Putting a Number on the Conflict Tax
The rates HPtE uses to put a figure on the Conflict Tax, where each one comes from, and the adjustments we made so a finance team can check every step.
-
-
Conflict Clouds | Evaporating Cloud | High Performance through Engagement | Interest-Based Problem-Solving (IBPS)
Rising Above the Clouds — Where HPtE Becomes a Method
If you have ever sat in a meeting where everyone is right and nothing moves, you already know what this book is about. Two parties, both protecting something that matters. Both arguing from a legitimate place. Both convinced the other side is the problem. The conversation circles. The cost climbs. And eventually someone caves, or…
-
I Asked AI to Explain HPtE. Here’s What It Got Right — and What Only Practitioners Know.
Someone recently typed three words into Perplexity AI: “explain HPtE to me.“ Perplexity is an AI search engine. It reads the web, synthesises what it finds, and produces a structured answer with sources. What came back was surprisingly accurate. It was also, in important ways, incomplete. I want to walk through the conversation that followed…
-
The Conflict Tax: Three Functions, Three Perspectives, One Cost
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been exploring a single idea from three different angles — and what it reveals about the conflict tax across the organisation is something every leadership team needs to see. The idea is the Conflict Tax — the compounding cost of avoidance. Not the cost of conflict itself, but the…
-
The Conflict Tax: What Operations Leaders Are Actually Absorbing
Finance professionals see the Conflict Tax in overtime spend, project overruns, and KPI contradictions. HR and IR Directors see it in grievance patterns and repeat disputes. But there’s a third perspective that neither fully captures — and it’s where the conflict tax in operations hits hardest. Operations. Operational leaders live with the Conflict Tax every…
-
The Conflict Tax: What HR and IR Directors Are Really Managing
HR and IR Directors are the most conflict-experienced people in any organisation. You understand conflict better than any other function — and the conflict tax in HR is costing more than anyone has measured. You’ve sat in more grievance hearings, mediation sessions, and collective disputes than anyone else in the building. And yet — most…
-
The Conflict Tax: A Finance Leader’s Blind Spot
Every finance professional I’ve worked with knows their cost base inside out. They can tell you the variance on any line item, the trend on any cost centre, the forecast for any quarter. But there’s a cost most of them have never measured — and it’s costing finance teams more than they realise. I call…
-
Collective Problem Solving | Group Effectiveness Training | High Performance through Engagement | Interest-Based Problem-Solving (IBPS)
Interest Based Problem Solving: The Engine of High Performance through Engagement
Interest Based Problem Solving (IBPS) is more than just a conflict resolution tool—it’s the core methodology driving successful High Performance through Engagement (HPtE) Strategy® implementations. By focusing on underlying interests rather than positions, IBPS enables organisations to harness tension between competing priorities and transform potential conflicts into opportunities for innovation and growth. The Challenge: Balancing…
-
Building Stronger Labour Relations in Maritime
In today’s rapidly changing world, maintaining harmonious labour relations is more crucial than ever. This is especially true in industries like maritime, where smooth operations rely on the cohesive cooperation between management and unions. Recently, the Port of Auckland has demonstrated that what was once a fractious relationship can evolve into a thriving partnership, serving…
-
High Performance through Engagement | Interest-Based Problem-Solving (IBPS) | Organisational Performance | The 3Cs Model
When an Aviation Icon Chose Collaboration Over Conflict
In 2013, Air New Zealand faced a problem that plagues organisations worldwide: decades of adversarial union-management relationships that drained resources, stifled innovation, and created a culture of mutual distrust. CEO Christopher Luxon called it the “Punch and Judy Show” — a theatrical performance where management and unions played predictable roles, fighting the same battles repeatedly…
-
What is High Performance through Engagement?
“We are in the middle of one of the most profound shifts in human history, where the primary work of mankind is moving from the Industrial Age of “control” to the Knowledge Worker Age of “release.” – Stephen R Covey For centuries people have organised themselves into collective groups. We all know that when we…
-
Unlocking Sustainable High Performance: The Power of the Three-Legged Stool
In the context of sustainable high performance in an organization, the three-legged stool metaphor represents the three necessary conditions for achieving that goal: The first leg of the stool is Commercial responsibility, which refers to an organization’s ability to manage its finances, resources, and operations to ensure its long-term viability and profitability. This leg supports…
-
High Performance through Engagement | Interest-Based Problem-Solving (IBPS) | Organisational Performance
Five Ways Interest-Based Problem-Solving Accelerates Personal Growth and Development at Work
Interest-Based Problem-Solving, an approach rooted in addressing the underlying needs, interests, and concerns of all parties involved, has gained prominence as an effective method for conflict resolution and collaboration in the workplace. In addition to fostering stronger working relationships, this method can also accelerate personal growth and development. By incorporating elements of Robert Kegan’s Constructive…
-
High Performance Organisations | High Performance through Engagement | Interest-Based Problem-Solving (IBPS)
Ladies and gentlemen. The financial performance is not enough! A word from Goldratt.
“Ladies and gentleman. The financial performance is not enough. The real thing is the harmony within the company. If you have the harmony within the company the financial performance will arrive. If you don’t have the harmony inside the company the financial performance, even if you have them, will be lost. The real key is…
-
High Performance Organisations | High Performance through Engagement | Interest-Based Problem-Solving (IBPS) | Organisational Performance
“Perhaps the majority on either side do not believe that it is possible so to arrange their mutual relations that their interests become identical.”
“It would seem to be so self‑evident that maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with maximum prosperity for the employé, ought to be the two leading objects of management, that even to state this fact should be unnecessary. And yet there is no question that, throughout the industrial world, a large part of the organization…
-
High Performance Organisations | High Performance through Engagement | Organisational Performance | The 3Cs Model
High Performance Engagement, Air New Zealand, and the 3C’s
“The thing for me is recognising that, as a business leader, you have a responsibility to lead a company for the future, leaving it in a better place in five, 10, 15, or 20 years’ time. My job is to make sure that commercials are strong, the customer experience is great, the culture of the…
-
Remove resistance or harness it?
There are fundamentally two approaches to dealing with resistance to change. First, we can see the power in it and utilise it in the same way as Dr. Kegan and Dr. Lahey suggest in my last post or, we can see it as harmful and try to eliminate it. In 2001 Prof. Victoria Mabin and…
-
Collective Problem Solving | High Performance through Engagement | Interest-Based Problem-Solving (IBPS)
KiwiRail – HPHE
At KiwiRail, adopting a high performance, high engagement strategy has helped them boost engagement, increase productivity and improve health and safety.
