200 words and 3 pages article review due at 8pm pacific time.

COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICT IN ORGANIZATIONS

Richard J. Mayer

Every organization apparently has internal com- munications problems and conflicts between various individuals and groups. As a result, the effectiveness of the organization suffers and unnecessary strain is placed on individuals. Managers and non-man- agers usually find these the most difficult, nebulous, and frustrating of all their problems and challenges. Most often they feel they don't know how to handle them in a fully satisfactory way.

The purpose of this article is to help managers, especially, but nonrmanagers as well, gain some practical insights into how to approach improving their abilities to manage communications and con- flict.

The Problem

You are an executive in an aerospace firm. One afternoon, just when you seem to be on top of things, one of your key technical staff who reports to a manager who reports to you comes into your office tense, excited, and upset. He blurts out that his boss is incompetent, dishonest, and can't com- municate. He resigns, saying he has a job with your chief competitor. You are shocked and dis- mayed. You talk to the manager and make other inquiries as discreetly as possible. Everyone has a different story. Each story makes sense. Frustrated and confused, you chalk it up to a "personality problem." And you wonder.

You are a manager of a manufacturing plant. You get a great idea for making a simple organizational change to increase productivity. You talk it over

with your staff, iron out the bugs with them and issue a carefully worded memo clearly explaining the changes and reasons behind them. Later it begins to seem obvious that productivity is declin- ing instead of increasing as a result of the change. You begin to hear grumbling. One of your super- visors resigns, for "personal reasons." You talk to him and although he is polite and won't quite level with you, you begin to sense that he reacted to the change as a direct criticism of his work. After more inquiries and some sleepless nights you begin to find that there were almost as many interpretations of your memo as there were people who read it. Quite a few assumed the change was the first step in an effort to cut back the work force. You tell yourself that people are perverse and curse the day you became a manager. And you wonder.

You are the director of the R&D Division of a high technology company. The way the department managers who report to you get along with each other and talk about each other sometimes gives you the feeling you are dealing with children in a sandbox rather than highly experienced profes- sionals, mostly Ph.D.'s. At times your staff meetings have a bit of an elementary school flavor. You try lots of ways to get them to level with each other and iron out their difficulties. Sometimes these seem to help but progress is very slow. You sense that they seldom if ever level with you either and you sometimes wonder what they say about you behind your back. You need them and sometimes have an extra martini to help you deal with your feelings of insecurity and depression. And you wonder.

2 Com.munication and Conflict in Organizations

You are a director of nurses in an older hospital. You were promoted "from the ranks." You have studied management seriously by taking courses and reading. You carefully institute many obviously needed changes to modernize the organization, fnethodology, and staffing. By all measures, patient care improves and costs are reduced. Yet, morale is low and your staff seems to lack the old espirit de corps that you feel is so important. Further, you notice that the staff has become more formal in their dealings with you. You try to find out what the probleni is by talking to them. They are polite and either offer reasons that don't quite ring true, profess not to know, or claim there is no problem. One emotional nurse fights back her tears and says something about you not caring for the staff as persons, hut can't elaborate. You feel lost and don't know what to do. And you wonder.

The preceding examples are from real life, much simplified for brevity. It would be easy for us to generate hundreds more that are similar from all types of organizations. Profit-making industrial or- ganizations, church groups, communes and mar- riages are more alike than different from the stand- point of communications, conffict, and "people problems."

Six years ago, I gave up my line management career to become a full-time OD practitioner. In helping to resolve the aforementioned situations—and many others involving communications and conflict prob- lems between individuals and between and within groups—I have formed a working hypothesis, espe- cially important and useful for managers: Virtually all communication •prohlems and conflicts between people, no matter how serious they appear, are due to an accumulation of unconfronted and unresolved minor issues, each of little or no apparent impor- tance. In each of the previous examples, this proved to be true as it has in literally hundreds of others.

The issues can date back years and often do. What apparently happens is that some minor irritation or misunderstanding occurs and a conclusion is drawn from this. The conclusion forms the beginning of a perceptual blinder or filter that is continually strengthened, incident by incident, because people tend to see what they expect to see—often whether

it's there to see or not! These situations are invari- ably very complex. Consider a relatively simple true-life example to get a feel for how the process occurs.

The managerial nucleus of a new group was formed consisting of a manager and four supervisors. They began with a team-building session conducted by an OD practitioner. None of the people had worked together before. One of the issues focused on at the session was the reputation of the manager in the eyes of the supervisors since reputations are the basis of perceptual filters. A couple of the super- visors had heard that the rnanager didn't always deal in an open way with his suhordinates. Four months after the first meeting they held a follow-on meeting. Sure enough, there was trouble. Two of the supervisors said the manager had promised them a business/vacation trip to Europe and had changed his mind. They claimed that rather than tell them about it directly he was presenting a business pic- ture that made their trip impossible. They had made elaborate plans with their families and were upset and highly disappointed. The manager was honestly dumbfounded. He had not changed his mind and expected that they would go as planned. Everyone was nonplused (as is typical at this stage of conflict management) and didn't know what to believe.

Because it was a small group and a relatively fresh issue, the practitioner suggested that as a good learning experience they trace back, step by step, to find out how the misunderstanding developed. It took about four hours to do so. It began when one of the supervisors had casually mentioned some of his vacation plans to the manager. He said that the manager "looked unhappy about my plans." He didn't say anything to the manager but talked about the incident with the other supervisor who was also scheduled to go to Europe. The other super- visor mentioned the manager's reputation. There began the foundation of the perceptual filters. A number of other incidents occurred which they interpreted as further "clear" evidence. Finally, the manager presented a picture of the group's finances to them which was much more pessimistic than ex- pected four months earlier. They saw that as clearly

Human Resource Management, Winter, 1974 3

saying he didn't want them to expend finances for the trip. (As is tj'pical, neither confronted him at any time with their "evidence," hurt, and concern). It turned out that the manager's "dirty looks" had nothing to do with them—he had other concerns on his mind—and, he saw their trip as critically im- portant to the future business of the group!

This case is typical. It illustrates that: 1) "Major problems' almost always are nonexistent—they re- sult usually from a series of "trivial" or "minor" issues unconfronted and not worked through, 2) the individual issues can date back years (10-15 years is not uncommon in my experience), 3) people usually cannot forget the past—to resolve a mis- understanding, the key issues, no matter how old, must be identified, confronted and worked through, and 4) "Communication problems" are often steps along the path to open or hidden conflict. Com- munication problems are so pervasive and poorly understood as to have become a cliche. Most assume they are inevitable and consider them normal— though unpleasant.

How the Problems Happen

There are powerful forces that account for the virtual universality of communication and conflict problems in organizations. They include the follow-

1. OUR COMMUNICATIONS ARE EXTREMELY COM- PLEX ,PROCESSES. W e communicate in indi- vidual secret codes made u p of words, voice tones, body signals, facial expressions, move- ments, feelings, styles of grooming and dress, ESP and who knows what else. Each is unique to the individual and every person relies on a different combination. To understand another person requires a sophisticated and compli- cated decoding process. There is much room for error. To achieve two-way communication (one-way communication in any form seldom communicates) usually requires considerable skilled effort.

2 . WE ARE TAUGHT TO BE "POLITE," HAVE THE

"RIGHT PERSONALITY," MANIPULATE OURSELVES

AND OTHERS, AND PLAY ROLES. MoSt of US i n

our culture learn to feel that it is very natural to "be nice" and smile when we don't want to, to affect and exhibit as much as possible

the "proper" behavior befitting our role or a role we aspire to (e.g., top executive, church elder, etc.), to behave and dress to attract a mate or a promotion, to manipulate the boss or subordinates to get what we want or "for their own good" or "for the good of the or- ganization." Lots of energy thus goes into "managing communications," not saying what we really mean or feel. This creates incongru- ence in our communications, i.e., we send out mixed messages. We say one thing verhally and another nonverbally (with our voice tone, facial expressions, body language, etc.). The nonverbal message is usually the one believed by the recipient. In any case, the incon- gruence creates mistrust which precludes real, open communication. Traditional hierarchial, "Theory X," parent-child, management styles accentuate and perpetuate this problem.

3. WE FEAR AND AVOID CONFLICT. In Spite of the body of research and "common sense" that says conflict (i.e., the expression of and work- ing through differences), is essential to co- hesive and creative interpersonal and group activity, most of us have been well-schooled to work politically, to suppress conflict, or deal with it indirectly. As a result, vast amounts of energy are wasted in circuitous communication. People fear conflict, fear that it will destroy working relationships. (In a sense, we do need to be careful of it because most of us are not taught how to handle it skillfully.) We give ourselves all sorts of "reasons" for avoiding facing even minor con- flict—"oh, I don't want to bother her with such a small thing."*

4 . WE DRAW CONCLUSIONS, MAKE ASSUMPTIONS,

EVALUATE AND JUDGE RATHER THAN OBSERVE

BEHAVIOR AND REPORT WHAT WE SEE, HEAR,

AND FEEL. Western man's most prized ability, to think and to reason, probably causes more difficulty in communicating than any other single factor. Most of us jump to conclusions.

* I am purposely avoiding psychological explanations. I consider them beyond tKe scope of this article. I wonder if people fear conflict because the skilled resolution of con- flict brings people much closer—and people in our society strongly fear closeness.

4 Communication and Conflict in Organizations

attribute motives and judge others without checking to see if we are accurate—and invari- ably we are not (but seldom know it because everyone stays "polite" and avoids conflict). For instance, in the previous example the supervisor assumed the manager's nonverbal signal meant h e wanted the European trip to be called ofF, did not check out his perception (which would have cleared up the issue imme- diately and prevented almost four months of bad feelings and frustration) and behaved as if his assumption was true. Such "mind-read- ing"/analyzing is the rule, not the exception.

5. WE USUALLY A R E N ' T WELL IN TOUCH WITH

OURSELVES. To clearly express what we want, to understand other people, to understand our own needs, to be clear on our interpretation of verbal and especially nonverbal communica- tions depends on self-understanding. Our own stereotypes, daydreaming, fantasizing, self- image perpetuation, body feehngs, etc., all contribute to the accuracy with which we can understand and communicate with others. To know and understand others, we must know and understand ourselves. Our education, for- mal and informal, concentrates on externals, not on self-awareness and understanding. That, plus our taboos against giving and re- ceiving accurate, frank feedback means most of us have a very limited understanding of ourselves.

6. WE LACK SKILLS. We generally lack collabora- tive skills and we have well-developed com- petitive skills which get in the way of com- munication. For example, most of us are highly skilled at listening selectively in order to influ- ence others. Few of us are skilled in listening for understanding. Few of us have the skills to express our wants clearly, briefly and di- rectly; mostly, we are more skilled at circuitous expression aimed at manipulation and "poli- ticing." Our schooling concentrates on one- way communication (e.g., making speeches) which is of little use in, if not detrimental to, face-to-face communication. For example, little attention is given to understanding nonverbals

which often constitute 95% of what is com- municated. Politeness rules and ranking of human beings in organizations tend to further preclude the feedback necessary to close the loop and achieve understanding.

I have painted a fairly bleak future. I believe it is accurate. I think it's safe to say that most people, certainly most managers, in our culture have not experienced truly open communication. Most of those who do, perhaps in a laboratory training ses- sion, are astonished and delighted. They discover a new world. Without such an experience most consider the typical situation in organizations to be normal, albeit not overly pleasant. The inefficiencies which result from circuitous, managed communica- tion and inability to utilize and deal with conflict don't seem to afl̂ ect the competitive status of the organization because the competition has about the same problems.

That the situation is debilitating to the human spirit and to the self-actualization of people in organizations is just beginning to be a legitimate consideration in the more progressive of our organi- zations, I believe and hope this concern will grow as more of the generation who were in college in the sixties take over.

What To Do About It

Fortunately, we can learn new ways and skills to greatly improve our ability to communicate and utilize conflict. Further, expert help is becoming ever more, common in organizations. Most com- munications and conflict management skills are conceptually simple—and hard to learn. They re- quire repeated practice.

There are many approaches. New ones are being invented at an accelerating rate, I will limit my discussion to those which have proven useful to me in repeated usage. Basically, to improve yourself in these areas you can increase your knowledge of people and how they communicate, you can in- crease your self understanding, you can learn new skills and sharpen those you already possess, and/or you can get professional, on-the-job training and help.

Human Resource Management, Winter, 1974 5

INCREASE YOUR KNOWLEDCE

Read books, articles and research papers. This is probably the-easiest approach you can take, espe- cially for self-study. It is probably the least useful. Read books and papers on behavioral science and Organization Development. Read material and books by "Third Force" psychologists such as Abra- ham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Frederick Perls, etc. Read books on Transactional Analysis by Eric Berne, Thomas Harris (I'm Okay, You're Okay), James and Jongeward {Born to Win), etc. (If these excite you and you want to go further into human nature, try any of Alan Watts' twenty or more books; The Way of Zew is probably a good first look at what he had to say.)

INCREASE YOUR AWARENESS OF YOURSELF

This is the most useful, significant and far-reaching action you can take. Also, depending on how deeply you are willing and able to explore, by far the most difficult. You will need help to see yourself. You can't make much real progress by yourself, I recom- mend the following, listed more or less in order of "depth" beginning with the most "shallow" (all can be profound experiences):

a. Participate in OD training—teambuilding, con- flict management, intergroup development. Bring in an outside consultant if an internal practi- tioner is not available. Chances are you'll learn more about, yourself and improve your organiza- tion at the same time,

b. Take a laboratory training course. A top-notch program aimed at managers and professionals is offered by U,C.L,A, twice a year. N T L offers labs, as do others. You can probably find a course near by—but beware of amateurs,

c. Take ap advanced lab course. There are many varieties.

d. Join a growth—"well people's"—therapy group or see a growth therapist privately. Growth thera- pies come in many varieties and approaches. Examples include: Gestalt, Transactional Analy- sis, Rogerian, Bioenergetics, Structural Integra- tion (Rolfing)—and many others. The trick is to find an approach and a therapist right for you

(the latter is probably most important). (If you work hard and are successful you'll improve your ability to communicate and handle conflict— and you'll probably feel a lot better in general— but remember there are many misconceptions about therapy being for "mental illness" and little understanding of growth therapy).

As an example of how getting more in touch with yourself can help you communicate, con- sider Mr. A, a supervisor with a large insurance company. In a Gestalt Therapy week-end ses- sion he described how difficult his boss was to communicate with. He said his boss was author- itarian, looked down on him and that the situa- tion had gotten so bad he avoided dealing with him as much as possible. The therapist asked Mr. A to close his eyes and imagine himself in the boss's office with his boss. The therapist in- structed Mr. A on how to get in touch with what he was feeling. Mr. A said, "I have knots in my stomach." The therapist asked Mr. A to think back through his life to see if he could remember any other situations which produced similar "knots." "Of course, my father!" Mr. A could then see his relationship with his boss in an entirely new light. He had blamed the situa- tion on his boss's behavior but he could then see that the problem was in himself. His new aware- ness enabled him to form an entirely new rela- tionship with his boss. Three months later Mr. A reported that his boss was a "pretty darn good guy" and that they were getting along fine,

e. Meditate—certain forms of Eastern meditation are very close to growth therapy in their ap- proaches. You may even find Nirvana, (Unless you work with a group of people who understand meditation, misconceptions can result. So you may want to keep this to yourself. Too bad, but the early Christians were fed to the lions for less).

INCREASE YOUR COMMUNICATIONS AND CONFLICT

MANAGEMENT SKILLS

Many skills can be learned to enhance your ability. Most are easy to understand and hard to learn be- cause they require breaking old habits, attitudes and/or behavior. It's best to have a teacher.

6 Comtnunication and Conflict in Organizations

a. Learn to pay more attention to what you are feeling in your body. Whether or not you are in touch with your feelings (as in the previous example with Mr. A), they have a lot to do in determining how well you communicate and interact with others. One good exercise is to sit down in a quiet place for about 20-30 minutes and practice locating feelings in your body. When you locate a feeling, just notice it and let it be there—don't try to change it. You may not be able to locate any feelings; our culture teaches us—especially men—how not to feel and some learn these lessons well, A teacher trained in Gestalt awareness, encounter, etc., can help a great deal.

b. Learn to acceft -peofle as they are. Don't expect them to be rational, logical or objective in your view all the time. Become aware that everyone is rational from his/her -point of view. Often when you tell yourself the other person is not rational or lacks common sense, it merely means he/she doesn't share your view of the situation. Typically no one person has a full grasp of any situation, so by learning to accept others and trying to understand their views, your under- standing will increase.

c. Assume communication is very difficult and work at it. Take responsibility for making communi- cation happen. We tend to assume that since we've been communicating all our lives, we know how. As I mentioned previously, communication between people is an extremely complex process and if you assume it will be difficult, chances are you'll do better. And remember that communi- cation usually is not effective unless it is two- way, unless the persons you are trying to com- municate with have the opportunity and trust to ask questions and check out their understand- ing. And vice-versa.

d. Learn to listen actively. Listening is probably the most important skill in communication and probably the easiest to improve (relatively speak- ing). Most of us have learned competitive listen- ing skills; we listen selectively in order to influ- ence or win an argument. We need to learn to listen for understanding. Listening for under- standing means listening, without evaluating.

both to words and for feelings. It involves taking the risk of not mentally rehearsing what you are going to say, having the confidence you will know how to reply. It involves being aware of when you are hearing another person, when you are getting a message from your own body or mind and when you are daydreaming or fantasiz- ing instead of hearing. It involves looking di- rectly at the other person to get an accurate picture of his/her nonverbal messages. Specific skills you can practice include:

• Feeding back to check out your understand- ing. Paraphrase what was said to you until the sender agrees you understand, A very powerful skill. For example: "Jane is handling the XYZ Contract and I m very concerned about how she'll make out,' "Do vou mean vou don't feel Jane can handle the job?" "No, I don t think the other subcontractors are going to come through for XYZ so the w hole job may go down the drain,"

Another useful paraphrase, sometimes called "validation" is to paraphrase for feelings. This form of paraphrase tends to build closeness and can enrich understanding. Both forms can be used together. Example: "Jane is handling the XYZ Contract and I'm very concerned about how she'll make out," "Do you mean you're worried?" "Yes, I'm very worried and I wish I knew what to do about it." These skills are de- ceptively simple; most people need coaching and practice before they become adept,

• Some people find it useful to listen with a note pad handy. When they get an idea of some- thing they want to say when the sender is fin- ished, they make a brief note of it and return their full attention to the sender.

• Interrupt if necessary (and pwssible). Many people send overly long and elaborate messages which make them hard to understand and stay with. Paraphrasing is a constructive form of interruption.

• Check out your perceptions to decode non- verbal messages. If, for example, you are talking with Mr. B and the look on his face tells you he's angry with you for saying what you just

Human Resource Management, Winter, 1974 7

said, do not assume you are accurate in your perception. (Chances are you are not.) Check it out. "Mr. B, that look on your face tells me you are upset with what I just said." "Oh no, I just found out someone ran into my new car in the parking lot." If Mr. B was indeed angry, chances are good your perception check will lead to a clarification or at least will clear tbe air. In the previous example on page 3, if tbe supervisor had checked his perception, "I get the feeling you no longer want me to go to Europe," he would bave saved bimself and his colleague con- siderable anguish and time.

e. Become a more effective communicator. When sending messages, recall the skills outlined in the previous paragraphs. Look carefully at tbe person or people you are communicating with. (Our society unfortunately bas taboos against looking at others directly, especially those of tbe opposite sex. Note, for example, bow most Americans bebave in elevators; we look every- wbere but at tbe other passengers.) If you sense you're not getting across, paraphrase yourself or ask others to paraphrase. Describe your own feelings to belp otbers decode your nonverbal signals. Sborten your messages and practice ex- pressing yourself—especially your wants—more directly. Cbeck your perceptions of bow you are being received witb tbe people you are trying to communicate witb. Ask tbem frequently wbether wbat you are communicating is under- standable/useful to tbem so they can easily help steer you to more effective communication with them.

f. Remind yourself that when you are manipulating others and/or managing your communications, you are usually being manipulated in return. For example, in my work as an OD practitioner I have beard more or less the following regarding at least eight different executives and managers from tbeir respective subordinates: "Tbe boss brings a problem to our staff meetings and asks for our opinions and we know be already bas bis mind made up; be plays a game witb us." In all but one of these situations, when the boss was confronted with his bebavior (part of tbe OD process) be said be did it purposely "to give

tbem a sense of participation." One, a senior executive, agreed tbat be did so but was never aware of it until it brought to bis attention. In all cases tbe subordinates bad learned to sense wbat the boss's decision was and bad learned to avoid playing tbe game by merely giving him wbat be wanted. In eacb case tbe boss believed tbat he successfully manipulated his subordi- nates into doing what he wanted tbem to do and tbat they agreed witb and were behind him, wben in fact tbe subordinates were not bebind bim but were manipulating to avoid his game! Manipulation breeds manipulation. Authenticity breeds authenticity. Moving toward more au- thenticity feels risky to most—but usually proves to be well wortb it.

Learn to deal with conflict. Tbe expression of and working througb differences is essential to a good relationsbip or an effective, creative team. Differences in viewpoint, attitudes and develop- ment are natural in buman beings. They are always present. Dealt with skillfully, they en- hance organizational effectiveness and creativity, bring people closer togetber, and improve the quality and richness of life. Handled poorly or avoided (as is typical), they are destructive. Hav- ing the skills to deal with conflict can make a great difference. Tbey include tbe following:

• Tbe most important skill—wbicb unfortun- ately goes directly against tbe grain of tbe early teacbings of most of us and tbe politeness rules we have lived by—is to confront each "little" issue or irritation as soon as possible, preferably wben it occurs. For some people tbis means lots of small confrontations. It is dangerous to assume tbat you will forget it. Chances are it will show up some way later in a form much harder to deal with. Avoid talking yourself out of facing up to the situation by telling yourself it's trivial or unimportant. As previously discussed, it is the minor issues which build into major prob- lems.

• Wben you confront, learn to be very precise in your communication: Describe only wbat you see, hear, and feel. Describe bebavior and if belpful, how you feel about it. Avoid "mind- reading," judging, assuming motives, evaluating.

8 Communication and Conflict in Organizations

analyzing, inferring, interpreting, concluding and tbe like. If you must do some of the latter be sure you are aware of wbat you are doing and say so. Be exact and specific. Avoid general- izing and talking in terms of personality traits. For example, suppose during a morning meeting, Mr. C "cut you off" several times wben you tried to speak. If you decided to confront bim (more typical behavior would be to bold a grudge and avoid him), the usual would be for you to do so in anger and say sometbing like, "Mr. C, every- time (generalization) I try to get tbe floor you cut me off (interpretation)—you're trying to keep me from baving my say (attributing motive)!" Tbis sort of "mind-reading" attack would usually evoke a defensive counter attack and/or a bostile witbdrawal—and eventually escalate. A skillful approacb would be to describe precisely wbat bappened, "Mr. C, tbree times tbis morning wben I started to speak (describe bebavior) you spoke up (describe bebavior) and I stopped my- self (describe bebavior)." "I'm upset (optional, describe bow you feel)." Cbances are, Mr. C didn't even notice wbat be was doing at tbe time and is now free to say, "Ob, I'm sorry, we must be interested in tbe same tbings, I tend to get excited and speak up quickly, I'll be careful from now on, please let me know if I do it again." Tbis confrontation would result in good feelings and a closer working relationsbip be- tween you and Mr. C. Tbis procedure works very well even for clearing up old conflicts.

• Make a "deal," a contract, specifying bow to bandle tbe same situation in tbe future. In tbe previous example, "please let me know if I do it again," perhaps with some specification of just how to do so in a mutually acceptable way would constitute a "deal." Deals are often im- portant to acbieve new ways of working togetber and to facilitate confronting "slip ups."

• Know Thyself. The preceding are ways of dealing witb conflict, accepting yourself and others as they are. Other approaches which help you understand yourself and others better can be very helpful. Transactional Analysis offers some. Gestalt awareness training is very useful.

For example, behind most anger is burt. W e tend to get mad at tbe other fellow often when we are hurt, frightened or threatened. Getting in touch with our own hurts or fears enables us to work tbrougb tbe essence of tbe true problem ratber tban just on tbe transactional or inter- personal problem, and become stronger in tbe process.

h. Get hel'p. All of these communications and con- flict management skills are hard to learn. Most require practice and coaching. Managers and nonmanagers have learned to accept legal help and financial help. They generally have even less training in people skills, and help in tbis vital area is becoming more common in organi- zations. On-tbe-job belp from internal and ex- ternal OD consultants is probably tbe most use- ful. It is particularly important—often essential— to call on an OD tbird party to help work through well-establisbed conflict situations. Most people are too involved and not skilled enougb to do tbe job witbout sucb belp.

i. Take a course in Transactional Analysis. TA can be taught at any level, from communication to therapy. As a communication tool, it bas proven very belpful in organizations.

Conclusion

Communications problems are inevitable. Mucb can be done to reduce and prevent them. The ap- proaches to improvement involve learning new skills and developing more self-awareness. They are simple to understand and usually require prac- tice and coaching to learn. Expert belp is available. Effort in this area is rewarded not only within the organization but in tbe family and in every otber area of a person's life.

Conflict is natural. Major conflicts usually develop from small issues. It is a part of communications important enough to highlight—it's the little things that count. Effectively managed, conflict is a very positive factor in organizations—a factor essential to full effectiveness and creativeness. Rather tban be avoided, it needs to be promoted. To do so, most

Human Resource Management, Winter, 1974 9

people need to learn new skills. Expert belp is sometimes essential. Conflict management skills will usually also pay off big, botb witbin tbe organi- zation and in private life. Learning bow to deal constructively witb conflict is often tbe essential ingredient in acbieving mutual trust, open com- munications and effectiveness witbin tbe organiza- tion—and true intimacy within the family.

Richard J. Mayer

is the Manager of the Staff and Organization Development for the Pacific Northwest Lahoratory of the Battelle Me- morial Institute. His prime personal responsibilities include improving the management system, training managers and acting as a third party facilitator for teambuilding, conflict management, intergroup development and other OD activi- ties. He also consults for the other Battelle Laboratories. Prior to this position, he held various line management positions in a number of high technology corporations.

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