In any environment where two or more people interact, conflict is unavoidable and is a normal part of everyday life. According to Jacob Bercovitch, Kevin Clements and Daniel Druckman (2005), “Conflict is without doubt one of the most fundamental of all social processes. It is found everywhere, and at any level of social interaction” (p. 133). Therefore, learning how to manage our attitude towards conflict is crucial. When conflict is mismanaged, it can cause destruction in an otherwise functional environment; on the other hand, when handled in a collaborative way, conflict can provide an opportunity to strengthen the bond between those involved. On that basis, conflict resolution is a way to overcome the problems of conflict. Schellenberg (1996)
Point in fact, it has grown into its own literature and academic program. Schellenberg (1996) maintains that we live in a world of constant conflict, therefore, conflict resolution is extremely important. Conflict resolution is the process of attempting to resolve conflicts in a positive light. To most people, the word conflict has a negative connotation as it is often linked to disagreements. It stirs up thoughts of anger, mistrust, frustration, and hostility. Whilst conflict can be bad, it is a catalyst for change and is also an essential factor in shaping our identity because our experiences of conflict defines who we are and how we create our own values and opinions. Additionally, rarely does anyone think of conflict as a tool for deeper thinking, better results, and improvement in communication. Schellenberg (1996) illustrates, “Conflict is so fully a part of all forms of society that we should appreciate its importance- for stimulating new thoughts… and for helping us form our own senses of personal identity” (p. 9). Clearly, then, the concept of conflict, being an outcome of behaviors is an integral part of the human life. Keashley and Warters (2000), argues that, “Human aggression has been attributed both to a biological instinct or drive and to learned behavior” (p. 37). As a result, our personalities are based on the commitment to the indulge with others, hence, learning from our social experiences. In the article, Theories of Personality (2014) Saul McLeod reports, “Sigmund Freud's psychodynamic theory of personality assumes there is an interaction between nature (innate instincts) and nurture (environment)” (2014). In addition, Schellenberg (1996) claims, “Freud saw conflict primarily in terms of individual expression of aggressive impulses” (p. 54). This goes to show that our personal behaviors can influence social
According to Robin (2002), there are five conflict resolution styles: confront compromise, collaborate, accommodate, and avoid. Identify the preference(s) you most often use from these resolution styles. Think about times you have interacted with styles other than your own. Once the differences between these styles are identified, they can be managed, and the appropriateness of when to use them can be determined.
As much as some of us dislike conflict, it is inherent in human nature. After all, it is like a wall that keeps us from moving forward in the path of life, but we must understand that those walls merely act as temporary challenges that are yet to be solved. Some conflicts may be insignificantly trivial, and some may be quite immense. Some conflicts may be happening within ourselves, and some may be accompanied by another person. Regardless, we must learn not to run away from conflict, but rather to run over them with a determined demeanor as the conflicts that we encounter in our lives are what helps us learn and grow as an individual. Furthermore, learning and growing from conflict is what shape individuals and what prepares us for the upcoming challenges that life will throw at us in the future.
Conflict Resolution: In relation to conflict, the book talked about managing conflict between people, groups, and teams, but did not have any relation to having a problem related to the patient’s situation and resolving that.
We all go thru different phases and life changes in our lives creating more needs and solutions to our problems. Many of us handle conflict negatively and think conflict is bad. Therefore, the best way to resolve conflict is learning how to handle things in a better way. This means understanding the person and understanding what has created the conflict and miscommunication. The book, “Difficult Conversations,” helps us learn different perspectives and needs to our conflicts and learning how to resolve conflict and what has created people to have different standards in their personal culture.
Conflict Resolution: Understand to Achieve. Whenever people unite to work as a team for anything more than a brief duration, some conflict is normal, and should be expected (Engleberg, Wynn & Schutter, 2003). Because of the inevitability of conflict, being able to recognize, address, and ultimately resolve it is vitally important, since unresolved conflict may have undesirable effects, including reduced morale, or increased turnover (De Janasz, Dowd & Schneider, 2001). Just as conflicts within team environments vary, so do methods for resolving them.
In several occasions, conflict occurs in the communication of one or two people. Several people have thought of conflict as cases involving pouring of furious anger in a communication process. Nonetheless, conflict is the misinterpretation of an individual’s words or values (Huan & YAzdanifard, 2012). Conflict can also be due to limited resources in an organization (Riaz & Junaid, 2010). Conflict may as well arise due to poor communication or the use of inappropriate communication channel of transmission of information between the involved parties. Management of conflict has various conflict management styles that include avoidance style, forcing style, passive-aggressive style, accommodating style, collaborating style and compromising style. Workplace conflict comes in two different kinds: task involving conflict, which focuses on the approaches used in resolving the problem and blaming conflict that has the aspects of blame and never brings element of resolving problems between the conflicting parties. In the perception of several individuals, relationship conflict is negative.
Conflict Management can often be the toughest task for a leader to handle. It involves dealing with inter-personal and intra-personal conflict. As a team leader of a technical event called Pulse’09 at my university, I had to deal with conflicts on a regular basis. Conflicts usually arise either due to lack of effective communication, different ideologies, lack of resources or due to task interdependence [3]. It was by far my most life changing experience as it taught me the reason behind conflicts and the way to resolve them. In this paper, I will be talking about the way I dealt with conflicts and managed them, the impact they had on the team performance and what I could do to improve my leadership by contrasting my experience to the class readings.
Conerly (2004), further states two things attribute to the way conflict is managed. One is the importance of meeting your own goals and the other is the importance you attribute to relationships and wanting to get along with others.
Four sources of conflict presented by Lamberton & Minor (2014) are content, values, negotiation-of-selves and institutionalized will be discussed. Awareness of and knowing what causes conflict is important in strategizing ideas and plans to resolve them. Explanations and examples of these four sources will follow. The outcome and process of resolving conflict can affect what direction and success we achieve personally and
Finally, it is important to seek the assistance of a mediator or third-party facilitator if the conflict cannot be resolved internally. Conclusion In conclusion, conflict is an inevitable part of working in teams or groups. However, by using effective conflict resolution strategies, conflicts can be resolved, and a cohesive and productive team can be established.
The interpersonal conflict revolves around my mother and I. We have always had a strong relationship but lately, have been at constant odds between each other. There is conflict between us because of our conflicting views on whats the better option for our beloved dog. My mother will always hold the power most of the times by default, she is my mother after all, but when it comes to this specific interpersonal conflict, I certainly hold the power. Other family members know of this dilemma as well including my grandmother who is just as conflicted as my mother and I are. My grandmother has a strong attachment to our dog and would effect her emotionally.
Before understanding how to deal with conflict, one must understand what conflict is. Conflict can be defined as, “any situation in which incompatible goals, cognitions, or emotions within or between individuals or groups lead to opposition or antagonistic interaction” (Learning Team Toolkit, 2004, pp 242-243). Does the idea of conflict always have to carry a negative connotation? The growth and development of society would be a great deal slower if people never challenged each other’s ideas. The Learning Team Toolkit discusses three different views of conflict: traditiona...
workplace include greater total resources, greater knowledge band and a greater source of ideas. However, these advantages can also bring on conflict within teams and the entire workplace. Varney (1989) reported that conflict remained the number one problem within a large company. This was after several attempts were made to train management in conflict resolutions and procedures. However, the conflict remained. The conflict possibly remains because the managers and leaders did not pay attention to the seriousness of the issue. In order to maintain an effective team, leaders and team members must know and be proactive in the conflict resolution techniques and procedures.
“To live anyhow is better than not at all” (Chekhov 1) , the short story, The Bet commenced with the conflict when the person had no choice but to choose between the death penalty or life in prison. The Bet was originally written by Anton Chekhov, a profound Russian short-story writer who concentrated a lot on human values and the reflection of the extravagantly selfish Russian nobility. And through The Bet he was able to express all those ideas in two sides, the banker and the lawyer with the conflict along the story line.
According to McShane and Von Glinow, conflict is “a process in which one party perceives that his or her interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party” (328). The Conflict Process Model begins with the different sources of conflict; these sources lead one or more parties to perceive that a conflict exists. These perceptions interact with emotions and manifest themselves in the behavior towards other parties. The arrows in the figure illustrate the series of conflict episodes that cycle into conflict escalation (McShane and Von Glinow 331-332).