In spite of the fact that conflicts are an integral part of our lives, people consider conflicting as something abnormal and shameful. However, learning the right ways to tackle conflicts can be extremely helpful in our daily lives. Because of the typical patterns of routine conflicts, they can be handled rather easily with help of some conflict tactics.
The people who are going to be in the spotlight of this little drama are the most usual members of the most usual company in the world. There is an employee, say, John Doe, a clerk, say, Jim Roe, the other staff and Jenny, the secretary. It is the heat of the day, and the working day is in full swing.
While John is dealing with his piece of work which seems quite hard to handle, Jim, who has managed his piece of work, starts giving pieces of advice to improve the system operation. Saying, “That’s no way to do that!”, he tries to show the right way to handle the work. Taking a closer look at the results of John’s work, Jim adds, “What kind of fool are you to do such thing?” and makes an attempt to correct John’s mistake, but the latter offers him to mind his own business, and the whole work comes to a standstill. End of the episode.
Unfortunately, such pattern is quite widespread in the modern world of work. In the given case, the surface problem is John’s lack of professional knowledge and his rudeness towards the companion who lends him a helping hand. Yet the underlying problem is far deeper, and it concerns not only John and Jim’s personal relationships, but also the very atmosphere in the working place.
Note that there was not a single person who considered Jim’s behavior as impudence and tried to call him to more respectful attitude towards his companion. It is important to specify the reasons for Jim to behave in such way. One of the underlying motifs for him to abuse John in front of the crowd is that he wants to position John as incompetent to everyone in the office and thus take his post.
Choosing among the possible conflict management strategies, Jim chose the aggressive way of handling the situation. Behaving forcefully, he was strikingly different to John, who decided to stick to the submissive pattern of conflict solution.
In addition, John’s final outburst of emotions made the situation even more complicated, for now the rest of the staff will consider him unrestrained and ungrateful. Obviously, this pattern will lead to what Jim has chosen as his aim. It seems that unless John does something to improve the existing situation, Jim can be considered the winner in this office battle, while John will slowly turn into the loser.
Despite the seeming ethical complicity of the problem, it can be helped. One of the means to handle the situation is to throw the opponent in presence of the colleagues so that he will not repeat his attempts anymore. In this case, John’s reputation will be saved, and the companions will respect him even more. Another idea is to have an eye-to-eye open talk with Jim, trying to figure out what he aims at.
However, if nothing helps, John can ask the boss to manage the conflict. The most risky way, this will clarify if the company is worth staying in at all.
It must be admitted that even this sad situation is something for the readers to learn from. The most valuable experience is that whatever the conflict is, the victim must not keep silent about it. Unless one starts looking for the means to solve the conflict, the participants will get nowhere – or some of them will get to the least desirable result.
Another thing to remember is that in any conflict, the support which one gets from the people around literally gives wings to the victim. Unless the person feels that there is a sufficient backup, the incendiary will finally reach his/her goal.