they're all willing to go to any lengths to get ahead of each other.
- Tolerate cliquishness
- Resist the temptation to break up cliques. Although cliques often reduce productivity, they do so largely by creating tensions and toxic conflict within the group. And that's exactly what you want. A little lost productivity is a small price to pay for creating some long-lasting toxic conflict.
- Use fear as a management tool
- Eloquence, charisma, and leadership skills can get you only so far. To produce maximum productivity, instill fear. Sometimes, even that isn't enough — only sheer terror will get the management job done. Make them fear for their careers, their families, and their very existence.
- Adhere to the "personality clash" model of toxic conflict
- Group dynamics When subordinates trust each other,
it becomes difficult to get them to
promise to do the impossibleexperts do advise that two-person conflict has sources that are typically more diffuse than just the two people involved. That advice isn't worth the screen it's displayed on. The two people involved are the root cause of the difficulty. Order them to go into a conference room and not come out until they are friends. And set a reasonable time limit, like, say, 45 minutes. - Push people beyond the breaking point
- Because chronic, intense stress causes people to lose control, push people very, very hard. Tell them the survival of the company, and therefore their jobs, depends on their getting their work done in x time, where x is about a quarter of what it should actually take.
- Accept immigrants
- Sometimes managers do try to offload onto other managers their incompetent, troublesome, difficult, insubordinate, narcissistic, borderline-psychopathic, or otherwise unmanageable employees. To most managers, being asked to receive — or being ordered to accept — such people is a problem. But to those aspiring to truly bad management, it's the solution to a problem. Difficult people provide some valuable raw material for toxic conflict.
Managers who adopt even a third of these ideas should have no shortage of toxic conflict. First issue in this series
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Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!
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Related articles
More articles on Conflict Management:
Social Isolation and Workplace Bullying
- Social isolation is a tactic widely used by workplace bullies. What is it? How do bullies use it? Why
do bullies use it? What can targets do about it?
Seventeen Guidelines About Workplace Bullying
- Bullying is a complex social pattern. Thinking clearly about bullying is difficult in the moment because
our emotions can distract us. Here are some short insights about bullying that are easy to remember
in the moment.
Strategy for Targets of Verbal Abuse
- Many targets of verbal abuse at work believe that they have just two strategic options: find a new job,
or accept the abuse. In some cases, they're correct. But not always.
Disagreements in Virtual Meetings
- Disagreements about substance can sometimes become unpleasant. And it seems that the likelihood of this
happening is greater in virtual meetings. Six tactics can help keep things calm enough for groups to
work better together.
Quasi-Narcissistic Quasi-Subordinates
- One troublesome kind of workplace collaboration includes those that combine people of varied professions
and ranks for a specific short-term mission. Many work well, but when one of the group members displays
quasi-narcissistic behaviors, trouble looms.
See also Conflict Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming September 3: Contributions in Team Meetings: Advocating
- An agenda in the form of an ordered list of topics might not provide an appropriate framework for a given meeting. For example, if A depends on B, and B depends on A, we must find a way to discuss A and B together in some orderly fashion. Here are some alternatives to linear, ordered agendas. Available here and by RSS on September 3.
And on September 10: Contributions in Team Meetings: Scoping
- Some meetings focus on solving specific problems. We call them "working sessions." More often, we delegate problem solving to task teams, while meetings wrestle with the difficult task of identifying or "scoping" problems rather than solving them. Scoping discussions can be perilous. Available here and by RSS on September 10.
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