CONFLICT RESOLUTION:WHY SO MUCH CONFLICT EXISTS, TECHNIQUES FOR RESOLVING CONFLICTS

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Human Relations MGMT611

Lesson 11

CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Conflict resolution

· Conflict is a condition that exists when two sets of demands, goals, or motives are incompatible or

unmatchable.

· Negotiation is treated as an important way of resolving conflict.

WHY SO MUCH CONFLICT EXISTS

A. Competition for Limited Resources

· People squabble because not everybody can get all the resources he or she wants.

B. The Generation Gap and Personality Clashes

· Differences in age, or the generation gap, can lead to conflict because members of one generation

may not accept the values of another.

· Disagreements on the job also stem from personality clashes, or antagonistic relationships between

two people based on differences in personal attributes, preferences, interests, values, and styles.

· Clashes sometimes surface after people have been working together harmoniously.

Aggression

C. Aggressive Personalities

· Some workers convert disagreement into an attack.

· Aggressive personalities are people who verbally, and sometimes physically, attack others

frequently.

· Verbal aggression takes the form of insults, teasing, ridicule, and profanity.

· Aggressiveness can also lead to violence.

Culturally Diverse Teams

D. Culturally Diverse Teams

· Conflict often surfaces as people work in teams whose members vary in many ways. Ethnicity,

religion, and gender differences are three of the m factors that lead to clashes in viewpoints.

· Differing educational background and work specialties can also lead to conflict. Yet, with direction,

most groups can overcome these conflicts.

Competing work and family demands

E. Competing Work and Family Demands:

· Balancing the demands of work and family life is a major challenge facing workers at all levels.

· The challenge of achieving balance is particularly intense for employees who are part of a two-wage

earner family.

· Work-family conflict occurs when the individual has to perform multiple roles: worker, spouse or

partner, and often parent.

· Work-family conflict is related to depression and other stress-related health problems.

· Work/family programs are aimed directly at reducing conflict stemming from competing work and

family demands.

· These programs include.

1. Flexible work schedules,

2. dependent-care programs, and

3. Compassionate attitudes toward individual needs.

Harassment

F. Gender-based Harassment:

A Special Type of Conflict

Human Relations MGMT611

Gender-based harassment is generally defined as unwanted behaviors between males and females at

workplaces. Such behaviors result in discomfort and/or interference with the job.

· Gender-based harassment creates conflict because the harassed person has to make a choice

between the job or harassment.

· Surveys and opinions suggest that somewhere between 50 percent and 60 percent of women are

harassed by male least once in their career in the West.

· Aside from being an illegal and immoral act, gender-based harassment has negative effects on the

well-being of its victims.

· The harassed person may experience-job stress, lowered morale, severe conflict, and lowered

productivity.

Merits and Demerits of Conflict

II. THE GOOD AND BAD SIDE OF CONFLICT

· Conflict has both positive and negative consequences, much like work stress. On the positive side,

the right amount of conflict enhances mental and emotional functioning and may lead to improved

relationships.

· Conflict also helps prevent groupthink (over agreement to achieve cohesion). On the negative side,

intense conflict may lead to physical and mental illness, wasted resources, sabota9e, excessive

fatigue, and workplace violence including homicide. Disgruntled employees may seek

III. TECHNIQUES FOR RESOLVING CONFLICTS

· Presented here are some field-tested approaches to conflict resolution. Most of them emphasize a

collaborative or win-win philosophy.

A. Confrontation and Problem Solving Leading to Win-Win

· The most highly recommended way of resolving conflict is confrontation and problem-solving. The

person identifies the true source of conflict and then resolves it systematically using a problem-

solving approach.

· Tactfulness is recommended.

· The approach to confrontation and problem solving is for each side to list what the other side

should do. The two parties then exchange lists, and select a compromise both sides are willing to

accept.

· The intent of confrontation and problem solving is to arrive at a collaborative solution to conflict.

· The collaborative style is based on an underlying philosophy of win-win, the belief that after

conflict has been resolved, both sides should gain something of value.

B. Disarm the opposition

· Disarm the opposition is a method of conflict resolution in which you disarm the criticizer by

agreeing with his or her criticism of you. The act of agreeing is disarming if you agree with the

criticism, the criticizer no longer has reason to use his or her armament Disarming generally works

more effectively than counterattacking a person with whom you are in conflict.

C. Cognitive Restructuring

· According to the technique of cognitive restructuring, you mentally convert negative aspects into

positive ones by looking for positive elements in a situation. If your search for the beneficial

elements in a situation, there will be less area for dispute.

D. Appeal top Third Party

· If you cannot resolve the problem yourself, make a formal appeal to a higher-level official or

authority. Virtually all employers have some sort of appeal process. A labor union represents

another method of appealing to a third party.

E. The Grievance Procedure

Human Relations MGMT611

· The formal process of filing a complaint and resolving a dispute is the grievance procedure. It can

also be regarded as a third-party method of resolving conflict

The Steps in the grievance procedure may vary from one to six. Typical steps are as follows:

1. Initiation of the formal grievance.

2. Second-level of management.

3. A higher-level manager and the local union president

4. Arbitration. (Only about 1 percent of grievances go all the way to arbitration.)

· A grievance procedure used In many firms without a union Is the Jury of peers, whereby

unresolved grievances are submitted to a panel of coworkers.

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