Let\'s discuss your personal experiences with conflict: What types of conflict h

Question

Let's discuss your personal experiences with conflict: What types of conflict have you encountered in your personal experience? What behaviors were the cause of this conflict? What have you done personally to manage conflict? Does the text accurately reflect your experience? Like anything else, managing conflict is a skill you can learn and improve. Are you good at managing conflict? How does it affect your work enviornment? Do you avoid conflict at all costs? Lets talk about your experience and offer suggestions for improving all of our conflict management outcomes.

Explanation / Answer

What are types of conflicts have you encountered in your personal experiences?

Conflicts are natural in all walks of daily life – both at workplace and home. Thus, conflict is ever present and both charming and maddening. But conflict is a complex and big subject. There are many sources of conflict. Conflict occurs when individuals or groups are not obtaining what they need or want and are seeking their own self-interest.

There are five major types of conflicts that can arise which are:

A conflict in literature is defined as any struggle between opposing forces. Usually, the main character struggles against some other force. There are two types of conflict, the first is an internal conflict. In this case, the struggle actually occurs inside a character. With internal conflicts, the character could be struggling with a decision he must make or with his own weaknesses in his personality.

External conflict, which generally takes place between a person and someone or something else, such as nature, another person or persons, or an event or situation. External conflicts may be character vs. character, character vs. nature, or character vs. society.

What behaviors were the cause of this conflict?

We need to understand first Types of Conflict Situations first as stated here under:

There are Five Basic Types of Conflicts Situations. These are:

The conflict within the individual is usually value related, where the role playing expected of the individual does not conform with the values and beliefs held by the individual. For example, a secretary may have to lie on instructions that her boss is not in the office to avoid an unwanted visitor or an unwanted telephone call. This may cause a conflict within the mind of the secretary who may have developed an ethic of telling the truth.

In addition to these value conflicts, a person may have a role conflict. For example, a telephone operator may be advised and required to be polite to the customers by her supervisor who may also complain that she is spending too much time with her customers. This would cause a role conflict in her mind. Similarly, a policeman may be invited to his brother’s wedding where he may find that some guests are using drugs which is against the law.

This may cause conflict in his mind as to which role he should play-of a brother or of a policeman. Conflict within an individual can also arise when a person has to choose between two equally desirable alternatives or between two equally undesirable goals.

·Interpersonal Conflict

Interpersonal conflict involves conflict between two or more individuals and is probably the most common and most recognized conflict. This may involve conflict between two managers who are competing for limited capital and manpower resources.

For example, interpersonal conflicts can develop when there are three equally deserving professors and they are all up for promotion, but only one of them can be promoted because of budget and positional constraints. This conflict can become further acute when the scarce resources cannot be shared and must be obtained.

Another type of interpersonal conflict can relate to disagreements over goals and objectives of the organization. For example, some members of a board of a school may want to offer courses in sex education while others may find this proposal morally offensive thus causing conflict.

Similarly, a college or a university may have a policy of quality education so that only top quality students are admitted while some members of the organizational board may propose ‘open admissions’ policy where all high schools graduates should be considered for admission. Such a situation can cause conflict among members of the governing board. In addition to conflicts over the nature and substance of goals and objectives, they can also arise over the means to reach these goals.

For example, two marketing managers may argue as to which promotional methods would result in higher sales. These conflicts become highlighted when they are based upon opinions rather than facts. Facts are generally indisputable resulting in agreements. Opinions are highly personal and subjective and may provide for criticism and disagreements.

These conflicts are often the results of personality clashes. People with widely differing characteristics and attitudes are bound to have views and aims that are inconsistent with the views and aims of others.

·Conflict Between the Individual and the Group

All formal groups as well as informal groups have established certain norms of behavior and operational standards that all members are expected to adhere to. The individual may want to remain within the group for social needs but may disagree with the group methods. For example, in some restaurants, all tips are shared by all the waiters and waitresses. Some particular waitress who may be overly polite and efficient may feel that she deserves more, thus causing a conflict within the group.

Similarly, if a group is going on strike for some reason, some members may not agree with these reasons or simply may not be able to afford to go on strike, thus causing conflict with the group.

This conflict may also be between the manager and a group of subordinates or between the leader and the followers. A manager may take a disciplinary action against a member of the group, causing conflict that may result’ in reduced productivity.

·Inter-group Conflict

An organization is an interlocking network of groups, departments, sections and work teams. These conflicts are not so much personal in nature, as they are due ‘to factors inherent in the organizational structure. For example, there is active and continuous conflict between the union and the management. One of the most common, unfortunate and highlighted conflict is between line and staff. The line managers may resent their dependence on staff for information and recommendations.

The staff may resent their inability to directly implement their own decisions and recommendations. This interdependence causes conflict. These conflicts that are caused by task inter-dependencies require that the relationship between interdependent units be redefined, wherever the values of these interdependent factors change, otherwise these conflicts will become further pronounced.

These inter-unit conflicts can also be caused by inconsistent rewards and differing performance criteria for different units and groups. For example, salesmen who depend upon their commission as a reward for their efforts may promise their customers certain quantity of the product and delivery times that the manufacturing department may find it impossible to meet, causing conflict between the two units.

·Inter-organizational Conflict

Conflict also occurs between organizations that in some way are dependent on each other. This conflict may be between buyer organizations and the supplier organizations about quantity, quality and delivery times of raw materials and other policy issues, between unions and organizations employing their members, between government agencies that regulate certain organizations and the organizations that are affected by them. These conflicts must be adequately resolved or managed properly for the benefit of both types of organizations.

Behavioral causes of conflict:

Conflicts may be caused by any one or more of the following reasons:

It is a conflict between convergent (ability to narrow the number of possible solutions to a problem by applying logic and knowledge) and divergent thinking (thinking outwards instead of inward).

Status is a state, condition, or situation. When there is a need for status and a “wrong” person is promoted

A party is required to engage in an activity that is incongruent with his or her needs or interests

A party holds behavioural preferences like attitudes, values, skills, goals, and perceptions, the satisfaction of which is incompatible with another person’s implementation of his or her preferences. Economics: Insufficient remuneration to employees.

Conflicts from stress from external sources; i.e., functional or dysfunctional situations.

Poor or Inadequate Organisational Structure and Lack of Teamwork.

Often a conflict for power struggle takes place when everyone wants to be a leader and nobody wants to be a follower.

Conflict is bound to result if someone of less stature leads a more qualified and experienced worker.

Arbitrary interpretation and application of rules and policies: Lack of transparency and openness creates dissatisfaction among the affected people

In case of joint action two parties may have partially exclusive behavioural preferences.

Poor communication (employees being not informed of new decisions, programmes etc., not involved in decision making, and rumor mongering allowed); insufficient resources (Disagreement on allotment of work, stress from inadequate financial, equipment, facilities, and other resources and privileges); absence of personal chemistry between managers and employees (both sides having rigidity, dislike for absence of self- traits); lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities, arbitrariness in employees’ performance appraisal; weak leadership, and inconsistent, too-strong, or uninformed leadership (lack of openness, buck-passing with little follow-through, lingering on issues, first-line managers failing to understand their subordinates’ jobs). All these factors cause dissatisfaction.

What have you done personally to manage conflict?

Conflict Management Styles:

Conflict management must aim at minimizing affective conflicts at all levels, attain and maintain a moderate amount of substantive conflict, and also to match the status and concerns of the two parties in conflict.

It is non-assertive and non-cooperative. The manager may think or pretend that no conflict exists or just ignore it. This strategy is used when the effort to resolve is not worth the salt. But this approach over the time worsens the situation.

Accommodating is non-assertive and cooperative, just opposite of compet­ing. To solve the conflict, if someone puts his interests last so as to satisfy concerns of other people by giving in, sacrificing, or accepting, or yielding to other’s view point, it is called accommodation.

The style is assertive and non-cooperative. A person puts his/her interests before anyone else’s interests. It is also known as dominating style. One stands up for his rights and uses all the power to win his position. There is low relationship orientation. Managers, using this style, want others to follow his dictates or get his way.

It is some assertive and some cooperative. Compromise is on the path toward collaboration, somewhere between competition and accommodation. The style means mutual give-and-take to satisfy both parties, or both may say, “Something is better than nothing.” It has equal distance between competing and accommodating.

It is assertive as well as cooperative, just opposite of avoiding. It may also be called integrative style. This style focuses on satisfying the underlying concerns of both the parties, meeting many current needs by working together. Through this style, employees develop ownership and commitment. Sometimes this style gives birth to new mutual needs.

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