Conflict Management in the Workplace: Causes and Effects

Conflict Management in the Workplace Causes and EffectsINTRODUCTIONWhat is meshing?Conflict is a process that involves race disagreeing. It is unremarkably a process in which ace party perceives that its interests be being opposed or negatively affected by an other party. Conflict could be created referable to different opinions of the fire parties, or due to the show of authority that some of the involved parties might fork out.It peck be separated in substantive conflict and emotional conflict. Substantive conflict is a disagreement oer ends or goals and the means for their accomplishment. Emotional conflict is usual coming out over determineing of anger, mistrust, fear, etc. In addition, conflict may be classified in three typesIntra personalized conflict, interpersonal conflict and intergroup conflict.TYPES OF conflictIntrapersonal ConflictIntrapersonal conflict arises in spite of appearance a person. It is a fight you have to give with your ego, in front of severa l solutions for a decision you have to take. For example, if you atomic number 18 a sales handler and you atomic number 18 in front of a deal that you have to make on beat with a customer, you might have to decide, either to c drop it consort to your ac social clubs usual policy, or based mostly on your customer considers. In this causality you are facing an intrapersonal conflict. To be more specific, in case you hold on with the first choice you will be ok with your company, unless you may disappoint your customer and this trick cause problems either in your personal kind with him, or in your sales volumes. If you follow the second option, and so you might have problems with your company, but you will probably improve your relationship with your customer and as a result the sales volumes as well. But, of course, youre taking a considerable risk, in case the sales results will not come as you have planned. This example could be a typical, usual, daily intrapersonal co nflict of many employees in several organizational environments.Interpersonal ConflictMany companies suffer because of interpersonal conflicts, due to high competition (internal or external), different personalities of those who are decision makers in a company, authority showing, etc.Interpersonal conflict is arriving between colleagues, CEOs, boards of director, etc. and in reality advise be created in any level of a company. It is a usual reason which tends employees to resign. We have all faced during our functional experience colleagues and managers fight individually other. Most of the times these fights or strong disagreements slip by to problematic relationships between staff and finally in resign of those that dont want to go a step back. It is burning(prenominal) to refer that according to one research, 31.9% of CEOs quitted from their jobs, because they had conflicts with the board of directors. (Whitehouse, K. 2008, January 14).CEOs of competing companies might t oo have public conflicts. For example, in 1997, Michael Dell was asked what he would do astir(predicate) Apple Computer. What would I do? Id shut it down and give the money back to shareholders. Ten years later, Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Inc., indicated he had clearly held a grudge as he shot back at Dell in an e-mail to his employees, stating, Team, it turned out Michael Dell wasnt perfect in predicting the future. base on todays stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. (Haddad, C. 2001, April 18).Intergroup ConflictIntergroup conflict takes place among different groups. fictitious characters of groups may include different departments in a company, employees and attention, or competing companies in a market. Departments may conflict over budget planning. For example marketing budget or equipment budget usually creates a striking conflict between marketing or production management or the general management.Employees and management may disagree on work rules and pr ocedures.Suppliers may conflict with each other on the quality of erects, or in the pricing policy theyre promoting in the market.For example, we will refer below a typical restriction issue when a joint venture between dickens airline companies has taken placeCanadian transmit and Air Canada pilots were facing long destination personal and legal conflicts when the two airlines seniority lists were combined undermentioned the merger Seniority. This fact is a valuable and scarce resource for pilots, because it helps to determine who flies the newest and biggest planes, who receives the silk hat flight routes, and who is remunerative the most. In response to the loss of seniority, former Canadian Air pilots picketed at shareholder meetings, threatened to call in sick, and had ongoing conflicts with pilots from Air Canada (Stoykewych, R. E. 2003, March 7).POTENTIAL CAUSES OF CONFLICTOrganizational StructureConflict can be created depending on the organizational Structure that a corporation follows. For example, if a company uses a matrix structure as its organizational form, it will have decisional conflict built in, because the structure specifies that each manager report to two bosses (Jaffe, D. 2000).For example, ball-shaped company ABB Inc. is organized around a matrix structure based on the dimensions of country and industry. This structure can lead to confusion as the company is divided geographically into 1,200 different units and by industry into 50 different units. (Taylor, W. 1991, March-April).Employees Benefits differentiationResources offered from corporations as extra benefits to their employees such as money, time, and equipment are often a problem. Competition among people or departments for different benefits is a frequent cause for conflict. For example, cars, mobile phones, credit cards, laptops are benefits that are offered not in all the employees, or not with the identical value. For example salesmen might have different car accord ing to their position in the company. This small issue can cause big conflicts. Differentiation in salaries of people in the same position level, but with different performance can as well create conflicts. compassionate beings are incessantly jealous and feel unfair.Task InterdependenceTask interdependence could be another cause of conflict. This issue is coming when your success or your operation in your objectives is also depending on other people performance. For example, when you are a project engineer and you have to complete a building construction in timelines with the correct way and the planned resources, it might be a big success for you, but you have to be supported for example, from the electrician, the plumper, the builder, the supplier of the materials, etc. If you lose control, you will probably have big conflicts with all your above coordinators.Incompatible GoalsSometimes conflict arises when two parties think that their goals are exclusively in their responsibi lities. inside an organization, incompatible goals often arise because of the different ways department managers are approaching them. For example, a sales manager who s bonus system depends on sales figures, believes that he has to offer higher credit periods in a big client, in order to earn bigger sales volumes. But the monetary manager whose bonus terms, might depend on how fast the clients pay their amounts is disagreeing with this option. Then these two managers may conflict each other, because they focussing on their personal interests and not on the companys putting surface goal. Unless this issue is not resolved with the intervention of someone who has the authority to overlap those two, they might continue conflict without coming up to a solution.Personality DifferencesPersonality differences among personnel are some function common and usual. Many times youre arguing with your colleagues, because you see things and issues in different way based on your ethics and your growing environment. Matching of the personalities and team spirit is a difficult thing, through a corporation and needs a special care from the Human Resource management department.Communication ProblemsIn many occasions conflict arises out of problematic communication system, such as unread-forgotten emails or dealing with people who dont give feedbacks in your inquiries, or they often forget to reply. Then conflicts are a typical result, usually from the involved parties who try to drop the fault each one in the other. Consequently, many working hours are lost in finding where the mistake in the communication history was.OUTCOMES OF CONFLICTConflict can be dysfunctional if it affects negatively an organization, leads to low performance, or in the worst case, to workplace violence. To understand how to get to a positive effect of conflict, we first need to understand its causes, consequences, and tools to help manage it. If conflict is too low, then performance is low. If conflict is too high, then performance also tends to be low. (www.flatworlfknowledge). The positive thing is to keep conflicts in the middle of this thin line. Most of us might have the opinion that it is quite strange to try in leave conflicts active in middle levels, but as we will see in the following paragraphs, we can definitely have positive outcomes.Positive outcomes include the followingCreation of bigger range in quality ideasIdentifying and bring in the surface the dark inaccurate casesClarification of individual views that build learning gain of participation and creativenessMotivate your employees in participate in useful discussions and improve their negotiations skills within healthy proceduresExamples of negative outcomesIncreased stress and anxiety among personnel, which guide in low performance and personal satisfactionFeelings as being defeated and humiliated, which affect negatively individuals moraleA mistrust climate, which reduce working relationships, collaboration a nd teamwork.CONFLICT STAGESLatent Conflict. Latent conflict is visible conflict waiting to happen.Felt Conflict. Felt conflict is experienced as discomfort and tension.perceived Conflict. Perceived conflict is the awareness that we are in a conflict situation.Manifest Conflict. After conflict is perceived and felt, it may or may not become open, or manifest.Conflict Aftermath. Conflict is likely to breed more conflict and, when it does, that conflict is likely to take on a life of its own. (Gholipour A. 2006).CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STYLESEveryone in his personal life has his own style in facing conflicts. In the following paragraphs you can see the most well know frequent and usual approaches in conflict management.AvoidanceAvoidance is a conflict style, where the involved parties or groups are pretending that everything is fine, while inside of them they feel that there is a serious problem. Avoidance can also be an occasion where some of the parties are quitted from the conflict iss ue, not so much interested in find the solution, since it might considered from their side as a non personal obligation, or because they unlike the other parties opinion. In low levels and not so principal(prenominal) issues, this style can be sometimes a good solution, but usually it finally guides in bad working environment and relationships.AccommodationThe suit style of conflict management is more cooperative than the previous one. In this style, the one party offers or accepts, what the others believe that it is correct. This type of person is usually afraid(predicate) to argue with their opponents because either they believe that they will destroy their relationships with them, or they feel that they will not come up to a solution. We can say that from one side theyre giving up their proposals. This style is a good way to manage conflicts, but you might lose proposals or ideas, which could be interesting from the person that always go a step back in front of the most domina nt persons.CompromiseThe compromising style is always referred as the middle-level solution. In this style all the involved persons are giving a little of them in order to come up in the best solution. We can say that it is a kind of bargaining. It is a quite effective in overpass conflicts usually without negative outcomes.CompetitionPeople often show a competitive style to in order to achieve their goals or to perceive the other parties following their ideas. Competition may create bad relationships with others, if one is always trying to maximize his own outcomes at the expense of others well-being. This approach may be effective if one has strong moral objections to the alternatives or if the alternatives one is opposing, are unethical or harmful. (www.flatworldknowledge.com)CollaborationCollaboration is a conflict management style that is almost similar to effective negotiation or to win-win solutions. In this occasion both of the involved parties may conflict each other, but t hey always try to find the best solution, which can satisfy all of them and also serves the common goal. For example if an employee is performing well in his job obligation and he is asking to attend an MBA program in order to improve more his management skills, then he may ask from his company to pay the program for him. Then the manager can propose to him Yes I will pay your MBA program, but you have to stay 2 years more in the company, after you will have finished it. Otherwise you will return back our paid amounts. It sounds like a fair solution for both of the sides.APPROACHES TO CONFLICT RESOLUTIONChange the Composition of the TeamIf the conflict is between colleagues then a good solution could be, separating the personalities that are creating the biggest problems. In circumstances where conflict is attributed to the widely different styles, values, and preferences of a small number of members, replacing some of these members may resolve the problem. If thats not possible bec ause everyones skills are needed on the team and substitutes arent available, consider a physical layout solution. Research has shown that when known antagonists are seated directly across from each other, the amount of conflict increases. However, when they are seated side by side, the conflict tends to decrease. (Howat, G., London, M. 1980)Create a Common Opposing ForceGroup conflict within a corporation can be reduced by turn their attention on a common enemy such as the competition. For example, two product managers might argue in which of their two products are going to spend more marketing expenses, each trying to get more resources in order to promote more his product to the market. Then instead of fighting each other, it would be better someone to turn them in focusing on a competitive product and get them responsible how to develop their products together, much more than the competition to the market.Consider Majority RuleGroup conflict can be dramatically reduced by using the traditional majority rule process. In this case every one of the involved parties is proposing an idea and then all together vote in order to choose the one with the higher votes. Majority rule could be a creative process, but it has to be followed always with creative discussions and not operating as an easy solution for decreasing conflicts, through groups or persons. Sometimes it has negative outcomes, when most of the times the same persons ideas frequently pass. Then the other members of the procedure might feel that something unfair is going on, as for example the cliques creation between persons that voting all the time their personal ideas.Problem SolveProblem solving is a common approach to resolving conflict. In problem-solving mode, the individuals or groups in conflict are asked to focus on the problem, not on each other, and to uncover the root cause of the problem. This approach recognizes the rarity of one side being completely right and the other being completel y wrong. (www.flatworldknowledge.com).CONCLUSIONSummarizing all the above described in this assignment, we can easily realize that conflict management is a very important issue in workplace. We cannot evaluate how it could be solved, or which is the best way to manage or approach to its resolution. It would be definitely positive for companies to set up conflict policies, so they can control better such problems. But the assured thing is that, even policies would be set up, every manager, every employee has to be careful and try to take advantage of the positive effects that conflict can give. Thus, in order to achieve this, everyone has to do it with his own style, since he has to align his behavior depending on the working environment he is occupied. If we think again that conflict guides in violence in workplace, but can guide also to creative solutions, integrative negotiations, passion for participating in problems solving, we have to individually think and drive ourselves at the positive part of conflict results.REFERENCESWall, J. A., Callister, R. R. (1995). Conflict and its management. ledger of Management, 21, 515-558.Michaels, D., Power, S., Gauthier-Villars, D. (2006, October 10). Airbus CEOs resignation reflects companys deep structural woes. Wall Street Journal, pp. A1-A10.Whitehouse, K. (2008, January 14). Why CEOs need to be honest with their boards. 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Kolb (Eds.), privy conflict in organizations (pp. 7-19). Newbury Park, CA Sage.Howat, G., London, M. (1980). Attributions of conflict management strategies in supervisor-subordinate dyads. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 172-175.www.flatworldknowledge.com