may 2024
In this fourth episode of our “In Conversation…” podcast series for 2024, Lucy revisits a fascinating conversation she had on navigating and managing workplace conflict with David Liddle, founder and CEO of TCM Group.
Recorded in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, this conversation from 2022 resonates with many of the challenges businesses are experiencing today. Growing societal divisions and tensions are increasingly spilling into the workplace, such that navigating and managing workplace conflict is emerging as a key business priority.
“Conflict is unavoidable, inescapable. In fact, it’s a healthy expression of working life and indeed I would argue that when it’s managed well, conflict can be a really important driver or a catalyst to innovation, creativity, growth, insight, and learning. In fact, well-managed disagreements and conflicts within our workplaces are the antecedent to growth.”
In this episode, Lucy starts by exploring the reasons behind today’s growing workplace conflict challenges. Then we rewind to 2022, where David and Lucy discuss a variety of potential solutions and approaches.
Key Takeaways:
Take a restorative, rather than a retributive, approach to conflict. Reframe HR policies and procedures with purpose-led, person-centered and values-based approaches to conflict and complaints resolution.
Managing conflict should be a strategic, leadership priority. Provide managers and leaders with the skills, training and support to intervene early and resolve issues constructively at the source.
Dialogue must have primacy. Start by listening and creating space for people to engage in dialogue.
Conflict is not to be feared. When managed well, conflict can be a catalyst to innovation, creativity, growth, insight and learning.
Lucy Lewis: Hello, and welcome to the Future of Work Hub’s “In Conversation” podcast. I'm your host, Lucy Lewis, a partner in Lewis Silkin's employment team. Whether you're a seasoned listener or this is your first time, I'm delighted you're here to join me for some fascinating conversations with innovators, business leaders and thought leaders exploring the longer-term trends and immediate drivers shaping the world of work.
This month, I thought we'd do something a bit different. I've picked one of my favourite episodes from our archives on a topic which is incredibly relevant to the world of work today, and that's navigating workplace conflict. I know just from the calls that I’m receiving, that what we’re seeing in the workplace is societal divisions and tensions creating conflict, and that’s becoming a challenge for employers.
So, what should businesses do to respond? That’s what we’re going to explore today.
But before we get to the podcast, I thought I’d share some views about why we’re seeing an increase in workplace conflict, and the reasons it’s becoming such a problem in the workplace.
At the moment, we're living in this progressively politicised environment and that's creating an increase in the potential for more intolerance in the views of the other side. And that’s leading employers to have to navigate complex employee relations issues, particularly when differing and often protected viewpoints conflict. At the same time, employees increasingly want to work for a business that has values, that is seen as doing good in the world. That means that employers are now expected to take a stand on potentially sensitive societal and political issues. And that can bring challenges, particularly when there's a range of views amongst employees in an organisation.
And we're seeing that more as workplaces become more diverse and more intergenerational. There isn’t always the same consensus on issues, for example on climate change or the adoption of emerging technology. And what we’ve learned from the podcasts that I’ve done over the last few years, is that we really need skilled leaders to navigate these divisions, to navigate the emerging social tensions and early intervention has a crucial role to play in successfully handling those challenges and the problems that arise from that dynamic workforce. And exactly two years ago, David Liddle appeared as a guest on the podcast and although that podcast was recorded in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, the conversation on navigating and managing conflict in the workplace feels as relevant now as it did then, if not more so.
David is the founder and CEO of TCM group, a consultancy group which empowers people and organisations to adopt purpose-led, people-centred and values-based approach to culture change, conflict and complaints resolution. David set up the TCM group to help organisations deal with what he described in the podcast as an endemic failure to manage conflict effectively across British organisations. So, let's get down to the conversation!
We started off by talking about David’s book ‘Transformational Culture’ which came out in 2021.
Start of original podcast
Conflict management in the workplace
Lucy Lewis: Your book proposes that we’ve taken a traditional approach to resolving conflict that actually, is fundamentally flawed. Can you talk to us a little bit about the business environment and what you think causes problems with conflict management?
David Liddle: I’m going to start with the leadership level in terms of how we manage conflict. Conflict is an unavoidable, inescapable, in fact, it’s a healthy expression of working life and I would argue that when it’s managed well, conflict can be a really important driver or catalyst to innovation, creativity, growth, insight, and learning. In fact, well-managed disagreements, conflicts within our workplaces are the antecedent to growth. And therefore, we need conflict and disagreement in our organisations.
Yet, we’re fearful of conflict. We treat conflict as a risk. We try and create processes, systems, mechanisms to design conflict out. In fact, I see within our organisations, the greatest cultural norms around conflict resolution are what I describe as extensive inaction; ignore it and hope it’ll go away, brush it under the carpet, don’t deal with it effectively. Or, when we can’t do that anymore, expensive overreaction; formal processes, litigation, settlement agreements, significant time, money and effort spent.
What we need in our organisations is action and I’ve gone into boards, I’m very fortunate to work at a very senior level in a large number of organisations. I’ll go into boards and ask them, ‘Look, can I see your strategy for managing this thing called conflict’, which we all agree exists. We all agree it has a potentially positive, but also a negative impact. And Lucy, I’ve seen better strategies for ordering paperclips in big corporate environments than I have for managing conflict.
So, conflict is not treated as a strategic priority. Instead, because it’s not treated as a strategic priority by our leaders, what we do is we subcontract the management of conflict to our line manager. But we don’t subcontract it to them giving them the tools or the skills, training or support that they need, and when they get it wrong, we’ll blame them, and we engage in retributive or punitive sanctions-based approaches. So, our poor line managers are tasked with managing conflict with no skills, not the right equipment, not the right training, not the right support, in a culture of fear or blame and retribution.
And so, when our line managers struggle to deal with this stuff, as they do, we then outsource it to a policy framework: HR systems, grievance, discipline, performance management, capability, absence. And these processes are the antithesis of good conflict management. They retribute it. They are predicated on a blame, shame, punishment system of justice, which drags the parties apart and polarises the parties and destroys the relationships and, in some cases, destroys their lives.
So, when those processes fail, and fail they will, we then subcontract it to external partners, to lawyers and to others and we say ‘Look, let’s deliver justice through another route, through litigation and through arbitration or through the Courts or through some form of negotiated settlement. And of course, it’s at that point where we see this expensive overreaction and the costs are great.
So, from the top of the organisation, cascading through our businesses, we need to start treating conflict as a strategic priority. Reframing our approach to conflict resolution, so we’re supporting managers and leaders to have the right conversations that they need to be able to resolve issues constructively at the source. We’re ripping out these acrimonious and retributive systems and processes, grievance, discipline, there’s no place for them in the modern world. They’re destructive. They’re as insidious as some of the approaches that I saw in our communities in terms of managing conflict. We should be removing those and replacing those within our people processes which are focussed on purpose, values, people, dialogues, and compassion.
As I say to many HR and chief HR officers, you cannot claim to be a compassionate organisation and still drag people through the retributive, punitive, and acrimonious systems and processes when things go wrong, or when their performance dips, or their face doesn’t fit any more. That’s the opposite of compassion. And of course, as I’ve mentioned, our leaders need to recognise that conflict is both a threat and an opportunity and the only way to manage a threat and an opportunity to be effective in our organisations, is to develop a strategic narrative around it which shapes the thinking and gives a steer and a vision and structure for everyone in the organisation to handle this issue of conflict and culture (which we’ll talk about later) effectively.
And the other thing I would say, Lucy, is about the employee experience. I mentioned I would start at the top of the organisation and work down to the employee. So, welcome to the new organisation, lovely employee, it says in the employee handbook. It’s great to have you here, it’s really wonderful to have you as part of our business, page 1. Page 2 - this is what we’ll do when you fall out. This is what we’ll do when you disagree. This is what we’ll do when you bully someone. This is what we do when you’re bullied by someone else. We don’t trust you. You’re a risk. You’re a potential problem. You’re a threat. We don’t think you’re going to quite fit, so we’ve created a different set of systems and processes to manage you when you don’t fit any more. In essence, this is screaming out ‘We don’t trust you!’.
So, the modern employee handbook, as defined by so many of the HR systems and processes, from the minute the employee walks into the organisation, sets the tone, creates the climate, defines the character of the organisation. There’s an environment where we don’t trust you. You are a risk. You are a threat. And we will wrap you up in complexity, bureaucracy and red tape when things go wrong.
So, we really need to re-think the way that we frame those first 100 days of when we bring an employee into our organisation. And setting the tone in our organisations, which is about understanding your needs, your goals, your aspirations. Meeting the employee half-way that we have certain rules and processes we need in our organisation, but you have certain needs, goals and objectives as an individual, a human being, within our organisation.
I guess the other part of managing conflict effectively is creating a more human, a more humane or humanising experience for our employees as they enter the organisation. So, as they experience conflict and disagreements and problems, they understand that there is a new paradigm in the organisation which is transformative in nature rather than retributive in nature, and that’s a massive change that we need to see in our organisation if we’re going to harness the potential of the changes that are happening at the moment.
Conflict management strategies
Lucy Lewis: That’s really interesting. And you’re right, we see as employment lawyers quite a lot of these problems. I recognise a lot of what you’re saying.
The other thing that we’re seeing more and more in workplaces is a kind of cultural division in the workplace. So, we saw it probably first with the issues around Brexit. We’ve seen it a bit through the pandemic about different views, different levels of comfort over lockdown measures, vaccinations. We’re seeing it in relation to things like different views on the climate emergency and cultural issues creating conflict. How can businesses deal with that in practice?
David Liddle: You’re absolute right, Lucy. These are massive issues, and we see fissures and divisions across our organisations. The successful organisations are doing some really simple things. The first one is it starts with listening. We need to hear and understand what people are saying. When I see tensions or disagreements in our organisations or are dealing with some of these challenging issues, we write a policy on it. We create a standard operating procedure or a protocol. We communicate that, but we don’t really listen.
And what that does, it’s telling people how they should behave rather than working with them to understand their needs and goals and to help shape a workplace which is fit for all, where the disagreements that we have aren’t a source of adversity, they’re a source of opportunity. And so, we need to reframe how we manage these disagreements. We need to learn how to disagree well because disagreement and these fissures will continue to evolve. They will continue to be black swan events, we’ll continue to have massive issues coming down the line here, just looking at the inflation rate today hitting 9% and potentially pushing into double figures, the cost-of-living crisis. All of the stresses in our economy are going to create ongoing challenges within our workplaces.
So, the nature of the future of work will be defined by the character of the way that we handle disagreements and tensions. The successful organisations of the future will be the ones that harness the potential within the diverse thinking and disagreements and the conflicts. The organisations which will unfortunately struggle, and I just have to say, it’s very simple, we can see it in the press with P&O Ferries, that’s a really recent example of just how damaging our employee relations and our conflict management landscape can be on the business and on the reputation. Social media storms, it flows out of our Alexa’s and our news feed. How the nature of conflict and disagreement defines the organisation.
So, what do we need to do better? We need to listen. We need to remove these retributive systems of blame, shame and punish. The balance of probability of 51% is not the true test of justice. The true test of justice is, have I been fairly treated? Have I been heard? Have my needs, goals, aspirations, and hopes and fears been taken seriously? Have I been able to express my values and beliefs in a way which is constructive, where they’ve been treated with dignity and respect? Have I been able to hear the other person’s perspective, the other person’s point of view? Have we sought collaborative outcomes which deliver meaning and benefit to both parties, and excuse the jargon term win-win, but have we been able to work towards a win-win, where we know the justice paradigms so endemic in our organisation, are reductive, they try and reduce the situation to win-lose; right, wrong. And they encourage, they actively promote power imbalance, the systems and processes actively promote bullying, harassment, discrimination, tension, disagreements in the most constructive form. So, we need to re-model our systems, redefine our justice paradigms, give our people a jolly good listening too, and think about how our managers, leaders, HR, or people professionals, I prefer that term, people professionals, how they can redraft the balance so they support, serve and nurture an environment for people to flourish rather than persistently managing people as a risk or as a threat to business continuity or business success.
HR evolution
Lucy Lewis: I mean it’s really inspiring. It brings to mind a conversation we had with Margaret Heffernan. She chaired a recent Future of Work Hub discussion, and we were talking about people’s adaptability when it comes to really needing to change, big changes. And she said, ‘If I do something new, I might fail. But what’s less visible is the incredible danger of the status quo, actually doing nothing is a gigantic risk but just because it’s business as usual, it doesn’t feel like one’. And it feels like this really falls into that category of, we’ve always done things this way, we’ve always had this process-driven approach and we don’t identify the kind of risks that you’ve talked about.
But in terms of actually making the change happen, one of the biggest barriers we see is resistance to change, fear of experimenting, a kind of fear of doing things slightly differently than people expect or that they’ve seen done before. How would you encourage businesses to get over that fear?
David Liddle: So, we need to become more courageous at creating the spaces for people to engage in dialogue. We need to give dialogue primacy in our organisations. At the moment, we give retribution primacy.
Now, people may not agree with that or may disagree with that. If you disagree with that, I’ll just say pick up your employee handbook, or pick up one of your policies, pick up your grievance procedure and have a read through that procedure. Does dialogue have primacy or does retribution have primacy? And I’m pretty confident it will be retribution. It’s about blame and punishment.
I think the second thing that we need to be really thinking about how we do this is, is challenging our HR systems. Now this is not a challenge to HR professionals. We work with so many HR professionals who, like you’ve said, are inspired by this but unfortunately when it comes to policy development, I believe are fearful of change.
So, we need our HR professionals to be more courageous in the policy development within their organisation. And it’s not a risk to put your people first. It’s not a risk to be more humanising in the way that you develop your policies and processes. It’s not a risk to be compassionate, supportive and to engender an environment where people can be constructive. In fact, it’s the opposite of a risk. You’ll generate the most brilliant outcomes, and you’ll release the inner brilliance of your people, your teams and collectively within your workplaces.
So HR, we need you to not take it personally when your policies are critiqued. But to see this as a wonderful opportunity for HR to become potentially the most strategically important part of the firm. Or, and unfortunately, my view Lucy, and it might be slightly controversial, is people will start to challenge these HR policy frameworks and it will throw into question the validity and purpose of HR as the custodians and guardians of the policy framework, which is detrimental to organisational wellbeing and organisational effectiveness.
And HR need to make a decision which side of the fence they want to sit on. Do they want to sit on the side of the fence of people, culture, values, purpose, mission and effective outcomes and high performance or do they want to sit on the side of the fence, which is about governance, rules, processes? And that to me, could be one of the most significant shifts in the way that we think about our organisations.
End of original podcast
Lucy Lewis: That was such an interesting conversation with David and so incredibly relevant to the challenges that I know organisations are facing today. I know that many of you work for organisations that are really trying to build workplace cultures that foster diversity, collaboration, and innovation. But at the same time, you are being confronted by the need to manage an increase in workplace conflict. Where tensions arise, you need leaders at all levels that have the skills to intervene early to address workplace concerns and to build and retain trust.
As you just heard, David recommends that employers review those traditional approaches to conflict management that are focused on a retributive rather than restorative approach. To help with this, TCM have created an alternative procedure called the Resolution Framework which aims to develop a workplace culture that promotes positive and constructive resolutions. So, if you want to find out more about TCM, you can go to their website www.thetcmgroup.com
That's it for today's conversation. I've been Lucy Lewis and you've been listening to the Future of Work Hub’s “In Conversation” podcast. To listen to more conversations like this one, subscribe on your usual channels and I look forward to your company next month when we'll explore the impact of emerging technologies on businesses, on their people and on the future of work.
If you'd like to be part of our Future of Work Hub community, please go to our website www.futureofworkhub.info and get in touch with us. Until next time, goodbye.