Conflict and communication: a major issue for engineering

A chess set of peices facing off on a chessboard

We’re so excited for our whitepaper on conflict and communication to finally meet the rest of the world.

We started on the journey because we wanted to add greater value to our workshops, drawing on the experiences of engineering managers about the challenges they face and their strategies. So we invited the Mentors from the WiBEC programme at Brunel University to have a chat.

We quickly found that the biggest challenges are friction, egos, and conflict, often caused by (mis)communication.

The cost to UK plc is £28.5 billion per year, and nearly 40% of people are impacted.

Despite these figures, we don’t tend to get help and support in advance of conflict or pay enough attention to how we can adjust our own behaviour to facilitate better communication.

We hope you enjoy reading our Whitepaper Conflict and Communication and sharing our insights. We’d love to hear what you think. The PDF can be downloaded here

And don’t forget – we can help with building your team, designing your engineering programme and supporting your engineering team with the skills they need for healthy conflict. Just give us a call +44 (0) 797 4011278.

Watch the launch webinar

https://youtu.be/Irm4AMMNvmg Jan Peters with and Interview with Tessa Olsen and Helen Shipton

 

How we did the research

We spoke to 20 engineering managers to explore conflict and communication – their biggest challenges. We found the cost to individuals and businesses is huge. People are suffering, teams are suffering, and businesses are suffering. But it’s bigger than that. We’ve all been through and got friends whose conflicts we have lived through that have been painful and at times traumatic. The wider cost to society is massive. Yet the engineers told us that conflict is an important source of creativity and innovation when psychological safety and trust are present. We need to focus more attention on this.

Our whitepaper shares insights on conflict causes, identifies communication as a major factor, and stresses the need for trust to power an environment that sustains healthy conflict.

Download the Whitepaper

The PDF can be downloaded here

View the webinar

Our early 2024 webinar can be viewed on our YouTube channel

The launch event recording will be shared soon.

Take action now

Enquire about a Katalytik Workshop focusing on your team, building on talent and trust. Click here to view the workshop overview