The Squawk Point

Organisational Mechanics

  • Home
  • Blog
    • People
    • Data
    • Process
    • Wild Cards
    • Index
  • Podcast
  • Book

Corporate Infighting

12 December, 2017 by James Lawther 4 Comments

The battle

On any day in any corporation, you will see barbed e-mails, poisonous meetings, water fountain backstabbings and all-out turf wars. This is common or garden corporate infighting and nothing to write home about, though it may cause some gossip in the pub.

Organisations are chock-full of infighting:

  • Conflict between departments
  • Conflict between executives
  • Conflict between bosses and subordinates
  • Conflict between peers

Usually, the conflict simmers below the surface, but it can sometimes explode outwards, creating all-out organisational war.

Corporate infighting has consequences

It results in wasted time and effort, disillusioned employees and organisational angst. None of this does anything for business performance. Opportunities are missed by the score.

The higher in the organisation the infighting starts, the more damaging the disagreement becomes. Big egos wield lots of power, and they can cause some serious destruction.

What causes corporate infighting?

The answer is obvious – different objectives.

  • If your bonus depends on you outperforming your peer, don’t be surprised if he is less than helpful
  • If your big improvement opportunity makes somebody else feel stupid, they will fight back
  • If you are pushing sales and the factory is cutting costs, well, I will leave it to your imagination

You don’t have to be the Brain of Britain to work out how conflicting goals affect an organisation.

Reduce the conflict

It is human nature to compete.  There will always be egos to sooth and diplomacy is unlikely to become a dying art.  But you can reduce conflict.

There are organisations that:

  • Make pay scales transparent and equitable
  • Remove the link between appraisal and remuneration
  • Set everybody’s bonus and target against the same goals
  • Force P&L responsibility down the organisation

Each of these interventions improves cooperation.

The enemy isn’t within

The enemy is your competitor.  Fortunately, they are just as busy taking chunks out of each other as you are.  Imagine what you could do if you could join forces against them.

There is more conflict within corporations than between them,
and it is generally less ethical ~ Peter Druker

If you enjoyed this post click here to receive the next

Corporate Conflict

Read another opinion

Image by Thomas Hawk

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: performance management, purpose, reinforcing behaviour, targets, teamwork

About the Author

James Lawther
James Lawther

James Lawther is a middle-aged, middle manager.

To reach this highly elevated position he has worked in numerous industries, from supermarket retailing to tax collecting.  He has had several operational roles, including running the night shift in a frozen pea packing factory and carrying out operational research for a credit card company.

As you can see from his C.V. he has either a wealth of experience or is incapable of holding down a job.  If the latter is true this post isn’t worth a minute of your attention.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to read it and decide for yourself.

www.squawkpoint.com/

Comments

  1. Annette Franz says

    13 December, 2017 at 2:55 am

    What if all executives across the organization were in alignment about business goals and outcomes, the culture, etc. If they were all walking the same walk and talk, then silos wouldn’t be formed, and conflicts would be reduced.

    Annette :-)

    Reply
    • James Lawther says

      28 December, 2017 at 9:37 am

      Precisely Annette, though a big what if unfortunately

      Reply
  2. maz iqbal says

    15 December, 2017 at 10:07 am

    Hello James,
    Is it human nature to compete? Would humans compete if there was no need to compete? Worth considering. Pascal, looking into ‘human nature’ came up with the following: “custom is our nature”.

    As for your assertion that the competitor is the enemy, i do not find myself in agreement with you. As far as I, the employee, experience it the competitor is merely a competitor. The enemy (or enemies) I experience as being inside the organisation. The enemies are all the people, processes/practices, rules/regulations, tools that I have to battle against to get stuff done and meet my needs. Is this likely to change in the near future? The Berlin Wall did come down – and it is not an event that occurs frequently.

    I hope all is good with you and your loved ones. And I wish you a great Christmas and the very best for 2018. It would be good to meet up in 2018. Let me know if you are up for it.

    Reply
    • James Lawther says

      28 December, 2017 at 9:36 am

      Thanks for your comment Maz, I’m afraid I do think it is in our nature to compete, put there by years of evolution, but there is a whole other debate….

      It would be good to catch up. Let me know if you are in London and we can arrange something.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Explore

accountability assumptions beliefs best practice blame bureaucracy capability clarity command and control communication complexity continuous improvement cost saving culture customer focus data is not information decisions employee performance measures empowerment error proofing fessing up gemba human nature incentives information technology innovation key performance indicators learning management style measurement motivation performance management poor service process control purpose reinforcing behaviour service design silo management systems thinking targets teamwork test and learn trust video waste

Receive Posts by e-Mail

Get the next post delivered straight to your inbox

Creative Commons

This information from The Squawk Point is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Creative Commons Licence
Customer Experience Update

Try This:

  • Fish Bone Diagrams – Helpful or Not?

  • Should You Punish Mistakes?

  • The Clear Desk Policy

  • Changing the Rules

Connect

  • E-mail
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • YouTube
  • Cookies
  • Contact Me

Copyright © 2025 · Enterprise Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in