Resolving Intergroup Conflict

As occasionally hired as a referee. Two groups were at loggerheads, “Could you please resolve the conflict.” More frequently conflict arose during a change project.

My approach was to interview people on both sides and bring the combined group together and feedback what ia had learned. In a change project, where leadership was on board, this was enough to get everyone working on compromise.

Often these conflicts were about decision rights, information sharing, or who was supposed to do what. So simple tools like meeting ground rules and responsibility and/ or decision charting (RACI and/or RAPID) were more than adequate for the task.

A few times of times in my career I stepped unawares into a conflict that had raged unresolved for years. One was a battle between two different salesforces. Another was a longstanding conflict between maintenance and operations in a large chemical plant.

When two salesforces might not be better than one

Theoretically these salespeople were meant to be calling on different buyers and selling different services, but over time customer companies had merged, buying departments had consolidated and the services sold by the two salesforces had been “enhanced” so services weren’t differentiated and your biggest competitor was across the hall.

The two salesforces were led by men in their late thirties who had joined the firm at around the same time and were allegedly once close friends. They were each described as hyper-competitive. A year previous firm hired a general sales manager from the outside. Everyone described him as a “young hot shot,” so often that when I met him I was surprised that wasn’t on his business card. He was three or four years younger than his direct reports, but did look much younger.

“I don’t see the problem. A little internal conflict is good for sales. There have been some pranks, sure, but that’s just salesmen having fun.”

I had been hired by his boss who was disturbed by some of those pranks, lighting wastebaskets on fire, jamming the copy machine on purpose when one of the other team was preparing for a rush presentation.

“This isn’t innocent fun anymore – its is totally out of hand.”

 “We get the product out the door!” “You break stuff or blow us up!”

During a continuous improvement project, you couldn’t have maintenance techs and manufacturing operators on the same team without a lot of yelling. A few years previously, after a high profile process safety incident, a consultant reorganized the plant.  There was a new department of process safety, which reported with a solid line to corporate headquarters and a dotted line to the plant manager. Maintenance, which had  reported to manufacturing, now reported to process safety.

The plant made a commodity feedstock for fertilizer and for other chemical products. we We were hired because foreign competition were cheaper and continuous improvement was expected to reduce costs.

After two of the improvement teams broke apart the project manager asked the client for an extension to resolve the conflict, and I got the job.

The Two Way Mirror

In both cases I used an organization development exercise called the Two-Way Mirror to surface the conflict. (The exercise is attached to the back of this article.)

This exercise surfaces negative images and stereotypes that each group holds of the other, which cause them to fail to listen, or even address the conflict. In both cases, a long pattern of a name-calling, passive aggressive “jokes” or “pranks” and defensive reactions (“Yeah, well what about___?”) got in the way of any serious attempts to resolve the problem.

In both instances the exercise worked to start a discussion which ultimately led to a resolution of the problem. Lest I paint myself as some kind of conflict resolution superhero, the exercise would probably not have been as successful  without leadership support verging on mandate, “Figure out how to fix this!”

The exercise plays with US and THEM, but avoids the words as divisive. It deals with group self-perceptions and perceptions of the other group, It doesn’t address solutions to the problem. That comes later.

Managers met separately in a facilitated session with their boss and were coached to listen during the exercise rather than be defensive of dominate. Two Way Mirror starts with each group working on their own, discussing and recording for later presentation:

• How do we do we think of us, (strengths and weaknesses)
• How do we think you view us,
• what do we think of you
• what do we think you think of yourselves.

These were facilitated sessions, but the groups first decide who will present and who among them will scribe. The role of the facilitator is to drive for honesty and clarity, to avoid or shorten war stories and generally keep the group on track and on time.

In the sales groups I broke into two small group sessions and two large group presentation sessions. That took longer but might have been better given the vitriol between the groups.

When the groups came together they each presented on.one of the bullets above. We decided who went first with a coin toss and switched after each section. In what do we think of us in both cases there were a lot of nods.

In each case, what do we think you think of us, was quite negative and people, said things like “No, wait we don’t think that about you we see your strengths and don’t think your weaknesses are that bad.”

By the time we got to the final section presentation, “What do we think you think of yourselves,” there was  a lot of self-deprecating laughter in the room. “Oh, that’s how we come across? Oops.” This wasn’t the conflict resolution.

This only began to break down stereotypes.

Later after much work the sales teams stayed as two teams but revised territories and the services they sold. They created a territory/prospect dispute process to resolve ongoing conflicts.

Ultimately operations and maintenance reorganized. Both reported with the solid line to the plant manager again, but both had a dotted line to corporate process safety. They first aligned production and process safety goals and invested substantially in equipment renewal and replacement. Our continuous improvement project actually raised costs short term (ouch), but the plant made improvements that offset the investment that produced lower costs and safer operations longer term.

Below are the exercise instructions.

Two Way Mirror: Exercise Instructions

This exercise is a famous organizational development structured experience first used by Dr. Richard Beckhard to resolve conflict between the marketing and engineering departments at Mobil.

Objective:

Used in intergroup relations. To become clear of the views and stereotypes held by two groups in conflict or in potentially conflicting roles, which interfere with intergroup communication and working effectiveness.

Group size:

Unlimited, but for larger groups may require multiple facilitators for breakout teams.

Timing:

60 –90 minutes -10 minute facilitated introduction, 20 minutes in small groups, 30 –60 minutes small group presentations and facilitated large group debrief.

Instructions:

1. The facilitator explains that the purpose of the exercise is to understand how each group views itself and the other group as a prelude to establishing working ground rules.
2. Each group is sent to a separate breakout room with flipchart paper and markers and told to prepare 2 flipcharts for presentation back to the group. On the first chart, labeled “US”, they should list descriptions of how they view themselves as a group The descriptors can be separated into specific categories: e.g. Strengths and weaknesses, or characteristics and typical behaviors at the discretion of the facilitator.

On the second chart, labeled “How we think you view us”, the group should list how they believe that the other group views them.

(Resist the temptation to ask for a chart labeled “THEM” or to ask people to comment negatively on the other team as this can destroy trust in a way that would be difficult to recover from in the context of the exercise.)

3. The groups return and each group presents their view of themselves and their view of the other group’s view of them.
4. The facilitator asks the debrief questions in order to move towards some ground rules for intergroup behavior

Expected Results:

What usually happens is that groups are reasonably self aware (though often with a decidedly positive skew). Many groups are somewhat accurate about their own strengths and weaknesses

.Most often groups are somewhat less accurate about how others view them. In this case, the facilitator should bring out these differences and ask what impact they have on interactions between the groups or individuals  of the groups.

In the event that one group  is somewhat “beaten down” (with a negative self image or perceived perception of others) the facilitator should comment on that and ask how that affects interactions between the group. Similar process is also appropriate for unrealistic self image or perception of others.

 

Debrief Questions:

1. Starting with “US” charts later moving to “Their View” charts ask what similarities do you see?” –record on a flip chart.
2. Ask How that “helps interactions” –record on a flip chart.
3. Then ask “what differences do you see?” (first with “US” then The “Their View”) –record on a flip chart.
4. Ask “how does this hinder interactions?” –record on a flip chart.
5. Finally ask participants to suggest ground rules for interactions which would alleviate this problem.