TOO HOT TO HANDLE?

HOW TO MANAGE RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT

Name : Atika Rizkyutami Witjaksono
Student No. : 29319055
Teamwork has been suggested on senior executives as a way to increase leadership
effectiveness, but it is not as easy as it sounds, especially when tackling tough conflicts.
Research often gives advice to management teams who face conflict to focus on the main issue
(the “task”) and avoid relationship issues. It says that teams often facing task conflict will
perform way better than teams trapped in relationship conflict. However, it only works on
certain conditions; first, the conflict should not clash with contrasting values, interests, or belief
systems in the team; second, if analysis of facts can reduce or eliminate main uncertainties that
support different options; third, the stakes should be moderately high or lower. Topics meeting
these requirements are called “cool topics”. However, issues not meeting the previous
requirements should be approached differently, and they are called as “hot topics”. When
discussing hot topics, relationship conflict tends to show up without anyone noticing. It
happens due to the way the human mind works. People immediately attribute unpleasant
motives, traits, or abilities to those who disagree with our views, and two cognitive mechanism
that are working behind this phenomenon are the so-called false consensus effect and naïve
realism.
When the business debate becomes escalating and triggering relationship conflict,
executives consider two actions: silencing one’s view, or voice them, however, research
suggests that neither choice results an effective team discussion. Teams that discuss the charged
relationship dynamics that appear during a hot topic discussion effectively will be able to take
advantage of the potential of teamwork rather than avoiding it. The paper will be discussing
about the dynamics of the hot topic itself, the contrast of hot and cool topics, and the practices
on how to facilitate successful conflict resolution in management teams.
In the dynamics of hot topic, there are three identified patterns that happen when it is
being discussed. The first one is: people start to repeat the same argument all over again. The
second one is as soon as a team reaches a substantive deadlock, the discussion starts to get
personal. The third one is once a task conflict triggers negative interpersonal attributions,
emotions become the motor of the discussion and substantive progress slows to a standstill.
These dynamics show why managers would want to avoid relationship conflict even if it is
hard to do. The inability to manage this conflict causes the team to lost the opportunity to
synthesize different perspectives and understand the implications they bring for the firm’s
future.
When talking about cool topics – topics whose data are accessible and straightforward,
criteria and goals are commonly shared, and differences don’t run very deep – conflict is easy
to resolve. On the contrary, when hot topics are discussed, people may not agree which data
are most relevant, and interpretation of the data can be highly subjective. Hot topics trigger
emotional reactions that make sound deliberation difficult. When an event is processed through
the hot system, it becomes difficult to think slowly and logically about the task at hand or about
those with opposing views.
In order to engage both task and relationship productively, managers can learn three
practices: manage self, manage conversations, and manage relationships.
Managing self is an ability to examine and transform the thoughts and feelings that
hijack one’s ability to reason calmly when conflicts heat up by reflecting on their reactions and
reframing the situation. Reflecting is done by observing the person’s emotional reactions,
identifying any interpretations that the person’s making and exploring what the interpretations
may say about him and the others. Reflecting will help the person to cool down his emotional
reactions, allowing him to have his reaction without them having his and increases self-
awareness. Reframing helps the person to invent alternative attribution, consider what he might
miss that others might see, and extend to others the same rights he claims for himself. It will
make it possible to think outside the box of current beliefs, allow team members to formulate
questions that generate new data, and build the person’s individual cooling system.
Managing conservation is a practice that channels managers’ reframed reactions into
better conversations, ones in which emotionally charged or divisive topics can be harnessed to
make better decisions and to strengthen relationships. It is done by digging into divisive topics
first and later examine the competing views. Digging into divisive topics is conducted by
treating people’s concerns and interest as legitimate, make one’s reactions public, acknowledge
any troubles being experienced and invite others to help address them. It will help divisive
topics more discussable, increase team’s awareness towards each other, and deepen each
other’s understanding. Examining competing views is conducted by exploring competing
beliefs by using everyone’s data, inquire the others’ feeling and thinking, and examine the
difference of interest each team member has. By doing this, the team will be able to generate
more useful data and wider range of options, more powerful solutions, strengthen relationship
among its member and build its own cooling system.
Managing relationship is done to accelerate the relationship-building process by
working in two areas: building grounded trust and target key relationship. Build grounded trust
– trust based on recognition of each person’s assets and liabilities – is conducted by
acknowledging the person and others can make mistakes and assuming responsibility for
learning from mistakes. It will help reducing the likelihood people will feel betrayed or
disappointed, improving the decision-making effectiveness, and accelerating learning for
individual team members and for the team. Targeting key relationship means targeting for
investment those relationship operating along organizational faultlines. It is done by mapping
patterns of interaction that will affect the team’s ability to make decisions and using conflicts
to alter those dynamics that undermine the team’s effectiveness. It will help making resolving
cross-functional problems easier and quicker, accelerating organizational learning, and
building the firm’s cooling system.