Organizational Conflict, Types of Organizational Conflict, Conflict Resolution Strategies, M S Rao Father of Leadership

1. Organizational Conflict
Prepared by:
Hayat Farag

2. Content
• Conflict ------- Organizational Conflict
• Sources of Conflict
• Types of Conflict with Examples
• Conflict Resolution Strategies
• Play Time……..
• Real Cases & Scenarios

3. Conflict
• The experience between parties that their goals or interests are incompatible or in
opposition.
• A perceived misunderstanding among individuals that is resulted from contradictory views or
interpersonal incompatibilities.
• Interference in the accomplishment of a person’s goals.
• Internal or external discord that results from differences in ideas, values or feelings between
two or more people.
• The process of opposition, inconsistency or disagreement in social institutions (individuals,
groups or organizations) that arises from the perceived or actual contradiction between their
interests, their goals or their actions.

4. Organizational Conflict
• It occurs in organizations whenever managers and employees are interacting.
• Conflict occurs in individuals, between individuals, between groups and between
organizations.
Misunderstanding, Disagreement and Competition
Differences in their beliefs, values, goals, feelings, attitudes,
ideas, needs, interests
Personality Clashes
Ego Clashes
Cultural
Differences Miscommunication
Ambiguity in Roles
Stress Scarcity of Resources

5. Personal
Factors
Employee
Personality
Values,
Attitudes,
Beliefs
Organizational
Factors
Heavy
Workload
Poor
Communication
Time
Pressure
Job
Uncertainty
Organizational
Changes
Unclear Job
Descriptions
and
Responsibilities
Managerial
Expectations
Resource
Scarcity
KSA
Knowledge,
Skills and
Abilities
Inappropriate
Rewards with
Performance

6. Types of Conflict
• Conflicts arise when there is a gap between the expectations and the realities.
• When people are unable to meet their expectations they develop conflicts within
themselves and also with others they vent their frustration on others leading
to more conflicts.
• When conflicts occur within the individuals
• When conflicts occur with other individuals
• When conflicts occur between various groups
Intrapersonal Conflicts
Interpersonal Conflicts
Group Conflicts

7. Robbins
(1978)
Traditional views (1930–1940)
Conflict is harmful with negative consequences such as violence
and destruction, must be avoided or suppressed at any cost
Behavioral or Human Relations view (1940–1970)
Conflict is natural and inevitable in organizations, have either
positive or negative results, should be properly managed
Interactionist view (after 1970)
Conflict is good and necessary for organizational growth and
productivity, should be embraced and advocated.

8. Misunderstandings
Role
Disputes
Too Little Conflict
Communication
Problems
Frustration
Anxiety
Depression
Distrust
Disintegration
Disharmony
detrimental effects on both
employees and organizations
Little chance for
change and
improvement
Increase
Absenteeism
and Turnover
Reduce
Collaboration
Too Much Conflict
LOW
Satisfaction
Motivation
Commitment
Conflict is the
mother of
collaboration
People aren’t committed
enough to openly state and
resolve differences of
opinion

9. Optimal
Conflict Level
Brings employees closer
together, emotional unity Strong team spirit
Healthy competition
environment
Employee motivation to work
better and harder
Innovative thinking &
creativity
Challenging and problem-solving
atmosphere, problems properly addressed
and solved
Managers must be able to identify conflict and its
sources, so, they can use appropriate conflict resolution
strategies to combat or stimulate conflict
Improve the systems and
structures
Inventing new tools and
techniques

10. Task Conflict (Objective / Cognitive)
• Functional and task-oriented
• Focused on differences about how best to achieve
common objectives / how task should be
accomplished / what’s the best course of action
• Positive effects when open communication occurs
in an organization
• Synthesis of diverse perspectives instead of the use
of individual perspectives----- enhances decision
quality
Personal Conflict (Affective, Emotional,
Relationship, Relational )
• Dysfunctional
• How team members treat each other as individuals
• Oriented toward emotions or feelings, disagreements
over personal issues & differences
• Emotional tension, interpersonal friction
• Long lasting, hurt overall employee job commitment,
productivity, trust and work performance
cognitive or objective
disagreements are
perceived as personal
criticism

12. Process Conflict
Most common conflict Conflicts associated with
organizing work, responsibilities,
and delegation
It is not the problem of what to do, but disagree
with the formation of groups, overlapping
powers and organizing systems of relationships
between processes.
Managed from the organizational side by
increasing normative commitment
Handled by delegating tasks, if employees have the
opportunity to set the working conditions for
themselves, they are more likely to accept it all

13. Conflict Management Matters…!
• Conflict management is crucial to a successful organization.
• The sustainability of an organization depends on the proper functioning of its human
resources, because any conflict can have unexpected effects on individual and
organizational performance.
• Supervisors & managers spend around of their time managing conflict, which
tends to impede leaders’ decision-making process .
• Effective conflict resolution strategies are critical to successful interpersonal interactions
that are important for increased cooperation and performance at work.
20 - 25 %

14. Conflict Management / Handling Conflict
• Designing effective strategies to minimize the dysfunctions of conflict and maximize the
constructive functions of conflict in order to enhance learning and effectiveness in an organization.
• The process of recognizing the conflict, determining its type and intensity, evaluating its effects,
implementing appropriate intervention strategies and measuring their results.
• Conflict management aims to maintain conflict level to the point that causes a dynamic, live and
creative organization encouraging people to be innovative and productive.
• Managers should encourage functional or constructive conflict and combat destructive conflict.
• In 1940, Follett was the first to suggest Five Different Styles Of Conflict Handling:
Domination/Competing, Compromise, Integration/Collaboration, Avoidance and
Suppression/Accommodating.

15. Five Conflict Solving Strategies

16. Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) 1974
Degree
to
which
a
person
tries
to
satisfy
their
own
concerns
(importance
of
achieving
a
goal)
Degree to which a person tries to satisfy other people’s concerns
(importance of relationship)

17. Competing mode
• Assertive and uncooperative
• When people pursue their own
concerns at the cost of others
• Task-oriented approach
• Win–lose strategy
• It creates hostile environment
among people
Accommodating mode
• Unassertive and cooperative
• Opposite to competing
• One party neglects his or her
own interests to satisfy the
other party’s concerns
• When people ignore their
own concerns to please the
concerns of others
• Lose–win strategy
Avoiding mode
• Unassertive and
uncooperative
• Both parties do not address
conflict and prefer to leave it
unresolved
• When people are busy with
much bigger challenges
• Lose – lose strategy

18. Collaborating mode
• Assertive and cooperative
• Opposite to avoiding
• Each individual collaborates and
strives to find a solution that fully
satisfies both parties’ concerns
• It is usually the best style for
managing organizational conflicts
• It balances both task and people-
orientation
• Win–win strategy
• Ideal outcome but rarely occurs
• It consumes lots of time to arrive at
a mutually beneficial outcome
Compromising mode
• Moderate in both assertiveness
and cooperativeness
• Strategy aim to find an acceptable
solution that satisfies both
parties’ concerns partially
• When people intend to cooperate
with others by giving away
concessions.
• Lose some -win some strategy

22. The Turtle Style (Avoiding)
• Turtles avoid challenges.
• Submissive by nature and care for relationships.
• This style is to avoid the conflicts when they are minor in nature.
• Most times, it is not advisable to avoid conflicts as they might lead to crisis.
• It is a style of playing safe and staying away from conflicts all the time.
• Lose-lose approach.
• Disadvantage conflicts remain unresolved.

24. The Teddy Bear Style (Accommodating)
• Teddy bears emphasize more on relationships and less on goals.
• They strive for peace and harmony.
• When people want to maintain amicable relations with others.
• Lose-win approach.
• Conflicts are resolved, but people can be exploited in future as they are more
concerned about relationships.

26. The Shark Style (Competing)
• Sharks are one of the most feared creatures on earth.
• They are competitive in nature with clear eye on their goals.
• Autocratic, authoritative, impatient and uncooperative and intend to win by any
means.
• They emphasize more on goals and less on relationships as they have least emotions.
• This style works when the time is short.
• It suits best during crisis.
• Defense organizations.
• Aggressive style.
• Win-lose approach.
• Advantage temporary win and the conflicts are resolved.
• Disadvantage resentment and hostility from other side.
• At times sharks win the battles but lose the wars in the long run.

28. The Fox Style (Compromising)
• Foxes are clever, quick, energetic and independent animals by nature.
• They are manipulators and deal-makers.
• They want to eat the cake and have it too as they care for both goals and
relationships.
• They do not lose focus from their goals for the sake of their relations and vice versa.
• Since they are clever animals they want others to lose so that they can also lose
something to resolve the conflicts.
• It is win some-lose some approach.
• It is against competing style.
• when both parties are equally strong and nobody is prepared to give up.
• However, it is still not the ideal outcome as the contending parties lose something to
resolve the conflicts.

30. The Owl Style (Collaborating)
• Owls are intelligent birds.
• They believe in dialogue and discussion.
• They care for both goals and relations and strive for consensus and
collaboration.
• They sympathize and empathize with others and strive for win-win situation.
• It is the ideal outcome where all contending parties are happy as their
interests are protected and conflicts are resolved.
• When we have enough time to think through and arrive at consensus.
• However, it is often difficult to reach this situation.
• It consumes a lot of time, efforts and energies.

31. Strive for Win-Win
• People often use either competing or compromising mode to resolve their conflicts quickly.
• They must also explore other conflict-handling modes depending on the issue to achieve
effective outcomes to conflicts.
• Although it consumes a lot of time, it is ideal to achieve win-win outcome in the larger
interests of individuals and organizations.
• It is essential to build trust to create a conducive environment for resolving conflicts.
• Emphasize on what is right and wrong, not who is right and wrong to resolve conflicts
amicably and effectively.
• Conflicts cannot be eliminated in organizations. They can only be minimized if leaders adopt
proactive attitude.

32. “The Law of Win/Win
says, ‘Let’s not do it
your way or my way;
let’s do it the best way’”
“If you want to make peace
with your enemy, you have to
work with your enemy. Then
he becomes your partner”
“I’ve always believed that a
lot of the troubles in the
world would disappear if
we were talking to each
other instead of about each
other”