This Conflict Training Scam That’s Losing You Massive Sums: How Ineffective Training Shield Toxic Employees and Damage Productive Workers
I’ll about to share the costliest scam in contemporary organizational training: the multi-billion dollar conflict resolution training business that promises to transform your organizational atmosphere while actually enabling destructive behavior and alienating your highest performing people.
After nearly two decades in this industry, I’ve watched many companies spend enormous amounts on feel-good training sessions that seem progressive but deliver completely the opposite effects of what they promise.
Here’s how the fraud operates:
Step First: Companies experiencing employee problems hire costly conflict resolution experts who promise to fix every workplace problems through “dialogue training” and “collaborative solution-finding.”
Step Second: Such specialists facilitate extensive “dispute management” training sessions that focus entirely on showing staff to tolerate toxic behavior through “understanding,” “empathetic listening,” and “finding mutual interests.”
Phase Third: After these approaches predictably fail to fix systemic conflicts, the experts criticize individual “resistance to change” rather than admitting that their methods are basically flawed.
Stage Four: Companies spend greater resources on advanced training, development, and “workplace improvement” programs that keep to sidestep fixing the real issues.
During this process, toxic employees are enabled by the management’s inappropriate focus to “working with problematic behaviors,” while good employees become increasingly fed up with being expected to tolerate problematic situations.
We experienced this identical pattern while consulting with a large technology corporation in Sydney. This business had poured over multiple million in organizational development training over a three-year period to resolve what management termed as “communication challenges.”
Here’s what was actually happening:
A single unit was being completely dominated by a few established employees who repeatedly:
Would not to follow revised procedures and publicly attacked supervision policies in department meetings
Bullied junior team members who tried to use established protocols
Created hostile work atmospheres through continuous negativity, interpersonal drama, and opposition to all change
Exploited conflict resolution procedures by continuously submitting complaints against coworkers who challenged their actions
The costly conflict resolution training had instructed leadership to handle to these behaviors by organizing endless “dialogue” sessions where all parties was expected to “share their feelings” and “work together” to “find jointly acceptable outcomes.”
Those encounters offered the problematic individuals with perfect forums to manipulate the dialogue, blame victims for “refusing to accepting their perspective,” and position themselves as “victims” of “unfair management.”
At the same time, productive staff were being expected that they must to be “increasingly patient,” “improve their interpersonal abilities,” and “find ways to cooperate more effectively” with their toxic coworkers.
The consequence: productive staff started resigning in droves. The ones who stayed became more and more disengaged, understanding that their management would repeatedly prioritize “maintaining conflict” over confronting real workplace problems.
Productivity dropped dramatically. Service satisfaction deteriorated. This team became recognized throughout the organization as a “dysfunctional department” that other employees wished to transfer to.
Following I investigated the circumstances, we persuaded management to abandon their “mediation” strategy and implement what I call “Performance First” management.
Instead of trying to “manage” the interpersonal disputes generated by disruptive situations, leadership established specific performance requirements and consistent consequences for unacceptable behavior.
The problematic individuals were given written standards for immediate attitude improvement. After they failed to comply with these expectations, swift disciplinary measures was taken, up to and including removal for ongoing violations.
The improvement was remarkable and outstanding:
Department morale increased dramatically within a short period
Efficiency rose by nearly 40% within a quarter
Employee departures decreased to acceptable rates
Customer satisfaction increased significantly
Significantly, valuable workers expressed experiencing supported by management for the first time in ages.
That lesson: genuine conflict improvement emerges from enforcing clear standards for acceptable conduct, not from repeated processes to “accommodate” unacceptable behavior.
Let me share one more way the conflict resolution training business damages organizations: by instructing employees that every organizational conflicts are similarly legitimate and merit equal consideration and effort to “address.”
Such approach is completely wrong and squanders significant amounts of energy on insignificant interpersonal conflicts while critical operational problems go unaddressed.
We worked with a manufacturing organization where HR personnel were using more than three-fifths of their time mediating workplace conflicts like:
Disagreements about desk temperature controls
Complaints about team members who talked inappropriately during business conversations
Arguments about lunch room behavior and shared facility usage
Character conflicts between staff who plainly did not appreciate each other
Meanwhile, serious concerns like chronic performance failures, operational hazards, and reliability patterns were being overlooked because HR was excessively focused conducting repeated “mediation” meetings about interpersonal matters.
We assisted them create what I call “Conflict Classification” – a structured system for categorizing organizational issues and assigning suitable time and effort to each level:
Type A – Serious Issues: operational concerns, bullying, ethical violations, serious performance problems. Urgent investigation and resolution necessary.
Level B – Moderate Concerns: Performance problems, workflow inefficiencies, scheduling distribution conflicts. structured improvement approach with measurable deadlines.
Level Three – Low-priority Problems: relationship clashes, preference disputes, petty behavior concerns. restricted time allocated. Staff encouraged to resolve independently.
This system permitted management to dedicate their time and effort on matters that actually influenced productivity, organizational effectiveness, and organizational success.
Trivial complaints were handled through brief, systematic procedures that did not absorb inappropriate quantities of management resources.
The outcomes were significant:
Supervision efficiency improved significantly as managers could work on strategic issues rather than handling trivial interpersonal conflicts
Major operational problems were resolved much more quickly and effectively
Staff morale got better as staff understood that management was concentrating on important problems rather than being consumed by interpersonal disputes
Company performance improved considerably as less time were spent on trivial dispute sessions
The lesson: smart issue resolution needs strategic prioritization and proportional allocation. Rarely all complaints are created the same, and handling them as if they are misuses limited organizational energy and focus.
End being taken in for the mediation training scam. Start establishing clear performance systems, fair leadership, and the organizational backbone to address real challenges rather than avoiding behind feel-good “dialogue” processes that protect unacceptable behavior and frustrate your highest performing employees.
Company workplace requires better. Company good people need better. Also your organizational success certainly requires better.
If you enjoyed this post and you would certainly like to receive even more facts concerning Resilient Teams Training kindly go to the web site.
