Reorganization

If a clash of personalities is a constant source of conflict, then it may be necessary to reorganize who works with whom. While this may lead to a short-term drop in productivity, in some cases this may be the only way to restore a harmonious work environment.

When companies organize their staff into teams, they are most often looking to create an optimal mix of skills to maximize that team's productivity. However, even though a team seems like it would work best with a particular mix of skills, the skills each team member possesses are not the only factor to consider.

When there are members of a team who cannot get along, they will not be able to work together productively. Further, even if there are only two members of a team who are in constant conflict, then the entire team's productivity will also be affected. While it may not always be possible to measure an immediate drop in team productivity, the increase in stress and decrease in morale will eventually become a drain on the team's overall performance.

There is an exception to this rule that should be made for new teams, which is best described with Tuckman's stages of group development. The original Tuckman model explains the lifecycle of a group as progressing through Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. In the first stage, the team is formed, usually through managerial mandate. In the second stage, the team has conflicts related to everyone getting used to working with everyone else. In the third stage, the team resolves these conflicts, and is therefore normalized, after which they can progress to the fourth stage as they learn to perform as a team.

With this model, we should anticipate that shortly after a team is formed, conflicts will arise, but those conflicts should be resolved within a reasonable length of time so that the team can reach a state of normalization, and achieve their maximum performance potential.

Unfortunately, some teams get stuck at the Storming phase, in that they cannot resolve their conflicts on their own. If an organization has someone external to the team that the team respects, they can act to mediate any conflicts, and to help to find productive resolutions. If no mediator is available, or mediation fails to find a resolution, we are faced with the choice of either waiting and hoping that conflicts resolve on their own, or proactively reorganizing the team to help it normalize and therefore enable it to perform.

The challenge then arises of how best to reorganize the teams, even if that means splitting a team to separate the people who are the main source of conflict.

There are several methodologies companies might use to try to create an optimal mix of personalities on a team, with two of the most famous being the Myers-Briggs and DISC, but both Myers-Briggs and DISC have limited research that proves their validity. There is, however, another model that has been widely studied, and is highly regarded in the field of psychology as being the most accurate method of determining someone's behaviors: The Big Five personality test.

The Big Five personality test grades someone across five attributes, which are easier to remember with the acronym OCEAN. They are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

When it comes to being the source of conflict, the most important trait is agreeableness, as people high in agreeableness will almost never be the cause of a conflict, and people low in agreeableness will almost always be the cause of conflict.

If you have a team with two people who are both low in agreeableness, it would be wise to separate them, even if that means that one or both of them are made into a team-of-one so that they are by themselves.

When considering what specifically to do with people with low agreeableness, their openness and conscientiousness should also be taken into account. Often, the best employees are those with high openness, as they will be open to new ideas and trying new things, as well as being high in conscientiousness, as they will be dependable, hardworking, and will most likely produce high-quality work.

Taking all of this into consideration, if we have a team where two members are always engaged in conflict due to them having relatively low agreeableness, but they are also both high in openness and conscientiousness, then separating them is an easy decision, as the source of conflict may be completely eliminated, thus allowing them to perform at their maximum potential. After they are separated, processes and procedures should be put in place to minimize the chances that another conflict arises, which may require there being a designated intermediary who insulates them from each other.

When a situation is not that clear-cut, however, in that it's not immediately obvious that a lack of agreeableness is the source, and it's also not clear what level of performance you should expect if people are separated, then you might try moving them around the organization, in the hopes that one or both of them may find somewhere else where they can work harmoniously with the people around them. While this may be possible in large organizations, in small organizations this may not be an option, leaving management with a difficult choice.

When all is said and done, a workplace is just that: a place of work. A professional workplace should be free of drama, and be somewhere where people are happy to show up to. If there is constant conflict, then inevitably people will want to work elsewhere, and it is often the best people who find other jobs the quickest. Therefore, if the choice is made to not reorganize the teams, or if that choice is not advisable, then given enough time the best people will leave. To prevent this, sometimes difficult decisions have to be made in the name of workplace harmony and overall productivity. Before these decisions are finalized, however, it is often worth advising someone to improve their conduct, and to warn them not to be the source of or engage in future conflicts. Otherwise, inviting someone to leave may be the organization's only recourse.