Welcome to the Manager Tools podcast for Monday, August 14th, 2006.

Hi, this is Michael Ozan, and welcome back to Manager Tools.

Today, Mark Horsman and I have a great one for you.

If you ever had to deal with two of your directs fighting about something, this is the cast for you.

Mark likes to say that the definition of conflict is two human beings in the same county.

Well, that's true.

Then 500 or 1,000 or 5,000 people in the same organization. It's not just a conflict waiting to happen.

It's a conflict guaranteed to happen.

Yep, conflict is inevitable.

Unfortunately, the natural response of most managers to conflict among their staff or team,

and you can guess what it is, is completely, totally

ineffective.

Sure, some conflict is good.

It's a creative tension that produces better ideas and disagreements that lead to a third way.

But most of us don't describe that as conflict.

That's just different ideas.

The conflict we're talking about here is by definition dysfunctional and ineffective.

This cast lays out a way to address it and move toward effectiveness.

So, here we go.

So, Mark, managers don't do well with staff conflict?

Why do you think not?

I mean, what's going on there?

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