It’s perhaps natural to view conflicts at work as something that will merely add to the stresses of our normal working life. It’s a fact that’s conceded by recent research from Singapore Management University, which highlights the two most common forms of conflict: relationship conflicts, which involve tensions between people, and task conflicts, which refer to disagreements regarding work-related issues.
The research found that both types of conflict are associated with stress responses, such as headaches, but task-related conflicts could also help us to reduce stress.
“When task-related conflicts happen, they are of varying degrees of intensity. Some conflict expressions can be mild, usually when people debate, deliberate, or express different ideas. On the other hand, certain expressions can be deemed as intense, such as when people argue, clash over different opinions, and criticize each other’s suggestions,” the researchers explain. “What our study proposes is that mild forms of conflict expressions can reduce work-related stress, whereas intense forms of conflict expressions have the opposite effect.”
Reducing stress
The theory of conflict expression suggests that during relatively mild forms of conflict, we’re less likely to undermine the influence of others than during more intense forms of conflict. What’s more, we’re also less likely to become attached to our opinions and view those of others as a threat.
As a result, mild forms of conflict can provide us with an opportunity to raise crucial information that can reduce uncertainties that themselves can undermine our personal goals.
“This demonstrates that mild types of conflict expressions can stimulate information processing to resolve the uncertainty that may elicit threatening responses,” the researchers explain.
By contrast, when we engage in more intense forms of conflict, we’re much more likely to view others as a threat as the opinions and actions of other people are more likely to be motivated by self-interest. This results in us becoming more entrenched in our positions and more inclined to try and undermine others, which makes us defend our positions and attack others.
“In such situations, we often encounter forcefully stated arguments for one’s position. There is also less listening to the alternative perspective, with each side repeating his or her own position several times. These self-focused actions tend to communicate a threat to perceivers,” the researchers continue.
Collaborating through conflict
The researchers accept that conflicts are an inevitable aspect of working with others, but hope that their findings highlight that when we can express our differences in a more open-minded way, it can play a big role in the way any conflicts unfold. Indeed, when we engage in milder forms of task-related conflict, we’re actually more likely to do well in the tasks and collaborate effectively with our team.
“Contrary to our common assumption that conflict is detrimental to collaboration, the research indicates that mild types of conflict expressions, such as debates and deliberations, can stimulate collaboration by signaling receptivity to divergent opinions,” they explain.
More intense expressions of conflict are usually the death of collaboration, however, so it’s important that tasks are framed as debates, while also including instructions for how mild task conflicts can be expressed. Doing so will ensure that people remain focused on enhancing their perception of other people’s openness to different points of view.
“The positive impact of mild task-related conflicts on collaboration can be helpful to organizations looking to build a culture of openness in the workplace,” the researchers conclude. “Organizations can reframe their decision processes as a problem-solving task instead of a judgment-making assignment, and present discussions as debates.”
