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What is Conflict?

• Hostility between individuals or groups due to incompatible expected differences
• Serious disagreement or argument between people, groups or countries
• state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs and values between people working together
• workplace disagreement that disrupts the flow of work

Views on Conflict

What causes conflict?

It is good to understand the causes of conflict. Simply because people are different, we come from different backgrounds, ideologies, perceptions in life. Just like when two people are working towards the same goal in an organization, conflicts are bound to happen because they come from different mindsets basing from different education and experiences.

Types of Organizational Conflict

• Strategic Conflict – parties have different perspectives on the underlying strategy to be used in a particular situation. For example: in strategic planning, there lots of ideas coming in and some may disagree because they have better idea to offer
• Task Conflict ­– parties can’t agree on what needs to be done related to content and goals of the work
• Process Conflict – parties agree on what needs to be done but not HOW to do it
• Relationship Conflict – multiple personalities do not get along
• Values Conflict – parties have different values because they came and grew from different cultures

Process of Conflict

Latent stage – when two or more parties need each other to achieve desired objectives, there is potential for conflict yet people are not even aware that they might be a conflict, they don’t know it’s just a beginning of a conflict

Perceived stage – people start in becoming aware that there might be a conflict, awareness comes

Felt stage – at this stage, parties become emotionally involved and begin to focus on differences of opinion and opposing interests which anxiety and stress are felt

Manifest stage – manifested and observed, being shown through people’s body language, their words, tone but observed by people who are not involved in the conflict

Aftermath – after the entire has been done and dealt with, whether it was resolved or not. If handled well, the result is functional or good conflict. If mishandled, consequences are dysfunctional or bad conflict

Forms of Conflict

When you hear the word conflict, the first thing comes into our mind is negative connotation, you’ll be like “oh no that’s a bad thing, we don’t want to go there and that’s a waste of time”. But not all conflict is negative, it depends on how you handle it strategically both in personal and professional lives with the organization in a positive way.

• Functional – strategically managed in order to move the organization forward toward positive outcomes
  1. Characteristics:

• Works towards the goals of the organization
• Constructive conflict
• Increases information and ideas
• Encourages innovative thinking
• Tackles different point of views
• Reduces stagnancy

• Dysfunctional – either gets resolved in a destructive manner or does not get resolved at all
  1. Characteristics:

• Blocks the organization from reaching its goals
• Leads to tension, anxiety, stress and low level of trust
• Drives out low conflict tolerant people
• Poor decision making
• Lack of innovation
• Increases stagnancy

Understanding the good vs bad form of conflict is important. It is a type of communication that helps you collaborate to solve problems and better the environment so you can thrive within them.

Conflicts in the Organization

There may be a lot of conflicts happening within your team, or other department but here are some but not limited to:

1. Issues with performance appraisal
2. Conflicts due to frustrations
3. Conflicts related with emotions
4. Role conflict

People wish to work in a place where there are no disagreements or conflicts, yet all are aware that it is impossible. The cause of conflict is human beings’ differences between one another. Conflict is not bad all the time, it depends on how it is handled effectively. It can be a good and essential component of any relationship, particularly at work. This is where conflict resolution comes in. You want to do something about it so that the organization thrives rather than weakens.

What is Conflict Resolution?

• indispensable process to create a productive workplace and effective team dynamics
• process of resolving a dispute by addressing and meeting at least some of each side’s needs and concerns

What are the Goals of Conflict Resolution?

• To understand more about ideas, beliefs, and backgrounds that may differ from your own
• To work as quickly as possible to find solution
• To improve, not hurt the relationship between groups in conflict
• To produce a solution that all parties can agree

Strategies of Conflict Resolution

                Mapping the Conflict 

1. Define the issue – to understand the roots of the matter, determine the issue why people are conflicting with each other
2. Identify who are involved
3. List the major needs and concerns of each party – it is important to understand what do they bring unto the table, their need and concern
4. Reading the map – stay within the map area of a conflict, not go out of context

Thomas-Kilmann Theory

According to Thomas and Kilmann, conflicts are everywhere and people behave in a different manner in different conflict situation. There are two dimension in conflict, assertiveness and cooperativeness. Assertiveness means understanding how a person reacts to a particular conflicting situation while cooperativeness means to what extend does a person help out other party. In simple terms, assertiveness is thinking about yourself in a conflicting situation and cooperativeness is thinking about others in a conflicting situation.

parties are going for a win-lose situation, so one will be the winner and one will be the loser and both parties know this. This has been the most used style in the past times, but over time, it has come to a realization that this is not the best style to use in most situations. However, this could be useful in situations where there needs to be a clear “winner” and a clear “loser”, just like negotiating on for who’s going to get a particular contract.

one party does not want to engage in this conflict, he/she does everything possible to avoid this particular conflict. This is applicable to conflicts that are not necessary actually. You have limited time and limited energy, so you should we select when or where are you going to spend that time and energy, so if a conflict is simply not worth it, avoid it.

However, there is somehow negative about avoiding style - wanting to avoid conflict because of fear. This is not a good use of the avoiding style. Never avoid conflict out of fear because it will escalate in the future.

there is no winner and no loser; in this style, you find the middle ground where both of the parties neither win nor lose but both are comfortable being in that middle place.

instead of picking the position midway between win-lose, the individual neglects their own problems to address the problems of the other party. Sometimes, it could be highlighted as self—sacrifice but sometimes it can be choosing your battle that’s worth fighting for.

there are lots of discussion and all the parties share their ideas; It involves striving to look for creative answers to interpersonal issues and enriching yourself from the other person’s insights. Brainstorming every possible way that they could fix the situation. And then all parties select the best idea for resolving the situation.

Conflict Resolution Tips

• Build good relationship before conflict occurs
• Be aware of small problems
• Listen to others’ perspective
• Respect differences
• Acknowledge feelings
• Focus on solving problem, not changing people
• Turn to someone who can help

Benefits of Effective Conflict Resolution

Conflicts can be good in such a way that people express themselves, share their different point of opinion, thoughts, feelings and etc. It leads us to have good knowledge learning for other people. Being able to handle or resolve conflict in a positive way leads to:

Enhanced engagement

Collaboration

Better working relationships

Increased productivity

Trust among colleagues

Knowing how to manage and resolve conflict successfully can increase understanding within your team and improve people’s relationships with one another. As well as learning how to manage different opinions and positions successfully can help everybody grow.