Interpersonal Confrontation and Basic Third Party Functions: A Case Study

Abstract

This study centers on a conflict between directors of two interdependent groups in a government agency and interventions by a third party consultant who helped them confront their intergroup and interpersonal differences. The third party (a) enhanced the parties' willingness to confront each other, because they perceived him as possessing skills which could prevent the process from deteriorating; (b) synchronized the parties' readiness and efforts to confront, because of the signal value of his presence and his limited availability to them; (c) increased their candidness in expressing views about the issues and reactions to each other, because each party associated the consultant with a prior experience in which openness had been normative. In addition, the third party (d) increased their feelings of social-emotional support and (e) helped clarify and diagnose the issues.

A significant aspect of this episode is that because of the nature of the third party's professional identity and the clients' prior experience with persons in the profession, his presence by itself tended to provide emotional support and reinvoke some of the behavioral norms which were instrumental to the conflict confrontation and resolution process.

The confrontation helped the parties clarify the intergroup issues and partly resolve their interpersonal issues. In turn, the improved rapport between the directors enabled them subsequently to handle the intergroup issues more effectively.