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Conflict and Conflict Management
The importance of conflict management
Strategies of conflict resolution organizational behavior
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In the workplace, disagreement or arguments may arise due to several reasons. This can further result into a state of antagonism or opposition, resentment, avoidance, verbal assaults, and inability to work together. Such may arise due to personality clashes, differences in style, differences in leadership, interdependence conflicts and differences in the background or gender. With reference to the conflict between Norm and Norma, disagreement arose due to differences in styles. This is because Norma was after quick result from the initiated project while Norm believed he could work from home and still meet the expected standard. However, Norma expected full commitment from all the staff under her. For good working relations, conflicts should always be resolved and hence improve good working relationship among the employees both the juniors and seniors. Professionally, conflicts can be solved via two models; circle of conflict and triangle of satisfaction (Susan Holton, 1998).
Considering the conflict between Norm and Norma with reference to the circle of conflict, it is evident that the conflict arose due to external moods and values. The most contributing conflict driver was external moods. Norm had complaints from his wife due to him getting home late and not devoting his time to their marriage. It forced Norm to request his boss, Norma to make his work schedule flexible so as to enable him work from home at a time. Due to need of results by Norma she could not allow Norm to commute from home as she considered him one of her best performing staff hence needed his full input so as to achieve the newly initiated project (West Brooks Stevens, 2009).
Another contributor to the conflict was values; both Norm and Norma had value ...
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...an be harmonized. The needs such as psychological and emotional may be difficult for a manager to impact. The two models can be useful in conflict resolution in an organization by managers. This is because they address the approaches used by boundary, dynamics of trust, dimensions, social style, moving beyond and interest/rights/power models (Susan Holton, 1998).
Reference List
Australian Institute of Aboriginal, (2004). The Satisfaction Triangle. Retrieved from:
http://www.clu-in.org/conf/tio/negotiations4_100810/satisfaction-triangle-Chris-Moore-and-Australia.pdf
Susan Holton, (1998). Academic Mortar to Mend the Cracks: The Holton Model for Conflict
Management. Retrieved from: http://www2.acenet.edu/resources/chairs/docs/Holton.pdf
West Brooks Stevens, (2009). Conflict Resolution. Retrieved from:
http://www.westbrookstevens.com/conflict_Resolution.htm
Chapter two elaborate on style of conflict, worldview of conflict, negative view, positive of conflict, lens model of conflict, and description of conflict. Chapter encourage me to think about conflict in my life, and the chapter introduce lend model of conflict. The lens model of conflict has benefits in perspective and analysis the conflict. The perspective within conflict would help to understand both side of the conflict. Analysis the conflict would help come to resolution, compromise, or agreement. Also, conflict was seen different with everyone. Even culture has influence on conflict. Overall, I believe that patience would be most helpful in managing conflict.
The purpose of this paper is to explore conflict and ways to manage it. I chose to explore this topic in depth because conflict touches all of our lives. Whether it is at work or in our personal lives. Like most people when you have a bad day at work; I have a tendency to bring the frustration home. Frustration at work causes me to be in a bad mood; hence that makes me argue with my spouse.
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.
Northam, S. (2009). Conflict in the workplace: Part 1. American Journal of Nursing, 109(6), 70-73. doi:10.1097/01.NAJ.0000352483.09112.b4.
Interpersonal conflict is very common with many relationships. It occurs when two people can not meet in the middle or agree on a discussion. Cooperation is key to maintaining a healthy debate. More frequently; when dealing with members of your own family, issues arise that include conflict and resolution. During this process our true conflict management style appears “out of thin air”. (Steve A. Beebe, 2008, p. 191).
Thomas, K. W. (1992). Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. . Journal Of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 265-274.
Although there is a plethora of possible sources of conflict in any workplace, the ones in this case are rather explicit. These include personal differences, Informal deficiencies’, role incompatibility, environment stress, perceptions, and expectations. Personal differences could be related to personal values, physiognomies, family bonds or ties, and material belongings.
Conflict is most commonly interpreted as non-productive and agressive. However, there is also a type of conflict that actually results in productivity in an effiecient manner. These two types of conflict are known as a-type conflict (affective conflict) and c-type conflict (cognitive conflict) respectively. Unfortunetly, both types of conflict happen in not only a persons every day life, but also in proffessional environments such as a work place. While cognitive conflict can be good in a work place, affective conflict is often unwanted.
Many people enjoy working or participating in a group or team, but when a group of people work together chances are that conflicts will occur. Hazleton describes conflict as the discrepancy between what is the perceived reality and what is seen as ideal (2007). “We enter into conflicts reluctantly, cautiously, angrily, nervously, confidently- and emerge from them battered, exhausted, sad, satisfied, triumphant. And still many of us underestimate or overlook the merits of conflict- the opportunity conflict offers every time it occurs” (Schilling, nd.). Conflict does not have to lead to a hostile environment or to broken relationships. Conflict if resolved effectively can lead to a positive experience for everyone involved. First, there must be an understanding of the reasons why conflicts occur. The conflict must be approached with an open mind. Using specific strategies can lead to a successful resolution for all parties involved. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument states “there are five general approaches to dealing with conflict. The five approaches are avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise, and collaboration. Conflict resolution is situational and no one approach provides the best or right approach for all circumstances” (Thomas, 2000).
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.
In interpersonal conflicts, first the conflicting parties are interdependent, they believe that they seek incompatible goals or outcomes, their incompatibility has the capability of affecting their relationships if not addressed using the right methods and finally there is a great sense of urgency to address
Conflict is a basic aspect of teamwork (Levi, 2001), since the number of decisions that a team needs to make often evokes feelings of discomfort and stress. Conflict very often arises from a clash of different working style, ideas, interests, needs, and wants. Team conflicts can be due to high stress level. It has been experienced that in teamwork there can be conflicts and conflicts creates dissatisfaction among the employees. It is important that conflicts be addressed in such a way that it has adverse effect and it is very important to address the conflicts on the spot otherwise it would be difficult to handle the conflicts. (Jehn, 1995).When team member s disagree about the task themselves that how these tasks should be performed then task related conflicts occurs. It is also called task led-conflicts, it occurs when persons disagree over the understanding of tasks and their goals it is a disagreement between two team members in a group over the decisions. They have differences of opinions about a certain issue. (Stewart, Sims & Manz, 1999). Disagreement can be caused by differences in viewpoint and values, differences of opinion about tasks and differences in expectation about the impact of decisions (Levi, 2001).
Conflicts transpire as the team develops and moves through the different stages listed in section 3.0. Additionally, conflicts could also arise from lack of leadership that leads to unclear and conflicting goals. The lack of communication from the leader would result in uncertainty to the contribution and commitment of each individual (The University of Melbourne, 2013). This conflict can be resolved by regularly reviewing the work and improving the communication between each individual (Johnson, 2015). Another large conflict that arises is the unfair distribution of work to each person. Whilst it is important for each individual to adapt to every Belbin role that is needed, one must not receive more or less work. The unequal distribution could lead to resentment, inefficiency and the unfairness of a member not contributing but still receiving the marks. All these conflicts can be resolved promptly before it hinder on the work quality. The team should identify the causes of conflict, state their effect on the team and negotiate a solution that suits all. Most importantly, the team should communicate regularly and be proactive about any situations (The University of Melbourne,
Conflict exists in every organization as a result of incompatible needs, goals, and objectives of two people while aligning to the overall business requirements. Though disagreement is linked with negative impact, the approach has healthy considerations (Leung, 2008). For instance, some conflicts create an avenue for the exchange of ideas and creativity to meet the set organizational purposes. However, damaging disagreement in organizations results in employee dissatisfaction, turnover, and poor services and reduced productivity. The paper establishes different types of interpersonal conflict and key resolution strategies used to address the problem. Human resource managers need to have the capacity to identify different levels of conflicts and the best methods to negate them.
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).