The Invisible Rules that Determine How Your People Have Their Conflict

Exploring the “governance” component of conflict systems in more detail.

In this member-only post, I’m going to dig into some of the nuances around “governance” rules in conflict systems. Everyone in your organization knows which conflicts are “safe” to raise and which ones aren’t. They know which departments tend to win arguments. They know whether escalating something to the senior team will help or just make things political.

These are part of the governance rules in your conflict system, and despite widespread knowledge of the rules, no one actively taught these rules to anyone. Employees simply figured it out through observation. Below I’ll walk you through the escalation rules most organizations are missing and give you a structure you can put into your actual policy documents to start making these rules more visible. (Reminder: these practice-oriented, member-only posts require a paid subscription/membership, which is only $12/month or $120/year.)