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conflict management summary
conflict management
conflict management
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Conflict management has always been an interesting subject in an organization. I was Senior Security analyst for a company named L&T in India. As a senior member, conflict management has been one of the most challenging aspects for me. At work, we were always firefighting and had the responsibility to resolve the continuous technical problems of our internal (software developer) and external (customers and partners) clients. Our team had to not only firefight with the existing issues but also had to focus on developing and improving current security projects. This stressful atmosphere led to undesirable amount of conflicts within our team which had positive as well as negative impacts on our unit. Through this paper, I would like to discuss how conflict management has been a challenge for me as a senior security analyst, steps that I had taken to resolve it and what I could have done to ameliorate it by learning from class presentations and slides.
While being there for 2 years, it was quite apparent that there were many conflicts within the team. There were evident sources of conflict. My team of 25 members was divided into sub-teams comprising of 5 members per sub-team. Teams were formed on basis of seniority rather than expertise. This led to difference in opinions, ideas and methodologies. Senior members had their set of opinions and ideas which were completely different from fresher and younger employees. These sub-teams had people who were completely different from each other which led to differentiation within the teams. Each sub-teams had their set of goals and commitments towards the company. Hence, their goals were incompatible with each other. The only task that was common amongst the sub-teams was to resolve complex t...
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...flicts (Class 12 Slides, Conflicts and Negotiation, slide 24). These are some of the methods and approaches that I would have implemented at my workplace.
As I stated at the beginning of this paper, conflict management is an interesting subject to deal with. Initially, I discussed about the sources of conflicts in my organization and what my manager and I did to resolve it. We were successful to a great extent. By after going through the class readings and slides, I realize that although the solution offered was good, there are still better approaches to manage conflicts. After understanding the concepts of conflict management through this course, I am pretty sure that I will implement a better solution if landed in a similar situation.
Works Cited
Rothenberg, S. (2009). Class 12 Slides (Conflict and Negotiation). Organizational Behavior and Leadership, 1-25.
Look up the word conflict in the dictionary and you will see several negative responses. Descriptions such as: to come into collision or disagreement; be at variance or in opposition; clash; to contend; do battle; controversy; quarrel; antagonism or opposition between interests or principles Random House (1975). With the negative reputation associated with this word, no wonder people tend to shy away when they start to enter into the area of conflict. D. Jordan (1996) suggests that there are two types of conflict: good, which is defined as cognitive conflict (C-type conflict) and, detrimental, defined as affective conflict (A-type conflict). The C-type conflict allows for creativity, to pull together a group of people with different opinions or ideas, to combine and brain storm all thoughts to develop the best solution for the problem. The A-type conflict is the negative form when you have animosity, hostility, un-resolveable differences, and egos to deal with. The list citing negative conflicts could go on forever. We will be investigating these types of conflicts, what managers can do to recognize conflict early, and what strategies they can use to resolve conflicts once they have advanced.
Conflict can be perceived in different ways of positively communicating about a topic or negatively, but one thing that can’t argued is that conflict occurs in everyday life and there’s no way of escaping it. One form of conflict that occurs frequently due to constant interaction is in the workplace. Many people see workplace conflicts as just disputes between coworkers, when there are many forms of personal conflicts between those coworkers and bosses such as
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 it. In this paper, conflict, its effects, and some management and resolution strategies as they relate to team dynamics will be discussed. Understanding the various conflict resolution methods, including how and when to apply them, is of utmost importance. In teams, different types of conflict call for different solutions. Conflict resolution is certainly not an area in which one size fits all.
Conflicts situation can happen at any time. There are many different ways to handle conflict situations. To strengthen our skills in responding to conflicts situation we must understand the various conflict management style. The five styles of conflict management style include: Competing, Avoiding, Accommodating, Collaborating, and Compromising. The competing style is like a shark, a competitive approach to ensure only your views counts. Avoiding is like a turtle, avoiding every situation and giving up. Accommodating is like a teddy bear, working against your own goals to move forward. Collaborating is like an owl, working together with your partner to achieve both your goals. Compromising is like a fox, negotiating half your goals in order
The first step that companies should take when integrating a conflict management system is to identify problems that an ADR can address. One major concern company’s face is the financial cost of employment litigation disputes. Some of the negative aspects of employment litigation are difficult to measure in dollars. Other concerns that arise during employment litigation disputes include man hours spent on cases, disrupting the workplace, and the negative impact it has on relationships. This first step is important because it determines whether an ADR system can beneficial to a company. In our class exercise we looked at several complex problems within Pacifine and evaluated whether a conflict management system would be a meaningful alternative for the company.
As human beings, we experience conflict in our everyday lives. It is a natural phenomenon of our personal and professional existence, that it becomes an inevitable component of human activity. In today’s ever-changing business environment organizations, conflict resolution styles are seen as culturally defined event. The success and efficiency of channelling conflicts, whether in a positive or negative manner, can affect the nature of it as being beneficial or destructive to us. However, if it is properly managed, it can in fact ‘increase individuals innovativeness and productivity’ (Uline, Tschannen-moran & Perez, 2003) while offering ‘interpersonal relationship satisfaction, creative problem solving, the growth of a global workforce and domestic
Conflict Management is an apparatus for dealing with complicated differences in a facility to bring about a better and peaceful outcome (Shabbir, Atta, & Adil., 2014). When there is a lack of communication or miscommunication between people, things can become complicated and create issues causing conflict. This paper will educate the reader on conflict management,
A group can only be called a team if the members are actively working together toward a common goal. A team must have the capability to set goals, make decisions, solve problems, and share responsibilities. For a team to be successful, trust must be earned between its members by being consistent and reliable (Temme & Katzel, 2005). When more than one person is working on a particular task, inconsistent views or opinions commonly arise. People come from different backgrounds and live through different life experiences therefore, even when working towards a common goal, they will not always see eye to eye. Major conflict that is not dealt with can devastate a team or organization (Make Conflict Work, 2008). In some situations, conflict can be more constructive than destructive. Recognizing the difference between conflict that is constructive to the team and conflict that is destructive to the team is important. Trying to prevent the conflict is not always the best way to manage conflict when working within a team setting. Understanding conflict, what causes it, and how to resolve conflict effectively, should consume full concentration.
Thomas, K. W. (1992). Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. . Journal Of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 265-274.
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.
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).
According to the relevant literature, it can be discovered that seven sources of conflict uncovered based on research design. The research investigates more than 100 project managers on the opinions of the conflict determinants and put forward seven relevant propositions to verify the accuracy of sources of conflict by the means of Kolmogorov-Smirnov design (Hans et al., 1975). The main sources of conflict can be concluded in the following factors:1 The deviation in the understanding of the project team members related to the project objectives. 2 The discrepancies among project missions, upper management objectives and the role of project team members. 3 Organizational liquidity decreased, the authority continues to control the vital decision despite the actual situation. On the basis of the main factors above, it can be seen that the role of the project manager in conflict management is substantially crucial. Conflict is not as severe as dispute to some extent, therefore, the most important things that project managers should do is to prevent the escalation of conflict from becoming dispute (Fenn, P., 2011). The key role of project managers in conflict situation is not only to create a competitive atmosphere to motivate project members’ higher performance but also evaluate and integrate the gathered information to make crucial decisions. In terms of specific approaches for managing
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).
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).
Along with the preparation for conflict resolutions, understanding the situation in the team during the conflict is important. Clarifying positions along with listing the facts and all the necessary analyzation of the particular situation helps in resolving the conflict in a team. Applying this process can effectively address and resolve the conflict in a