Conflict management: is the outcome enough to assess a compromise?

After a disagreement over a budget, a schedule or a priority, management reviews generally focus on the outcome. The useful question is more precise: is that outcome enough to assess the conditions for future cooperation?

What the literature establishes

Jared R. Curhan, Hillary Anger Elfenbein and Heng Xu (2006, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) distinguish several dimensions of subjective value in negotiation: feelings about the outcome, the self, the process and the relationship. Their instrument development and validation work shows that an exchange is not evaluated solely through its economic return. For managers, this suggests distinguishing what was secured from how people experience the resolution of the disagreement.

What this experience may predict

Jared R. Curhan, Hillary Anger Elfenbein and Gavin J. Kilduff (2009, Journal of Applied Psychology) tracked outcomes following job offer negotiations. In their sample, subjective value predicted subsequent job satisfaction and turnover intentions, whereas the economic value obtained did not. The significance is temporal: the negotiation experience contains information that the material outcome alone does not provide.

The premature conclusion

One might conclude that a good compromise is one with which everyone reports being satisfied. These studies do not, however, justify replacing an assessment of the outcome with a satisfaction questionnaire. A well-received arrangement may still be inefficient, breach a safety requirement or disadvantage people absent from the negotiation. (our executive and employee training programmes)

What the evidence cannot settle

A job offer negotiation is not a persistent conflict between colleagues who must continue working together. Longitudinal evidence establishes a predictive relationship, not proof that improving people's experience will, on its own, improve cooperation. In practice, a positive response collected by a manager may also reflect caution rather than an honest assessment.

A practical check in Sion

As part of SHR's conflict management programme, an exercise in Sion could address a hydropower maintenance decision, a healthcare rota, grape harvest organisation or staffing coverage in Alpine tourism. For one month, after each decision selected for the exercise, record the concrete outcome and separately ask each party to assess the outcome, the process, the relationship and how they feel about themselves after the exchange. At follow-up, count decisions for which the agreed action was completed by its deadline and those where the parties' assessments diverge, keeping responses confidential wherever possible. This comparison does not demonstrate causality; it checks whether the operational dashboard conceals different experiences of the same compromise. To go further: explore the Conflict Management training in Sion in the canton of Valais, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.

In pictures: Conflict Management in Sion

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