Cost of Unrepaired Relationships
In business, compounding costs appear in quarterly earnings reports, litigation expenses, and lost strategic opportunities.
Each unreconciled conflict creates avoidance, reducing future cooperation opportunities, which creates more isolation, which further damages group cohesion.
Primatologists measured conflict frequency and reconciliation rates across primate groups. Groups with high conflict + low reconciliation rates showed: smaller coalition sizes (damaged relationships reduce cooperation), higher baseline stress (unresolved tension persists), reduced cooperative hunting success (individuals avoid risky cooperation with unreliable partners), and higher emigration rates (individuals leave groups with unresolved conflict).
The cost of unrepaired relationships compounds over time. Each unreconciled conflict creates avoidance, reducing future cooperation opportunities, which creates more isolation, which further damages group cohesion.
Business Application of Cost of Unrepaired Relationships
In business, compounding costs appear in quarterly earnings reports, litigation expenses, and lost strategic opportunities. Intel-AMD's 8-year litigation cost $220M+ in legal fees, 500+ engineer-years diverted from development, $200M+ in duplicated R&D, plus market confusion. The 1995 reconciliation ended $30M+ annual costs and enabled both to share a $400B+ market. If (Direct costs + Opportunity costs + Long-term costs) > Reconciliation costs, reconcile.