Conflict is inevitable in business.
Destructive conflict is not.
Where people work together, there will inevitably be differences in personalities, expectations, priorities, values, communication styles, ambitions, perceptions and interests. Add pressure, deadlines, money, authority, family relationships, ownership, job security and competing priorities, and disagreement becomes almost unavoidable.
The real problem is therefore not that conflict occurs.
The problem is that owners and leaders frequently try to resolve conflict before they properly understand what is causing it.
That is what makes Gary T. Furlong’s The Conflict Resolution Toolbox: Models and Maps for Analyzing, Diagnosing, and Resolving Conflict such a useful book for small-to-medium business owners, CEOs, managers, Board members and advisors.
Furlong’s central proposition is deceptively simple: different conflicts require different diagnostic tools and different interventions.
A mechanic would not attempt to repair every vehicle fault with the same tool. Yet managers frequently approach every workplace dispute with the same handful of responses: have a meeting, tell people to communicate better, remind them to behave professionally, compromise, restructure responsibilities, issue a warning, or simply hope everyone calms down.
Sometimes those responses work.
Sometimes they make the conflict worse.
Furlong provides a much more disciplined alternative:
Diagnose first. Intervene second.
That distinction alone makes The Conflict Resolution Toolbox one of the more practically useful books on conflict resolution for SME owners and leaders.
Table of Contents (Leadership Development Perth)
- Why workplace conflict is so often misdiagnosed
- Furlong’s central idea, diagnose before you prescribe
- The models inside Furlong’s Conflict Resolution Toolbox
- The Circle of Conflict
- The Triangle of Satisfaction
- Interests, Rights and Power
- The Dynamics of Trust
- Boundaries, rules and expectations
- Social styles and communication
- Moving beyond conflict
- What Furlong gets particularly right
- Where the Toolbox has limitations
- A practical conflict diagnostic framework for SME owners and leaders
- Practical recommendations
- Key takeaways
- FAQs
- Conclusion
The Biggest Mistake Leaders Make, Treating the Argument as the Problem (Leadership Development Perth)
One of the most important lessons from Furlong’s work is that the visible disagreement is not necessarily the underlying conflict.
Two managers may be arguing about budgets.
The apparent issue is money.
But underneath the argument could be something completely different: perceived disrespect, competition for authority, unclear responsibilities, conflicting values, distrust, historical resentment, fear of losing influence, incompatible incentives or disagreement about who ultimately has decision-making authority.
This distinction matters enormously.
If the underlying problem is trust, changing the budget may not resolve anything.
If the problem is unclear authority, asking people to “communicate better” may achieve very little.
If the problem is competing interests, reminding everyone about company policy may simply push the dispute towards arguments about rights and power.
This connects with the broader leadership principle that behaviour is often a symptom rather than the root cause.
Owners and leaders therefore need sufficient self-awareness to recognise their own contribution to conflict. Developing greater emotional intelligence and self-awareness can be particularly important because leaders who become defensive, angry, threatened or personally invested in being proven right can easily become part of the conflict they are attempting to resolve.
Furlong’s great strength is that he gives leaders a structured way of looking beneath the surface.
Furlong’s Central Idea, Diagnose Before You Prescribe (Business Advisor Perth)
The Conflict Resolution Toolbox does not offer one supposedly universal formula for resolving conflict.
Instead, Furlong provides a collection of diagnostic models, different lenses through which a conflict can be examined.
That is important because the same outward behaviour can have very different underlying causes.
An employee refusing to cooperate could be:
- protecting legitimate interests,
- responding to a perceived boundary violation,
- distrustful of another manager,
- reacting to a process they consider unfair,
- defending strongly held values,
- operating with different information,
- responding to an organisational structure that creates conflicting objectives, or
- communicating in a style another person interprets as obstructive.
The appropriate intervention depends upon which explanation, or combination of explanations, is actually operating.
The precise number of tools is less important for SME owners than the philosophy behind them:
No single model explains every conflict.
Business leaders understandably like simple frameworks. Frameworks help organise complex problems.
But frameworks become dangerous when we start forcing every problem into our favourite model.
Furlong instead encourages what might be described as diagnostic flexibility.
Look at the conflict from several perspectives.
Ask different questions.
Test alternative explanations.
Challenge your assumptions.
Then decide what intervention is most likely to address the real problem.
This is also where an experienced independent business advisor or facilitator can sometimes add disproportionate value. People inside a conflict are rarely completely objective observers of it. Each participant has their own interpretation of what happened, why it happened and who caused it.
The Models Inside Furlong’s Conflict Resolution Toolbox (Leadership Development Perth)
The practical value of Furlong’s approach becomes clearer when the models are considered as different diagnostic lenses rather than independent solutions.
A complex workplace dispute might involve several of them simultaneously.
A senior executive conflict, for example, could begin with unclear responsibilities, deteriorate through incompatible communication styles, damage trust, harden into competing positions and eventually escalate into arguments about contractual rights or executive authority.
Understanding those layers allows the leader to intervene much more intelligently.
The Circle of Conflict, What Is Really Driving the Dispute? (Business Advisor Perth)
One of the Toolbox’s most useful models for business leaders is the Circle of Conflict.
It directs attention towards different possible drivers of conflict, including relationships, values, data, structure and external factors.
That immediately changes the questions a leader should ask.
Is this genuinely a personality clash?
Are the parties working from different information?
Is the organisational structure creating competition?
Are responsibilities overlapping?
Are incentives pulling people in opposite directions?
Do the parties fundamentally disagree about what is right, fair or acceptable?
Is external pressure amplifying an otherwise manageable disagreement?
Consider two senior managers repeatedly fighting over customers.
Management may conclude that the managers simply dislike one another.
But what if both job descriptions make them responsible for the same customers?
What if both receive bonuses based on revenue generated from those accounts?
What if nobody has clearly established who owns the customer relationship?
The organisation itself may have created the conflict.
Trying to repair the relationship without repairing the structure could therefore be futile.
This is why clarifying roles and responsibilities is not merely an HR exercise. Role clarity can be an important conflict-prevention mechanism.
The Triangle of Satisfaction, Why the Outcome Is Only Part of the Solution (Business Coach Perth)
The Triangle of Satisfaction encourages another useful shift in thinking.
Resolving a dispute is not simply about finding a technically correct answer. People also care about the substantive outcome, the process used to reach it and how they were treated during that process.
This helps explain why leaders sometimes become frustrated after announcing what appears to be a perfectly reasonable solution.
“The issue has been fixed. Why are they still unhappy?”
Because the outcome may have been acceptable while the process was not.
An employee may have received what they originally requested but still feel ignored, humiliated or excluded.
A business partner may accept the commercial solution while remaining angry about how the decision was made.
A manager may accept a restructuring decision while believing their contribution was never acknowledged.
This connects directly with the importance of respect, empathy, compassion and acknowledgement in effective leadership.
People judge both what you decide and how you decide it.
For SME owners, that is a powerful lesson.
Interests, Rights and Power, Understanding How Conflict Escalates (Non-Executive Chairman Perth)
The Interests, Rights and Power framework is arguably one of the most commercially important concepts in the Toolbox.
At the interests level, the parties focus on what they actually need and why.
At the rights level, the argument moves towards contracts, policies, legal entitlements, precedents, job descriptions and questions of who is correct.
At the power level, parties attempt to impose an outcome through authority, hierarchy, voting control, financial leverage, resignation threats, litigation, withholding cooperation or other forms of pressure.
For business owners, the lesson is significant.
The further a conflict travels from interests towards rights and power, the more expensive and potentially damaging it can become.
Consider two shareholders disagreeing about the future direction of their company.
Initially, the disagreement may concern interests. One shareholder wants aggressive growth and reinvestment, while the other wants dividends, greater liquidity and lower risk.
Handled constructively, there may be ways of accommodating significant elements of both interests.
But if the disagreement deteriorates into:
“The shareholders’ agreement says I can…”
followed by lawyers, Board votes, threats, attempts to remove directors or shareholders withholding cooperation, the nature of the conflict has fundamentally changed.
That is why business owners should understand why business partners fall out and why having a properly constructed shareholders’ agreement before a serious dispute arises is so important.
Good governance cannot eliminate conflict.
It can, however, prevent disagreement from becoming organisational warfare.
The Dynamics of Trust, When the Issue Becomes Bigger Than the Issue (Leadership Development Perth)
Trust deserves special attention because many workplace conflicts eventually become trust conflicts.
Once trust deteriorates, people begin interpreting behaviour differently.
An innocent mistake becomes evidence of incompetence.
A delayed email becomes deliberate avoidance.
A question becomes an attack.
A management decision becomes proof of hidden motives.
People stop giving one another the benefit of the doubt.
This creates a dangerous feedback loop:
Low trust changes how behaviour is interpreted, and those interpretations create even lower trust.
That insight has enormous practical importance.
When trust is badly damaged, simply solving the original issue may not repair the relationship.
The leader may need to address the trust deficit explicitly.
What happened?
What commitments were broken?
What assumptions are being made?
What behaviour needs to change?
What would each party need to observe consistently before confidence could begin to return?
Trust is rarely rebuilt through declarations.
It is rebuilt through repeated, observable and reliable behaviour over time.
Boundaries, Rules and Expectations, The Conflict Nobody Defined (Business Improvement Perth)
Another valuable perspective in Furlong’s toolbox concerns boundaries.
Workplaces depend upon boundaries, even when nobody calls them that.
Who has authority?
Who makes which decisions?
What behaviour is acceptable?
What information must be shared?
What deadlines apply?
What constitutes appropriate performance?
What happens when expectations are not met?
Many SME conflicts arise because these boundaries have never been clearly established.
The business grew.
People were hired.
Responsibilities evolved.
Informal arrangements became accepted practice.
Eventually, two people’s assumptions collide.
This is why professionalising an SME requires more than adding systems. It requires greater clarity around authority, responsibility, accountability and behaviour.
The broader process of professionalising a small-to-medium business can therefore materially reduce avoidable conflict.
Social Styles, Sometimes the Problem Is How We Communicate (Leadership Development Perth)
Not every conflict is fundamentally structural or commercial.
Sometimes people simply communicate very differently.
One person wants detail.
Another wants the conclusion.
One wants time to think.
Another wants an immediate decision.
One communicates forcefully.
Another interprets forcefulness as aggression.
One sees vigorous debate as healthy.
Another experiences exactly the same conversation as confrontation.
Furlong’s Social Styles perspective is useful because it reminds leaders that intent and impact are not the same thing.
“I didn’t mean it that way” does not necessarily mean the communication was effective.
Understanding different leadership styles in business therefore matters.
Effective leaders adapt.
They do not demand that every employee, manager, customer or business partner communicate exactly as they do.
Moving Beyond Conflict, Resolution Is Also Psychological (Business Coach Perth)
Some conflicts continue long after the practical issue could have been resolved.
Why?
Because people sometimes become psychologically attached to the conflict.
The dispute becomes part of their story:
“They betrayed me.”
“Nobody listened.”
“They tried to push me out.”
“She always does this.”
“He cannot be trusted.”
At this point, resolving the external issue may no longer be enough.
People must also become capable of moving beyond the internal narrative surrounding it.
This is particularly important in family businesses and long-standing business partnerships, where present disagreements may carry years of emotional history.
Yesterday’s argument joins last year’s grievance, which joins the disagreement from five years ago.
Eventually, nobody is arguing only about today’s problem.
This is one reason why poorly managed business conflict can become so destructive.
The longer conflict remains unresolved, the more history it accumulates.
Constructive Conflict Can Actually Make a Business Stronger (Leadership Development Perth)
One danger in discussing conflict resolution is creating the impression that successful organisations should eliminate conflict.
They should not.
A business in which nobody challenges the owner, CEO or senior management team may appear harmonious while actually becoming intellectually weak.
Constructive conflict can expose poor assumptions.
It can reveal risks.
It can generate alternatives.
It can challenge groupthink.
It can improve strategic decisions.
It can prevent powerful personalities from dominating discussions without challenge.
The objective is therefore not a conflict-free organisation.
The objective is an organisation capable of productive disagreement without destructive personal conflict.
That distinction is fundamental to building high-performance teams.
Strong teams are not necessarily teams whose members always agree. They are teams capable of disagreeing openly, respectfully and intelligently while remaining committed to a common objective.
What Furlong Gets Particularly Right (Business Advisor Perth)
The greatest strength of The Conflict Resolution Toolbox is not any individual model.
It is the discipline of diagnostic thinking.
Furlong effectively challenges leaders to stop asking:
“How do I fix this?”
and first ask:
“What exactly am I trying to fix?”
That is a much better question.
The book is also unusually practical. Its models are intended to function as working tools rather than merely abstract conflict theory.
Another major strength is that the same conflict can be examined through multiple lenses.
A dispute may simultaneously involve structure, trust, interests, communication and boundaries.
That reflects real organisational life.
Workplace conflict is rarely neat.
The Toolbox also encourages leaders to challenge their first interpretation of a dispute.
That is enormously valuable because one of the greatest risks in conflict resolution is premature certainty.
The owner decides who is wrong.
The CEO decides what caused the problem.
The manager decides which employee is difficult.
From that moment onwards, evidence may be interpreted to support the conclusion already reached.
Furlong’s diagnostic approach encourages a more disciplined question:
“What else could explain what I am seeing?”
That is good conflict management.
It is also good leadership.
Where The Conflict Resolution Toolbox Has Limitations (Leadership Development Perth)
No framework eliminates the need for judgement, and Furlong’s Toolbox should not be treated as an instruction manual that automatically produces the correct answer.
Its first limitation is also one of its strengths: there are multiple models.
For an experienced mediator, that creates flexibility.
For an inexperienced manager, it can create uncertainty about which model to use.
Second, diagnosing conflict correctly requires objectivity.
That is difficult when the person doing the diagnosis is also involved in the conflict.
An owner may genuinely believe two executives are the problem while failing to recognise that their own inconsistent decisions, unclear expectations or management style are fuelling the dispute.
Third, frameworks can make conflict appear more rational than it sometimes is.
People are emotional.
They become defensive.
They protect status.
They fear losing face.
They remember insults.
They misinterpret motives.
They sometimes prefer being proven right to reaching a sensible commercial outcome.
Fourth, conflict models cannot compensate for weak leadership.
A manager can understand every framework in the book and still avoid the difficult conversation that needs to occur.
Finally, not every conflict should be mediated indefinitely.
Some behaviour is unacceptable.
Bullying, dishonesty, harassment, deliberate sabotage, serious misconduct and repeated breaches of agreed standards may require decisive management action rather than endless attempts at consensus.
Conflict resolution must never become avoidance of leadership responsibility.
A Practical Furlong-Inspired Conflict Diagnostic Framework for SME Owners & Leaders (Business Improvement Perth)
The greatest practical value of Furlong’s work comes when the theory changes what a leader actually does.
Before intervening in an important workplace conflict, work through the following sequence.
1. What Is the Visible Dispute? (Business Advisor Perth)
Describe the disagreement factually.
What happened?
What are the parties actually disagreeing about?
Remove blame, interpretation and emotion from the initial description wherever possible.
2. What Might Actually Be Driving It? (Leadership Development Perth)
Examine relationships, information, structure, values, external pressure, expectations, boundaries, trust and communication.
Ask:
“If the visible argument disappeared tomorrow, what underlying issue might still remain?”
3. What Does Each Party Really Need? (Business Coach Perth)
Move beyond stated positions.
Identify interests, concerns, fears, priorities and objectives.
“What do you want?” is useful.
“Why is that important to you?” is usually more useful.
4. Is the Conflict Escalating Towards Rights or Power? (Non-Executive Chairman Perth)
Look for warning signs.
Policies.
Contracts.
Lawyers.
Threats.
Boardroom alliances.
Voting blocs.
Resignation threats.
Ultimatums.
Attempts to exercise positional authority.
These may indicate that the conflict is escalating.
5. Has Trust Become Part of the Conflict? (Leadership Development Perth)
If the answer is yes, solving the technical issue alone may not be sufficient.
Trust may require a separate repair process based upon acknowledgement, commitments and consistent behaviour.
6. What Intervention Fits the Diagnosis? (Business Advisor Perth)
Only now choose the intervention.
That might involve:
- direct negotiation,
- clarification of roles,
- changing reporting lines,
- changing incentives,
- mediation,
- facilitated discussion,
- coaching,
- governance intervention,
- restructuring responsibilities,
- formal performance management, or
- decisive management action.
The sequence matters:
Observe → Diagnose → Understand → Select → Intervene → Review
That may be the single most useful practical lesson SME owners can take from Furlong.
Practical Recommendations for SME Owners & Leaders (Leadership Development Perth)
Do not wait until conflict becomes a crisis.
Create an environment where constructive disagreement is normal but destructive behaviour is not.
Clarify roles, responsibilities and decision rights before ambiguity creates friction.
Address problems early, while people are still discussing interests rather than asserting rights and exercising power.
Separate positions from underlying interests.
Ask each person what they are genuinely trying to achieve.
Listen for trust issues hidden underneath apparently commercial disagreements.
Examine whether your organisational structure, incentives, reporting lines or governance arrangements are creating the conflict.
Pay attention to how decisions are made, not merely what decisions are made.
Build a management team capable of having difficult conversations. Developing a high-performance work team requires the ability to challenge, disagree and resolve differences without allowing disagreement to become personal warfare.
Most importantly, recognise when the owner or CEO is too close to the conflict to diagnose it objectively.
At that point, an experienced external business coach, advisor or independent facilitator can help the parties see what they cannot see from inside the dispute.
For conflicts that have reached Board, ownership or strategic levels, independent Board leadership can also provide structure, neutrality and governance discipline.
Key Takeaways from The Conflict Resolution Toolbox (Leadership Development Perth)
Furlong’s most valuable lesson is that effective conflict resolution begins with diagnosis, not intervention.
The disagreement people are arguing about may not be the real problem.
Different conflicts require different tools.
Structure, relationships, values, information, trust, boundaries, interests and communication can all contribute to workplace conflict.
A technically correct outcome may still fail if people believe the process was unfair or disrespectful.
Conflict becomes more dangerous as parties move away from interests towards rights and power.
Trust problems need to be addressed as trust problems.
Unclear roles, responsibilities and decision rights create avoidable conflict.
Different communication styles can turn manageable disagreement into unnecessary confrontation.
Constructive conflict can improve business decisions, while destructive conflict can damage relationships, culture, performance and business value.
Not every conflict requires compromise, and good leadership sometimes requires decisive action.
Above all:
Slow down the urge to solve the problem long enough to understand the problem.
FAQs About The Conflict Resolution Toolbox (Leadership Development Perth)
What is the central idea of The Conflict Resolution Toolbox?
The central idea is that there is no single method suitable for every conflict. Leaders and conflict practitioners should first diagnose the underlying causes and dynamics of a dispute, then select an intervention appropriate to that diagnosis.
Is Furlong’s Toolbox useful outside professional mediation?
Yes. Its diagnostic approach is highly applicable to owners, CEOs, managers, HR professionals, advisors and Board members dealing with workplace disagreements.
What causes most workplace conflict?
There is rarely one universal cause. Conflict may arise from relationships, structures, values, information, unclear expectations, competing interests, trust problems, communication differences or external pressures.
Why do workplace conflicts become personal?
Repeated negative interactions can alter how people interpret one another’s behaviour. Once trust declines, even neutral actions may be interpreted negatively.
Is workplace conflict always bad?
No. Constructive disagreement can challenge assumptions, expose risks, generate alternatives and improve decision-making. The problem is destructive, unresolved or personalised conflict.
Should leaders always try to resolve conflict?
Leaders should address important conflict, but resolution does not always mean compromise. Some situations require clarification, mediation or negotiation, while serious misconduct may require decisive management action.
Why is role clarity important in preventing conflict?
Ambiguous responsibilities and overlapping authority create situations where capable people can legitimately believe they own the same decision, customer, resource or outcome.
What are Interests, Rights and Power?
Interests concern what parties actually need or want. Rights concern who is correct or entitled to something. Power concerns who can impose an outcome. Conflict generally becomes harder and potentially more damaging as it escalates towards rights and power.
Can trust be restored after workplace conflict?
Often yes, but rebuilding trust usually requires more than verbal reassurance. It requires acknowledgement where appropriate and reliable, consistent behaviour over time.
When should an SME use an independent facilitator?
When conflict involves senior executives, owners, family members, shareholders or the CEO, neutrality can become difficult. Independent facilitation can be valuable when the parties are unable to diagnose or discuss the issue objectively.
How can an SME prevent unnecessary workplace conflict?
Clear roles, decision rights, expectations, accountability, communication standards and governance arrangements can eliminate many avoidable sources of conflict before they escalate.
What is the most important lesson for an SME owner from Furlong’s book?
Do not immediately ask, “How do I resolve this?”
First ask:
“What is really causing this conflict?”
Conclusion, Conflict Is Inevitable, Destructive Conflict Is Not (Leadership Development Perth)
The Conflict Resolution Toolbox deserves a place in the library of any business leader who regularly manages people.
Its enduring value lies in one fundamental shift in thinking:
Stop treating every conflict as if it were the same problem.
A disagreement about money may really be about respect.
A personality clash may actually be a structural problem.
A communication breakdown may be a trust problem.
A shareholder dispute may begin as a difference in interests and end as a battle over rights and power.
A manager who appears “difficult” may be operating within poorly defined boundaries created by the organisation itself.
And an owner trying to resolve a dispute may unknowingly be contributing to it.
That is why Furlong’s Toolbox is so useful.
It teaches leaders not simply how to resolve conflict, but how to think about conflict.
And that distinction matters.
The strongest SME owners and leaders do not create organisations without disagreement. They create organisations capable of disagreeing intelligently, identifying the real problem, confronting difficult issues early and resolving conflict without unnecessarily destroying trust, relationships, organisational culture or business value.
The next time significant conflict emerges within your leadership team, Board, family business or business partnership, resist the temptation to immediately ask:
“How do we stop this argument?”
Ask instead:
“What is really causing it?”
Only then should you reach for the right tool.
Where workplace, leadership, shareholder or Board conflict has become entrenched, an independent perspective can often help separate the symptoms from the underlying causes. To discuss how experienced independent leadership, facilitation or business advice may assist, contact me.
