Good working relationships have a high impact on the productivity of a team. The professional attitude of staff includes the understanding of basic concepts of cooperating and interaction. Interdependency is the main principle, which is the foundation of any community. However, the development of working relationships needs to be controlled as that might lead to irreconcilable conflicts. The theory of conflict management offers a variety of approaches, applying which require much experience and many skills. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the implementation of the conflict management concepts and to analyze this process along with the outcomes.
The example of a conflict situation from a classroom is described to demonstrate existing management techniques. The class was divided into groups each of which was given a task. The result of this work should have been presented as a report. Each team had to separate duties. Also, students needed to determine the form and the length of the report. However, this task provoked a heated argument among students as it was difficult to equally distribute responsibilities. In addition, each member had their own perception of the outline and length of the report. This disagreement turned into a destructive conflict. The anti-social behavior of some students caused this situation, but the lack of assertiveness among the team members made it worse.
After observing this debate, and when it got to the point of total confusion, the teacher intervened in the process. Students were offered to start an “open-minded discussion” (Tjosvold, Wong, & Feng Chen, 2014, p. 545). An open-minded discussion is a dispute in which its parties demonstrate views without disruption and pressure from other members and listen to opponents’ opinions evaluating strengths and weaknesses (Tjosvold et al., 2014). The teacher showed that the conflict blocked the effective development of collaboration. Hence, altering the approach was necessary to obtain positive results. The significance of this step lies in the fact that all ideas, which have the underlying reasoning, should be incorporated in the ongoing work to find the most effective solutions. Students were explained that this measure improves the interaction.
This method was used to change the course of the argument and turn it from a destructive into constructive conflict. A constructive conflict positively benefits participants (Tjosvold et al., 2014). In this case, the teacher did not take the role of a leader guiding his subordinates. Instead of being subjected to manipulation, students got the opportunity to study a specific technique, which leads to better outcomes and increases the effectiveness of collaboration. Holding an open-minded discussion requires certain skills from participants. There are distinguishing features characterizing disputes of this kind. First, it is highly important to express opinions clearly and freely to let other parties fully understand the ideas and intentions presented. This also includes questions from listeners to clarify certain details. Second, pointing out the weaknesses of an opinion should be aimed to encourage an opponent to provide more evidence rather than prove its groundlessness. The teacher’s strategy successfully resolved the conflict and helped students gain these important qualities, and eventually, the assignment was successfully completed. However, some insignificant contradictions among the students still took place.
There are also other well-known effective methods of conflict managing. The applied method refers to a collaborating mode (Riasi & Asadzadeh, 2015). However, combining several measures could have helped to deal with the described situation more efficiently. In this case, using a competing style could have increased the speed of decision-making (Harms, 2017). This method implies motivating and challenging participants as each member has an interest in completing the task. Competing prevents the discussion process, but it makes the process of task fulfillment, which follows the dispute, more galvanized. If members of a team compete with each other in a proper manner, that accelerates the work as competitors become inspired and stimulated by the accomplishments of colleagues. This method is widely used in complicated circumstances that accompany the achievement of challenging goals.
In conclusion, it is worth saying that the practical implementation of a conflict management theory plays a crucial role in developing appropriate relationships among members of any team. Although some insignificant details were omitted, the illustrated case serves as an example of successful management performance. However, this process not always brings decent outcomes because it occasionally demands much more knowledge and experience. Hence, the further development of conflict management principles and concepts has a high priority, and researches in this field should be conducted more widely.
References
Harms, J. D. (2017). Exploring the connection between interpersonal needs and conflict resolution styles. Culminating Projects in Psychology. 9.
Riasi, A., & Asadzadeh, N. (2015). The relationship between principals’ reward power and their conflict management styles is based on Thomas–Kilmann conflict mode instrument. Management Science Letters, 5(6), 611-618.
Tjosvold, D., Wong, A. S., & Feng Chen, N. Y. (2014). Constructively managing conflicts in organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1(1), 545-568.