Positive Ways of Dealing with Conflict. Lesson two. Lesson two objectives. Develop positive ways of dealing with conflict. Evaluate the cost of conflict. Analyze the impact of conflict to employee engagement and performance. Let's go ahead and look at the Cost of Unresolved Conflict. When conflict arises from any of the number of reasons that we've just talked about. And is not resolved in a timely fashion, it becomes destructive. It can cause problems beyond the obvious. Losses in productivity, morale and harmony. Continuing conflict between coworkers or teams can cause employees to become disengaged. The more extreme cases can lead to physical violence or litigation proceedings. The many costs of unresolved conflict include, cost due to decreased productivity. Decreased productivity is because people are focusing on the conflict situation versus their role and their function in their job. Costs of unresolved conflict can also be increased staff turnover. Increased staff turnover could include positions go unfilled. The recruiting time that takes place with respect to the open position, training and development of the new team member, and loss of institutional knowledge. When conflict goes unresolved, you can also have an increase in absenteeism. Employees become actively disengaged. There's no enthusiasm or interest to participate in work functions or their transactional roles on a daily basis. Worse case scenario is that conflict ends in litigation. Things to consider with respect to the cost of litigation are legal fees, arbitrator or mediation costs, internal costs as team members' time is used to respond to request and discovery demands. And also, the focus is not on the productivity or the tasks at hand but what the litigation is about. When managers have to manage conflict at an extreme level, their idea and focus and energy are taken away from the primary resource for why they're there as managing their team and their productivity costs. So time has shifted directly from their responsibilities and project management to the issues at hand. Through this module and it's content you have been introduced to the concepts of recognizing the different types of conflict. Embracing positive conflict as a means to improve performance. Differentiate the causes of conflict to assist with the resolution process. And evaluate the costs of unresolved conflict. In summary, conflict is inevitable. It's not that conflict exists, it's how you handle the conflict, and ensure that it does not become destructive. Conflict comes from a number of resources and sources. And when conflict does arise it's most effective to manage it immediately, so it doesn't engage in a further dysfunctional level into the outer workings of the department or the division. And most importantly, communication and checking for understanding.