IN SECTIONAL TITLE SCHEMES POORLY MANAGED CONFLICT RESULTS IN UNDER-PERFORMANCE AND WASTE.
Primary Costs of Conflict
There are obvious implications when disputes happen in ways that require money or other resources. These are Primary Costs that can be directly linked to a conflict at hand. Interestingly these are short-term consequences and the least damaging. The costs of which are easily measurable. For example:
- Wasted time
- Demotivation
- Underperformance
- Degraded decision quality
- Damage from theft, sabotage, or vandalism.
These are related to specific clashes but dispute settlement does not always address the underlying conflict. People don’t do well with unresolved, mismanaged or un-managed conflict.
Secondary Costs of Conflict
These are harder to connect to the cause, harder to measure and harder to pinpoint responsibility. For example:
- Failures to meet targets
- Missed opportunities
- Increased costs of supplies, capital purchases, equipment repairs, legal expenses or insurance premiums
Systemic Costs of Conflict
These all-pervasive and toxic, seemingly unrelated to any specific conflict or need for change; tracking them back to their root cause is near impossible. For example:
- Poor service delivery (to Sectional Title Stakeholders)
- Best performers quitting
- De-motivation
Ultimately as a stakeholder, your Sectional Title Levies are affected by all and any of these costs. That will increase your levies with – no increase in value for you or anyone else.
Workplace conflict is probably the most avoidable cost that organisations face and the most damaging in terms of poor practice, under performance and waste of valuable management time
~ Nora Doherty (UK), leading consultant in workplace mediation.