[MUSIC] We've talked about the types of conflict, the sources of conflict, dealing with conflict, resolving conflict, destructive and constructive conflict. Now what I want to also talk about, is the cost of unresolved conflict. And the reason why this is so important is that, when you're looking in a business environment, everyone always talks about the return on their investment, the ROI. Exactly what is the impact to the work environment if something doesn't happen. So when conflict goes unresolved, it leads to very costly situations. Because not only from a performance level, it could be from a litigation level. So when you talk about conflict, and the cost in the business environment. You really have to understand not only the short term impact, but also the long term impact. So the short term impact would be performance of teams, maybe performance of individuals. The long term cost of conflict can be the litigation costs, maybe associated with turnover as well. So let's look at some of them. When we talk about the cost of conflict that goes unresolved, you can talk about the decrease in productivity. So, if you have the individuals that are becoming disengaged, because employee engagement is decreasing. They are no longer feeling that the environment is one that they feel productive to work in. Those are all things that can reduce the productivity of an individual. Which then could impact the team's performance as well. You can also have individuals become absolutely disengaged versus actively disengaged. And then individuals will leave the organization. The cost of that is not only an unfilled chair, it can also be the fact that you've just lost knowledge that is critical to the company's performance. It could be something as extreme as losing an individual that has been with the organization for 20 years. And has the institutional knowledge for running a particular machine. Or it can be as short as someone who was running a project for you over the last two years. And now they've left with that project information in their head. So your competitors might be able to benefit from that information. And that, as well, is the cost of the turnover. When you talk about unresolved conflict, you can also have individuals that are just not actively engaged with the company anymore. So they just don't show up to work, they used all of their PTO time, or their vacation time, or their sick time away from work. So you have less productive time. So that is also a critical thing for companies to understand with respect to the cost of unresolved conflict. And, ultimately, an unresolved conflict situation leads into litigation. So when I use the term litigation, you may automatically envision court room, attorney's fees, cost of the CEO having to take their time away to manage issues. Maybe your internal legal department to doing the same. But I would want to expand that net even further. Because when you have litigation going on in an organization that actually is a footprint on your company. It could be external information that Individuals in the community know that are going on, which can have an impact to the overall impression of your organization. Or it can be actually an internal issue where everybody stands around and talks about the fact that these things are going on in the company. And they can only imagine why, so they make up their own stories as to it. It's cause for lack of productivity because of, once again, an unresolved issue. So, ultimately, it's the time spent on the unresolved conflict that really drives the cost high for a company. So if you resolve a conflict earlier, if you actually deal and manage with the problems as they present themselves. Clear the lines for communication to be open to receiving different ways of viewing things. You'll be able to manage the conflict within your organization, and reduce the costs of unresolved conflict. [NOISE]
