You should resolve internal conflicts, as they would surely hurt your business. I learned it during my work in Enterwize. In short, keep your business and its shareholders together and focus on solving the problems in your company so that it can get back to its intended business and profit potential.
Most organizations in today’s competitive environment face an enormous opportunity to increase their competitive edge by doing things that customers have never done before. They can become the very best in their market and the very best in customer service.
But if they’re not careful, they can get involved in conflict instead, creating a significant business problem that could cost them more than just money. Avoiding internal conflicts will only hurt your business.
Why should you avoid internal conflicts?
- Internal conflicts can cost you revenue and reputation.
In a business where everybody is working to accomplish the same goals, the possibility for conflict is higher than in the market where there is more individual initiative. Here’s where internal conflict costs you the most.
Here are three scenarios that can result from creating conflicts and having them resolved by employees:
- You get sued because of the quality of your product.
You need to decide how to deal with a product that doesn’t meet the buyer’s satisfaction requirements. If you don’t pay the price that your customer demands or refuse to fix the problem, you could be hit with a lawsuit. Either of those results is a serious blow to your organization’s reputation and ability to compete in the marketplace.
- You run into a difficult problem.
Instead of dealing with the problem by yourself, you hire a contractor who is supposed to fix the problem. This has serious consequences. One, you may have to pay the contractor out of pocket to resolve the problem. Two, your company could find that it doesn’t have the resources to fix the problem quickly enough to win the project.
- Customers go around complaining about your firm.
You know, those disgruntled customers who constantly are dissatisfied with your business and who regularly call or write to demand something different. If you get involved in internal disputes, your business is likely to encounter such people who are disgruntled with you.
Remember, don’t get involved in any conflicts unless they are really necessary or urgent
When you start your new job, you are very concerned about all of these, so you do the best you can to avoid these situations. If you have any employees that you need to deal with, you are even more responsible. You should set guidelines, set your responsibilities, and put in place reasonable rules so there is accountability in the company in the event something happens and people do go astray.
- How can you control conflicts?
First, learn all that you can about conflicts before they happen. You may have been dealing with conflicts all along. The fact is, conflicts happen to all people and they usually don’t have to arise from the actions of anyone other than you.
If you think conflicts have arisen as the result of something that didn’t occur or did occur but went right out the box, you are right. But when your conflicts are the result of situations you planned for and you haven’t allowed to occur, you are in serious trouble.
There may be several possibilities as to where the conflict may come from. Maybe a disagreement in a meeting where you didn’t intend for it to become a problem. Maybe a problem at the supplier of a tool was not communicated well to you and some one in the organization didn’t understand the problem or didn’t think of it all the time. Maybe you’ve been the victim of a real or imagined conflict and you’ve never had the courage to make a difficult decision. How much better to decide in advance for the future.
All four of these problems could lead to a real or imagined conflict that is not only damaging to your organization, but to your bottom line, too. Even if you try to deal with the problem on the spot, conflict can always be worse.
If you know all about conflict, your personal involvement with it, and how it can affect you, then you have a much greater chance to avoid or resolve conflicts before they get out of hand. The reality is that these conflicts often get out of hand and then start to cost someone’s life.
It’s your choice whether you have an internal conflict within your company or whether you deal with problems that arise among your employees. If you choose to deal directly with your employees, then do it in a way that makes it a priority and that is in line with your values and standards. For example, you could insist that your employees take classes or seminars on conflict management.