Most conflicts are expensive long before anyone raises their voice. In a survey of 5,000 employees in nine countries, including Germany, people said they spent 2.1 hours a week dealing with conflict (CPP, 2008). In the UK, Acas estimates that workplace conflict costs employers £28.5 billion a year, more than £1,000 per employee, and that formal procedures cost far more than resolving a conflict early and informally (Saundry & Urwin, 2021).
The cheap moment is early. Deep Democracy has a model for recognising it: the Resistance Line.
What the Resistance Line describes
The Resistance Line covers the behaviours people show when they feel unheard in a group. It is a continuum. The behaviours start out covert and become more open the longer the objection stays unheard, or the more often it is brushed aside.
Two points shape how you respond. First, the behaviours are largely involuntary: few people decide to become sarcastic or to keep missing deadlines. Second, they are a way of staying in the group while under pressure. That makes them information about something that hasn't been said yet.
Early signals
1. Jokes and sarcasm. Humour lets someone say "I don't agree" in a form they can take back. A joke on the Resistance Line has an edge and often follows a moment of feeling overruled or controlled. If it isn't heard, the next ones get harsher.
2. Excuses. Someone is late to a meeting, forgets an appointment or misses a deadline, each time for a plausible reason. Each excuse may be true. When the same kind of bad luck happens three or four times, look for something beneath it.
Middle stages
3. Gossip and lobbying. The real reactions to a decision are heard at the coffee machine and in private chats. Lobbying goes a step further: people try to win others over to their view outside the meeting.
4. Communication breakdown. Channels become unreliable. Emails go unanswered until you call, people write messages to avoid talking in person, and in extreme cases two departments only communicate through their assistants. For those actually reading the article, you get 10% off all workshops with the code 'reader'.
Late stages
5. Disruption and reacting slowly. People block processes, respond slowly to requests, put off simple tasks or do only the minimum needed to keep their job.
6. Strike. People openly refuse to do a task.
7. Separation. People leave. In the CPP survey, 18% had seen a conflict end with someone leaving (CPP, 2008).
Surfacing conflict is not automatically good
A meta-analysis of 30 studies found that both relationship conflict and task conflict were, on average, negatively related to team performance (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). Bringing an objection into the open helps when the team knows how to handle it. In the CPP survey, 76% said a conflict had led to a positive outcome at some point. More than 95% of those who had been trained in handling conflict said the training helped, yet only 44% had received any (CPP, 2008).
What to do when you notice a signal
- Leave the behaviour alone. Telling people to stop joking or gossiping pushes the objection further down the line.
- Name the topic, not the person. "I'm not sure everyone is behind this decision, and I'd like to hear the doubts" invites an answer. "Why are you always so sarcastic?" puts one person on trial.
- Make disagreement easy to voice. Ask for objections directly. When someone raises one, ask who else shares part of it, so they aren't left alone with it.
If you want your leaders to recognise these signals early and turn them into open conversations, train them in our Deep Democracy Facilitator Programme.
References
CPP Inc. (2008). Workplace conflict and how businesses can harness it to thrive (Global Human Capital Report). https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/30793172/cpp-global-human-capital-report-workplace-conflict
De Dreu, C. K. W., & Weingart, L. R. (2003). Task versus relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 741–749.
Saundry, R., & Urwin, P. (2021). Estimating the costs of workplace conflict. Acas. https://www.acas.org.uk/workplace-conflict-estimating-the-cost-to-employers