Fight or Collaborate? 5 Interpersonal Conflict Types

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Fight or Collaborate? 5 Interpersonal Conflict Types

🔥 I just read an interesting article about personal relationship management. Peterson and Behfar argue you can and should broadly distinguish a conflict/collaboration continuum of 5 categories of interpersonal work relationships, depending on the extent to which the interests of 2 colleagues, people, or parties clash or are aligned (from most negative to most positive):

1. CONFLICT (Enemies) - Trying to defeat or deny another's interest. Playing a zero-sum game confronting the other. Make sure you understand the other's strengths and weaknesses. Look for alles to help you win.
2. COMPETITION (Rivals) - Working to deter another in order to protect or advance self-interests. Look for the common ground and analyze what really drives the rivalry.
3. INDEPENDENCE (Neighbors) - Acting to neutralize the impact of others on self-interests. Reduce your dependency of the other.
4. COOPERATION (Friends) - Maintaining self-interests while also advancing joint interests. Be careful as situations might change.
5. COLLABORATION (Allies) - Merging self-interests with the interests of others. When parties have important shared key interests and will benefit from a strong long-term relationship.

No single strategy is always best; smart people know when and how to apply a particular type, possibly adjusting their own style to the other's, balancing their own interests with the other's, carefully considering the risks and trade-offs, properly deciding how much to invest in each person, and when it's better to postpone taking action or to walk away.

❗Tip: The main starting point is to understand in each situation you have (at least 5) options and so do your colleagues. Their style/preference (for this situation) might well be different from yours…

Source: Peterson R.S. and Behfar K.J., "When to Cooperate with Colleagues and when to Compete", HBR Mar-Apr 2022, pp. 143-147.

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		3 Anonymous
	Competitive Team Member One of the members of my project team works, let's call him Mark, works hard and often late into the night. Unfortunately he's not a team player and sometimes (deliberately?) keeps key information to himself. Mark seems to be focused mainly on his own success and behaves like he's in charge of things. His personal contributions are quite good, but this behavior is weakening the overall team spirit. How should I deal with this competitive, ambitious coworker?

		6 Johan Roels Consultant, Belgium
	Fight or Collaborate... The Old 1+1 Story... In my book 'Cruciale dialogen' I called this some ten years ago the one plus one game. 1+1=0 is what Peterson & Behfar call the zero-sum game and I call it zero conversation or monologue (CONFLICT). 1+1=0,5 is a very weak compromise mostly the result of a debate (COMPETITION). 1+1=1 is what I call a His Masters Voice result and the result of a discussion with a winner (the Master) (INDEPENDENCE). 1+1=1,5 is what I call a 'decent' compromise and the result of a courteous conversation (COOPERATION), 1+1>3 is what I call a synergistic outcome and the result of a sound dialogue (COLLABORATION BASED ON INTERDEPENDENCE). So the article could be called 'Old wine in new wineskins'... Creatively, Johan Roels.

		1 SWAMINATHAN MURALI India
	Interpersonal Undercurrents While I agree with the presentation of Mr Peiterson et al there is still one more factor, I believe, called the heart-mind combine which I have tried to throw light on in my book 'Interpersonal Undercurrents". I feel there is a sort of a struggle between the heart and the mind and also between the Mind and Matter. If one doesn't mind, it doesn't matter as well. Love reading this interpretation. Excellent views. Thank you.

		2 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Communication in Interpersonal Competitive Relations @Johan Roels: Your 1+1 categories are very interesting and seem to focus on how various communication patterns establish certain interpersonal conflict/collaboration relationships and results? Is this correct? Communication is a crucial factor, but is it the only factor determining personal relationships and their results? @SWAMINATHAN MURALI: Please elaborate a bit further what you mean with the heart-mind combine in interpersonal competition levels? Thank you.

		2 Dainy Arroyo Manager, Mexico
	Not Collaborating Co-worker @Anonymous: I would recommend making Mark realize how important is that he collaborates with the team, everybody sharing crucial information is worth for everbody in order to be efficient. What if everybody keeps the information for themselves? What if everybody acts like Mark? It seems he still has a "university" behaviour looking for an A for himself. As manager you should be very careful helping him to socialize, to grow and to mature.

		4 Michelle P. Tinio Business Consultant, Philippines
	Success is not a One man Event @Anonymous: If success is very important for him, then play on that. Let him understand that he is part of a team. That a department or section succeeds as one team. Not as an individual. Therefore the team's failure becomes his failure too. It's success, his success too. Let him see that withholding information which could make the team fail will mean he fails with the team. And that if he want's to move up the corporate ladder, one of the things management looks for in its future leaders is their ability to be a team player and eventually a team leader. Hence, it is in his interest to be a good team player. Without it, he cannot succeed in an organization precisely because an organization is one big TEAM!

		2 Maria Elena Hoffmann Management Consultant, Venezuela
	Really Interesting! I liked this article. I would like to know more about Murali's input. It sounds interesting to explore. At the same time, while I was reading all comments or reactions it come to my mind how Hofstede's dimensions apply also in this context and influence how we express ourselves and interact with others.

		1 Afiong Student (Other), Nigeria
	An Aggressive-Competitive and Non-Productive Team Member I have a member in my department that would not response to some piece of information but was picking on and attacking another person. At the end of the day, she didn't give her opinion on the matter and also the others didn't because she distracted and diverted everybody's attention to the scene she created. What do I do?

		3 Johan Roels Consultant, Belgium
	1+1 Categories @Jaap de Jonge: You have appreciately understood 'my' 1+1 communication categories. Communication IS crucial, and dialogue is a condition sine qua non for sound relationships leading to meaningful res...

		4 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Interpersonal Communication and Relations @Johan Roels: Thank you for elaborating. Agreed, interpersonal communication is crucial in interpersonal relations although it is not the ONLY thing that matters. We also agree that collaboration and...

		2 Johan Roels Consultant, Belgium
	My Take on 'a Conflict Model' @Jaap de Jonge: Indeed, not alone for a tango you have to be two who are willing to give and to take in order to transform. What strikes me that in our low land countries the word 'collaboration' is s...

		2 Molokanova Professor, Ukraine
	Fight or Collaborate? 5 Interpersonal Conflict Types I like this Five Interpersonal Conflict Types classification. Note however that one does not always have 5 options available because it always "takes two to tango". You cannot select an option which ...

		2 Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	Feeding Back on Mark's Behaviour @Afiong and @ Anonymous : This seems to be a situation requiring an immediate appraisal of performance. In essence and cutting a long-story short, this would lead me to applying the Itemised Response...

		1 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	7 Ways to Counter Interpersonal Conflicts Regarding interpersonal conflicts, to work more effectively with "difficult" colleagues like micromanaging bosses, passive-aggressive peers, and know-it-all colleagues, Gallo shares the following 7 ti...

		2 Norman Dragt Netherlands
	Moral Development (Kohlberg) and Conflict Preferences I have always liked Kohlberg's stages in his theory of moral development. If you look at the names he gave the three levels, they are almost self explanatory: 1. Pre-conventional 2. Conventional 3....