One of the beauties of change management is that, with the right process, expect

Question

One of the beauties of change management is that, with the right process, expectations can be managed and conflict can be mitigated and resolved without detriment to the project. Rahim (2017) suggests that conflict results from disagreements about tasks, needs, or interests,
with his or her needs or interests, incompatibility, lack of resources, disparate points of view, standards, expectations, or skills, or acting autonomously when teamwork is necessary.

How can a PM manage or mitigate these types of conflicts?

Explanation / Answer

Conflicts occur when two or more people disagree to a certain condition or situation or have their different opinion regarding the same. There are some ways by which a project manager can manage various types of conflicts.

1. Communication :-

It is the most common type of method used to mitigate a conflict in an organisation. Managers can improve their communication skills so that they can handle the arising of a conflict. Also managers can identify various non-verbal communication such as gesture, facial expression, angry look, hand movements etc. which are the primary source of a conflict.

2. Avoidance :-

Avoiding the day to day conflicts can help a manager to maintain a company situation in the workplace. This can also help the manager to improve the career opportunities. It is considered as one of the easiest way to mitigate a conflict.

3. Collaboration :-

It can be very great if the manager can collaborate all the issues together so that every team members in a project altogether can solve it. It can also be good for everyone as everyone can agree to the certain situation. Manager must develop the skills to convince and collaborate the members of a team. Sometimes it can be very difficult for the managers to handle the situation. At that time collaboration may not work.

4. Active listening :-

Having the patience of quietly listening to the employees is very important. By listening carefully to the raising issue, the managers can get to the root cause of the conflict which can help them to resolve the issue. Also by listening carefully, the managers also can earn the trust of the employees and they will also feel free to open up.

5. Stress management :-

One of the most common causes of conflicts is unable to handle stress. Stress managing is very important for a manager as they have to handle various issues in a daily process. If stress overtakes, then it would be difficult for the managers to resolve the problem and give positive response. So project manager must control their stress and emotions to properly manage the project team.

6. Compromise :-

When managers has to get to a solution by maintaining the entire team, then he must make a compromise based on the present situation. This will help to save a lot more time than applying any other method. It is a type of mutual agreement between the conflicting parties. When compromising is successful then each party would be satisfied to some extent.

7. Accomodation :-

This type of method applied when between two conflicting parties, one party wants to resolve the issue or in search of peace, then managers can attempt to make decisions. The opposite party if gets what they wants then there will be no source of conflicts. This type of technique is also called smoothing.

8. Competing :-

In this technique, one side of the conflicting parties win and another side looses. Sometimes when the conflict rises to a high level, then project manager has to impose one team and completely ignore the other. This type of strategy applies only on emergency situation. Manager with highly qualified professionals can only take such decisions.

9. Withdrawal :-

It is also considered as one of the method to solve a problem. When a conflict arises, the managers has to pretend such that there is no conflicts occuring in the situation. Sometimes it is one of the legitimate method to be used in an workplace. When the project is going to be finished in a few days then at that time managers can use this method so that the conflict can be resolved after the submission of the project.

10. Power :-

This type of method is used when the conflict becomes very difficult to be controlled and also there is a high risk of loosing staffs. Project managers simply gives order to resolve the problem in between the conflicting parties as per the authority.

Hope this helps :)

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