Thanks to Hallely Azulay of Talentgrow for pointing me to this article about the cost of conflict in organizations. An alternative dispute resolution company in Europe did some research to try to quantify how much conflict costs businesses, and they came up with the figure of 33 billion pounds (more than $61 billion) per year, just for businesses in the UK.
Why is conflict a problem? Because people don’t know how to deal with it. According to the research, only 37% of managers in the UK felt trained to cope with business conflict. My favorite quote:
Over a third of managers would rather parachute jump for the first time than address a problem with their team at work.
Perhaps I should move to England?!
C