CHAPTER 24
DEALING WITH CONFLICT
Wherever you have humans, you have conflict: competition for food, for money, for women, for land is endemic. Normally the competition is civilised, occasionally it is brutal.
Organisations are set up for conflict.
For speed readers who may have missed the point: organisations are set up for conflict. Organisation theory focuses on how organisations build cooperation. But theory and reality are often strangers in the world of management.
As we have already seen, most organisations consist of competing tribes. Finance, HR, sales, IT, Japan, Europe, the USA, top and middle management will all have their own windows on reality. Each function and geography earnestly believes that their priorities are the most important. ...
