Conflict Management

Conflict Management
Conflict is a fact of life – for individuals, organizations, and societies. The costs of conflict are well–documented – high turnover, grievances and
lawsuits, absenteeism, divorce, dysfunctional families, prejudice, fear. What many people don't realize is that well–managed conflict can actually be a
force for positive change.
Conflict is "an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from
others in achieving their goals" (Hocker, 1991). There are two basic types of conflicts: substantive and emotional. According to Schermerhorn et.al.,
substantive conflict is a fundamental disagreement over ends or goals to be pursued and the means for their...show more content...
Each person has a characteristic personality. Such a style reflects our unique wants, needs, and values. In conflicts, there are specific global patterns that
can be identified that are reflective of how individuals deal with such challenges. These global patterns consist of five approaches to conflict
management: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding, and Accommodating.
Competition is when an individual "achieves a victory through force, superior skill, or domination". This type of approach fails to address the root
cause of the conflict and suppresses the desires of other conflicting individuals; therefore resulting in future conflicts over the same issues.
Collaboration is when all conflicting parties recognize something is wrong and needs attention. This is an ideal approach. When collaborating, groups
respect each others ideas, opinions, and suggestions, and understand each others point of view. This allows group members to eventually accept the
logic of a different point of view and accept that logic; therefore resulting in a consensus. Compromise is when each group gives up something of value
to the other group. This is an appropriate approach when: there is insufficient time, issue not worth time or energy, or there's no realistic or easy
agreement.
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Essay on Conflict Management Styles
Conflict Management Styles
Conflict occurs in organizations whenever a difference of opinions exists. People disagree over many things including but not limited to, policies and
procedures, the overall direction of the company, and distribution of rewards. This type of conflict is substantive conflict, as described in our reading
text organizational behavior as a, "fundamental disagreement over ends or goals to be pursued". The second type of conflict is emotional conflict;
which involves, "interpersonal difficulties that arise over feelings of anger, mistrust, dislike, fear, resentment, and the like." This type of conflict occurs
when two or more persons do not see eye to eye or simply do not get along for whatever reason.
I...show more content...
If he senses unhappiness or potential conflict with regards to a situation, he now calls the person or persons in question in to his office to discuss. He
encourages his employees to look at the bigger picture rather than the small one – the issue. By doing this and having them focus on the overall aim
and objective of the company, he successfully manages to put conflicts and differences of opinion into a real life perspective.
To summarize our approach to direct conflict, I can assure you that we have tried all of the five different approaches to conflict management. The
company originally tried the avoidance method. This method clearly did not work. It resulted in unhappiness, frustration and the eventual termination of
employment of one employee. We do occasionally use the accommodation or compromise methods of dealing with conflict but realize that these are
only temporary measures or a band–aid fix to a potentially larger problem.
We very rarely use formal authority to end conflict. In the type of business we are in there are often times no right or wrong answer to a particular
problem and using authority to issue a directive can be a potentially damaging way to deal with a situation. Most of our issues need to be discussed
and all parties in agreement in order to provide the best possible service to the client. In this way we are in a win–win situation. We have weekly staff
meetings

Essay on Managing Conflict
Managing Conflict
The ability to manage conflict is undoubtedly one of the most important skills a manager needs to possess A study of middle– and top–level executives
revealed that the manager spends approximately
20% of his or her time dealing with conflict. In most management development programmes; conflict management was being more important than
decision making, leadership or communication.
DEALING WITH CONFLICT
Concept
Definition
Want
Desire for something
Goal
Desired ideal state of future affairs
Need
Universal necessity for survival
Interests
potential benefits to be gained by achieving goals
Conflict of interests
The actions taken by person A to achieve goals prevent, block or interfere with the...show more content...
As a manager
– Be aware of your underlying conflict–handling style

– Be judicious in selecting the conflicts that you want to handle
– Not every conflict is worth your time and effort to resolve. While avoidance might appear to be a 'cop–out', it can sometimes be the most appropriate
response. You can improve your overall management effectiveness, and your conflict–management skills in particular by avoiding trivial conflicts.
Choose your battles judiciously, saving your efforts for the ones that count.
– Evaluate the conflict players
If you choose to manage a conflict situation, it's important that you take the time to get to know the players. Who is involved in the conflict? What
interests does each party represent? What are each player's values, personality, feelings and resources? Your chances of success in managing a conflict
will be greatly enhanced if you can view the conflict through the eyes of the conflicting parties.
– Assess the source of conflict
Conflicts have causes. Since your approach to resolving a conflict is likely to be determined largely by its causes, you need to determine the source of
the conflict. Research indicates that conflicts have varying causes, they can generally be separated into three categories: communication differences,
structural differences and personal differences – Communication differences
Communication differences are

Essay on Conflict Management
Introduction to conflict
The term conflict referred to perceived incompatible differenced resulting in some form of interference or opposition. Conflict is a natural part of
organizational life because the goals between mangers and workers are often incompatible. If people perceive that differences exist then conflict state
exists. Conflict is not exists between individual only, it also can exist between departments and divisions that compete for resources or even because
of overlapped authority. However, conflict is a force that needed to be managed or to be resolved but can not be eliminated. Unless is fully resolved,
it may remain latent in the situation as a lingering basis for future conflicts over or related to a same matter....show more content...
The sources of Conflict The sources of conflict can be basically separated into three categories which are communication differences, structural
differences and personal differences.
Communication differences mean the failure of two individuals to share fully the meaning of a communicative attempt. It is arises from semantic
difficulties, misunderstandings, and noise in communication channels. There maybe disagreements caused by different role requirement, unit goals,
personalities, value systems or other factors.
Since in an organization, people and tasks are divided into departments to accomplish an organizationВЎВ¦s goals, departments may only concern on
their own department efficiency and cost controlling. Therefore, they have incompatible goals and time horizons, as a result there can be conflict. For
example, a production department may have there own production plan to produce a product and avoid paying production workers overtime in order to
cut down costs. However, the Marketing department thinks that it is important to deliver the product to their customer on time and paying overtime to
workers is a kind of responsibility to their customers. Sometimes, there are two or more managers or departments would think that they had authority
over a certain activities or tasks, and claim authority on the same tasks. But most of managers

Essay on Organizational Conflict
Conflict 1
Organizational Conflict: The three views
Organizational Conflict: The three views
Conflict 2
Organizational conflict is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, values and interests between people working together.
Conflict takes many forms in organizations. There is the inevitable clash between formal authority and power and those individuals and groups
affected. There are disputes over how revenues should be divided, how the work should be done, and how long and hard people should work. There are
jurisdictional disagreements among individuals, departments, and between unions and management. There are subtler forms of conflict involving
rivalries, jealousies, personality clashes,...show more content...
From this perspective, conflict occurs as a result of malfunctioning individuals or organizations. Therefore, in order to resolve conflict, problems must
be identified, causes must be analyzed, and those people or situations contributing to the conflict must be "fixed" (Kilmann & Thomas, 1978). This
mechanistic view approaches conflict resolution as a logical, linear process. Robbins comments: "Although research studies now provide strong
evidence to dispute that this approach to conflict reduction results in high group performance, many still evaluate conflict situations utilizing this
outmoded standard" (2001, p. 384).
In the 1950s the emerging human relations view of conflict began to replace the earlier traditional view. The human relations position suggests that
conflict is a natural phenomenon in groups and organizations. Therefore, since it is inevitable, it must be accepted and managed. During this era, the
management literature introduced the term conflict management (Nurmi & Darling, 1997); and, by the 1970s, the field of organization development,
with its tool–kit of team–building interventions, began to go mainstream, thus providing organizations with new resources for dealing with conflict.
Conflict 4
More recently, a third conflict school of thought has emerged, referred to as the interactionist view. This perspective

Essay about Conflict Handling Styles
Understanding Conflict Handling Styles In a dispute, it's often easier to describe how others respond then to how we respond. Each of us has a
predominant conflict style that we use to meet our own needs. By examining conflict styles and the consequences of those behaviors, we can gain a
better understanding of the impact that our personal conflict style has on other people. With a better understanding, you then can make a conscious
choice on how to respond to others in a conflict situation to help reduce work conflict and stress.
Behavioral scientists Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann, who developed the Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, have identified five styles
to responding to conflict–competition, collaboration, compromise,...show more content...
If you constantly split the difference or "straddle the fence," game playing can result and the outcome could be less than ideal.
5. Collaborating
Value of own issue/goal: High
Value of relationship: High
Goal: I win, you win
The collaborative style views conflicts as problems to be solved and finding creative solutions that satisfy all the parties' concerns. You don't give up
your self interest; you dig into the issue to identify the underlying concerns, test your own assumptions, and understand the views of others.
Collaboration takes time and if the relationship among the parties is not important, then it may not be worth the time and energy to create a win–win
solution. However, collaboration fosters respect, trust, and builds relationships. To make an environment more collaborative, address the conflict
directly and in a way that expresses willingness for all parties to get what they need.
Although all of the approaches have their time and place, you need to ask yourself the basic question, "Is my preferred conflict handling style the very
best I can use to resolve this conflict or solve this problem?"
Focus on Interests (Needs), Not Positions (Wants)
Understanding people's interests is not a simple task because we tend to communicate our positions – things that are likely to be concrete and explicit.
It is helpful to learn to recognize the difference between person's

Essay on Conflict and Communication
Conflict and Communication
Conflict can happen anytime of your life, it will happen matter you want it or not. In addition, it can have both negative and positive impacts for our
relationship (Gudykunst, 2004). According to Yi–Feng 2007, she mentions that conflict is "incompatible activities, where one person's actions are
interfering, obstructing, or in other ways making the behavior of another less effective". In term of nature of conflict, conflict is a cause which happens
by threatened human needs problem (Kelman, 2002). The sources of conflict can divide into three things, there are misinterpret, disagree and
perceptions of incompatibilities (Roloff, 1987). In addition, in term of nature of nature of conflict, conflict can develop in...show more content...
In addition the way of people approach to managing conflict is depend on culture and ethnic (Ting–Toomey, 1985). For example, Asian use avoiding,
integrating and obliging to approach but European and American use dominating.
In term of face and conflict, we can divide in two parts. Firstly, cultural differences in face–concerns, Moriska and Gudykunst 1994 mention that "face
in collectivistic cultures is based on the interdependent self construal". In this case, Members of individualistic cultures attention to self–face
maintenance more than members of collectivistic cultures, however, Members of collectivistic cultures attention to other–face more than members of
individualistic culture (Ting–Toomey & Kurogi, 1998). In term of face management, face work tactics are the strategies used to solve problem between
others face and self–face when conflicts are managed (Oetzel et al, 1999). In addition, the politeness is need when we do something attract to the other
face (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Secondly, in term of ethnic difference in face–concerns, when people have different ethnic it can be concerns with
face because people have different identity and it easy to threaten the other face (Kwan & Sodowsky, 1997). However, in each culture and ethnic have
both different and similar in itself.
Lastly, in term of Managing Conflict, according to Ting–Toomey 2004 mentions that "Without

Managing Conflict Essay example
Effective managers are successful within the workgroup and organization when a style is used to resolve a conflict. People do experience conflict in
their lives. There has always been a lot of interest in how to manage conflict once it appears in the open, and that is important. What is not so common
is a concern for preventing unnecessary conflict, so it does not start in the first place. Managers are capable of using all five resolutions skills to deal
with conflict in the workplace.
Organizations of all types need good managers in order to survive when dealing with conflicts that will occur within a workplace. Many people holding
management positions will be confronted with issues between two people or two groups...show more content...
Some people attempt to avoid conflict by postponing it, hiding their feelings, changing the subject, leaving the room or quitting the project. Sometimes,
doing nothing is a smart thing to do, providing the decision to do nothing is well thought out and based on an analysis of the situation. Although
avoidance might appear to be a "cop–out," it can sometimes be the most appropriate response. A common means of avoiding conflict is to be
secretive. This can be done by employees and managers. The notion is that if no one knows what is being done, there can be little conflict. By being
secretive, one may delay conflict and confrontation, but when it does surface it will have far more negative emotions attached to it than would have
been the case if things were more open. It may be wise to avoid a conflict if the issue is minor or if the potential conflict partner is a formidable
opponent. Not every conflict justifies your attention. One should not routinely withdraw from conflicts because it provides only a temporary fix and
sidesteps the underlying problem. An accommodating manager is also known as a "smoothing" or "obliging" manager (Hemmer, 2003).
Accommodating is allowing the desires of the other party to prevail. This resolution reflects low assertiveness and high cooperativeness.
Accommodating may be an appropriate conflict–handling strategy when a manager wants to show reasoning, develop performance, create good will,
and to keep peace.

Essay on Conflict Management Styles
Conflict is known to be inseparable in all human interactions. In any organization, role differentiation acquires the different uses of conflict handling
styles. Work direction, reward, supervision, discipline and performance review also involve the use of conflict handling styles. Organizational change
and control is also viewed from a conflict perspective. In attempts to explain the nature or dynamics of a particular organizational phenomenon,
conflict may be incorporated as a causal factor (Brown and Peterson, 1993). Our society is concerned with the issue on how the skills of leaders can
be enriched so as to enable them to act with greater proficiency when their contributions are from dealing with and through people...show more content...
1.1 Purpose and Significance of the Study
This research analyzes in general the distribution of conflict handling styles and its consequences in terms of subordinates' satisfaction from leadership
and leaders effectiveness in Pakistani organizations. There is hardly any study done to investigate the consequences of leader styles of handling
conflicts in the Pakistani settings with the same objective. Achieving greater understanding of the styles of handling conflict and adopting the
appropriate one will enable the leaders to better achieve their objective in maintaining organizational harmony and good unity. This research is
inevitably conducted in Pakistani cultural setting with its diverse social and organizational culture. It will be interesting to look at how Pakistani
workforce responds to different conflict handling styles as social behavior is normally implanted and entrenched in the given society. Another reason
for considering this study is to extend the validity of previous research findings regarding the relationships between conflict handling styles and
satisfaction from leadership in Pakistani work environment. This will provide an opportunity for comparing the consequences of conflict handling
style in this region with those reported as occurring in the

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