There was once a young frog who lowered itself into a pot of cool water. Please don't ask me how it got into the kitchen – just go with me on this one.

The cook was preparing boiled eggs for breakfast so slowly turned the heat on the stovetop up. The frog was blissfully unaware of the temperature gradually changing and died. Because the change in temperature was so gradual, the frog did not realize it was boiling to death. (Apologies to all you frog lovers out there – this is only a thought experiment so no harm done). Now if that same frog had hopped into the boiling water, it would have jumped right back out and gone on to live a long and happy life.

The frog metaphor describes how we often miss incremental changes until they can no longer be ignored and explains why conflict interventions don't usually happen until it's too late.

Let's take the example of Bill and Ben. You are their manager and notice that they are taking slight digs at each other. When they are in a room together they seem cold towards each other. You might think ‘they're just having a tiff' or 'it's the stress of the deadlines, nothing to worry about'. You are likely so busy that these first signs of a breakdown in trust and engagement don't register as important. Until you start receiving complaints from other team members about Bill and Ben's behaviour, deadlines are being missed and customers are complaining about the service from the team.

If you are an HR partner in the business you might first hear about any conflict between Bill and Ben from their manager, Justine. Justine asks you to intervene as Bill comes to you with his union delegate claiming that Ben is bullying him.

You tell Justine to separate Bill and Ben, move Ben to another team while you call in an Industrial Relations Investigator to investigate the bullying claim. Ben then goes on extended stress leave, leaving the team to pick up the slack. Shaking your head, you think to yourself:

 How on earth did things get this bad?

 Can't they just act like adults?

I don't have time for this.

Because similar scenarios have happened in your organization and you can't identify why, you shrug your shoulders and resign yourself to the belief that 'we're dealing with people so what can I expect?' You come to accept that conflict is just part of life, and your job is to deal with it. And like the frog in the cool water which has been slowly brought to the boil, you come to think of conflict as normal and accept your fate.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that it's possible to hop out of the pot before it gets to boiling point. But first, you need to know what is causing all of this conflict and identify the warning signs.

Stay tuned for Conflict: One Thing You Need to Know (Part 2) where I share with you what I found.