The cost of conflict?

Posted by / October 16th, 2016 / No responses

Did you know that the cost of conflict to UK business has been estimated to be in the region of £33 billion per year? Read the full report by CEDR here

Can you relate to this? Have you experienced conflict in your business recently? Was it with a supplier, a customer, a third party? Or perhaps internally with employees or between the management team?

Unfortunately, disagreements do happen because, quite simply, we don’t always agree.  When you think about it, disagreements are a good thing because life would be boring if we all thought the same. It’s part of being human and it’s part of what makes life so wonderful. We don’t have to share the same viewpoint, we all have our own perspective to bring and we view the world through our own lens – with a different filter from the person next to us.

The important thing is how to manage disagreements when they occur, and how quickly you can move to a consensus and an agreed way forward. In an ideal world, the healthy business can use disagreement as a way to drive creative thinking – when dealt with correctly it can bring about wonderful transformation because the different viewpoints allow people to envision and dream up new ways to fix a problem.

One important way in which conflict needs to be managed in business is as a result of contracts which go awry. Nobody thinks about things going wrong when they’ve just landed a big contract, but, sadly, it happens all too often.

A common mistake is that not enough attention has been paid to the detail of the contract during the negotiation phase. Often the sales team are keen to get the deal home – and the contract becomes an obstacle to be overcome as quickly as possible. This results in the parties blindly signing up to terms which may or may not be relevant – and then months down the line it becomes an issue when things don’t quite go to plan.

Alternatively, the parties don’t spend enough time during negotiation phase thinking through the way the relationship is likely to evolve over the term of the contract. It’s really helpful to consider the “what if” questions during negotiation, so that the contract terms can include some parameters or boundaries to govern the direction of travel.

Regardless of the reason – what should you do if both parties are stuck in a long-term contract, or if you’re in dispute with a key customer or supplier? The CEDR study says that many managers would rather parachute out of an aeroplane than deal with conflict issues in the workplace!

But deal with it you must. Don’t bury your head in the sand and hope it will resolve itself…it rarely does.

Conflict can have a major impact on the smooth running of your business in terms of lost business and damaged business relationships, high staff turnover and damage to company reputation (for starters!) and then of course there’s the huge amount of management time, stress and legal fees involved in resolving a dispute. Disputes can escalate rapidly, and when we’re busy with the day-to-day, it’s easy to hope that a dispute will go away, or to leave it to the lawyers to sort out. And – bing – before you know it, you’ve racked up thousands of pounds and have no control over the outcome. Diverting funds away from growing your business into resolving disputes can have a devastating impact, particularly if you’re an SME.

But it doesn’t have to be this way!

Here at Serenwood we can advise you and your team on how to manage conflict and minimise its cost to your business.

Whether you’re negotiating a contract, you face conflict issues in the workplace, or a contractual relationship has broken down, we can help. We can advise you on appropriate dispute resolution clauses to use, on different methods of dispute resolution available to help you resolve an existing dispute or a breakdown in communications, and we can even help you put a process in place to manage likely conflict or disputes quickly and effectively.

One of the main reasons we can help, is because we are objective and slightly removed from the emotion of the issue at hand – so we can take the sting out of the situation for you. [oh yes, and of course, we are experts in negotation, mediation and conflict resolution – that goes without saying].

Early and appropriate intervention can nip the issue in the bud and avoid entrenchment, wasted time and cost… And, believe it or not, even strengthen and reinvigorate a business relationship.

Longer term, our aim is to create a culture for your business where conflict is seen as a healthy tool for engendering change and innovation. Where you and your team are able to openly discuss areas of conflict quickly and objectively to bring problems to a head and put solutions in place before relationships are damaged.

So that the “the cost of conflict” instead becomes an investment in business growth, relationships and innovation. Wouldn’t that be fabulous?

No boxing gloves required.

Talk to Serenwood.

hello@serenwood.co.uk