Unresolved conflict can create serious and quite varied consequences. For example, employee conflicts often create project delays that can result in missed market opportunities. Customer relations can be damaged when conflict results in confused communication or inconsistent information. The development of effective work groups and teams can fail as a consequence of disputes between members. Companies with chronic conflict often find it difficult to attract and keep good people.
Consequences of Unresolved Conflict in the Workplace
o Excessive employee turnover
o Low morale
o Reduced productivity
o Quality problems
o Delayed and missed deadlines
o Increased supervision overhead
o Increased stress
o Reduced collaboration
o Fractionated activities
o Passive/aggressive behavior
o Abusive behavior
o Damaged management credibility
o Decreased customer satisfaction
o Negative upward attention
o Split alliances (factions & cliques)
o Distrust
W. Edward Deming said that it is impossible to predict the long-term consequences of poor quality. The same can be said of unresolved conflict. For example, when a major project has been seriously undermined and delayed as a result of festering disputes among project members, it may be easy to measure the cost of increased expenditures of resources and the cost of the extended time to completion. In the product (or service) development world, it is also possible to measure the loss of revenue and profit resulting from a delayed completion. But it is much more difficult to measure the cost of missed windows of opportunity, lost market dominance, damaged customer relations or the continued poor productivity of a "team" that doesn’t function well.
A reduction in productivity of disputants and their peers is one of the more serious consequences of unresolved conflict. Tension and stress reduce motivation and disturb concentration. A loss of simple productivity of 25% (doing things other than work related activities, such as discussing the dispute, playing computer games, finding reasons to get out of the area) reduces an average work week to fewer than 20 hours, based on an annualized, valid time off adjusted basis.
Besides suffering increased supervisory overhead, the conflict saddled manager is in danger of losing credibility in the eyes of peers, subordinates and superiors. Subordinates feel a sense of disappointment when conflicts are allowed to continue. Peer managers may begin to look at the disputing group as badly managed and uncooperative, both higher order effects.
An exercise in determining the cost of conflict by calculating first order and estimating higher order effects can be sobering. Even a crude estimate can be an eye-opener for management.
