{"id":21252,"date":"2017-03-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global2020prd.wpengine.com\/insights\/the-matrix-is-about-surfacing-conflict-not-collaboration\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T14:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T14:10:13","slug":"the-matrix-is-about-surfacing-conflict-not-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/insights\/the-matrix-is-about-surfacing-conflict-not-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"How do we surface conflict in the matrix"},"content":{"rendered":"

At our global team meeting last week one of my colleagues used a phrase that really made me think \u201cthe matrix is about how we surface conflict not collaboration\u201d. Many organisations introduce a matrix explicitly to improve the amount of communication and collaboration across the traditional vertical silos, usually geography and function as described in our definitive guid to matrix management.<\/a><\/p>\n

In a formal matrix organization structure<\/a> this means adding additional reporting lines to reflect \u201chorizontal\u201d business entities such as business units or key global processes such as supply chain. In a more informal \u201cmatrix management\u201d way of working reporting lines remain unchanged but there are many more cross functional virtual teams<\/a> and international projects that connect the organisation together.<\/p>\n

By reflecting the needs of the horizontal and vertical in reporting relationships, or in collaboration structures, the matrix effectively forces more collaboration and makes people more pay more attention to multiple dimensions of their organisations.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the matrix is associated with higher levels of conflict. It\u2019s a very common objective in a matrix management workshop for people to ask how to reduce this.<\/p>\n

Why would you\u00a0want less conflict?<\/h2>\n

Our response is that it is probably not a good idea to reduce the amount<\/strong> of conflict, but it is important to be able to manage it positively<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Conflict is a reflection of different perspectives<\/a> and strongly held ideas about where the business should operate. The more people that are involved, the more the possibility of strongly held different views.<\/p>\n

The more passionate you are and the more you care about the business, the more disagreement you should expect. We worry far more when we find organisations with low levels of disagreement, this probably means that it has been suppressed and that people have given up.<\/p>\n

Of course, it’s not enough just to have conflict, we need the skills and confidence to identify and resolve disagreements when they happen. If we just suppress problems or take them off the table, then they will keep coming back and it will cause frustration and delay.<\/p>\n

In an international context there are some particular challenges conflict<\/p>\n