Introduction
Conflict is present everywhere beginning from companies, which are divided due to the responsibilities and strategies to the local societies, which are separated by politics, race, religion or economics. Conflict is also found in homes that are divided by constant struggles or fights between children and parents, in-laws or siblings; and in nations, which are divided by civil struggle. Therefore, conflict is one of the components in people’s lives.
Although cold and hot conflicts are as dissimilar as winter and summer, they all lead to destructive effects if handled unsuccessfully. They generate constant incompetence in most of the companies as well as trouble in the societies and chaos or confusion in people’s lives (Deutsch, Coleman & Marcus 2006, p. 173). Human conflict is ever-present and universal. The prospective of conflict or disagreement arise when people or teams are engaged in activities or objectives, which they view to be inappropriate.
Thus, disagreement is an unavoidable aspect of people’s social lives, an action whose consequences are frequently advantageous either because they assist to explain the dissimilar, produce the required alteration, or let off steam. However, destructive disagreement or argument (disagreement that damage or destroys organizations, properties or possessions, valued lives and psyches) is not appropriate. Comprehending and recognizing the main sources of the destructive disagreement is a primary way of minimizing its intensity and frequency. In addition, it would assist in making enormous violence an exceptional situation or event in people’s lives (Gerzon 2006, p.2).
If organizations and societies were standardized and constant, if technology alteration were moderate, if conclusions were simplified and narrowed and if disagreements which pass over the borders were unusual, then leadership behind or within someone’s borders, whatsoever the quantity or nature of the team involved in the conflict, could be adequate (Miall, Ramsbothem & Woodhouse 2006, p.97). However, none of these situations exists today.
Diversity and alteration are becoming worldwide, the globe is moving drastically, decisions are becoming more multifaceted, and knowledge is continuously changing. In addition, cross-border disagreements such as racial, cultural, ideological, religious and economic are tremendously common. Thus, guiding through disagreement involves encountering differences sincerely and imaginatively, comprehending their entire complication and extent, and allowing those participating in the conflict to go toward the unique resolutions (Cheldelin, Druckman & Fast 2007. p.35)
Though conflict seems to be a part of people’s lives, the knowledge and competence of handling it are infrequently considered. The choice or option to surface disagreement and try to change it to an advantageous issue is not a simple thing and it involves reasonable risk.
People at homes, in the society or in the organizations have experienced the results of poor handling of conflict. These results or experiences include desire for vengeance, pain, mistrust, and sometimes firing of employees. As a result, the productivity of people become less efficient and their lives become more difficult and constrained; at worst, hostility, brutality and hatred are activated (Gerzon 2006, p.10). This essay will examine academic theories that are related to conflict in the workplace. In addition, the paper will examine the advantages and disadvantages that are related to conflict in the workplace, and effective ways of managing conflict.
Conflict in workplace
Conflicts can be classified differently depending on the place where they occur. Conflict in the place of work is one of the types of conflicts that occur in the working place. The disagreements, which result from workplaces, might be formed by specific measures of working environment such as spending long hours at the workplace, hardships like financial constraints experienced by individuals, and the hierarchical structure of a company.
Therefore, disagreement can be very important since they help one in making significant alterations within the place of work or home environment (Mind Tools Ltd 2010, par. 3). However, disagreements or conflicts that have not been resolved can lead to feelings of depression, disappointment, desperation and unhappiness just to mention a few emotions. Moreover, conflict can lead to behaviors like personal relations, dissolution, and hostility, resignation from jobs, emotional or physical withdrawal, and belligerence (Cheldelin, Druckman & Fast 2008, p. 87).
The setting of the workplace is an environment that is conducive to cause conflicts due to the interdependency and dynamics of the worker-to-worker, client-to-worker and worker-to-outside vendor interactions. Identifying and handling the factors that lead to the conflict in the workplace can result into positive effects at workplace, and employees’ productivity could be improved (Felicity 2009, p. 48-49).
Most of the individual dislike disagreement and perceive it as unimportant issue or thing. However, disagreement is a natural and ordinary part of people’s lives. In addition, conflict in the appropriate set up, and if resolved or handled in the correct manner, can be advantageous. It is through disagreement that individuals realize the importance for some either significant alterations to be made at home or workplace (Walton & McKersie 2009, p.78).
Two types of workplace conflict; conflict between two employees (personality clash) or conflicts occur when individuals’ actions, thoughts or decisions, which are related direct to their common responsibility or task, are different. A disagreement of actions, decisions or ideas on any area of enterprise can be beneficial, productive and dynamic if the individuals involved are willing to work together and come up with applicable solutions.
On the other hand, personality clashes are infrequently productive. A disagreement might arise as a conflict on enterprise actions and rise from a common repugnance, or the two individuals might have hated each other due to their own differences. This kind of disagreement in the workplace is not beneficial, since it results to decrease in productivity and rise in absenteeism. At a personal level, workplace disagreement is unpleasant and stressful. This anxiety might affect other areas of someone’s life, and as a result affect personal interactions or relationships (Monash University 2009, par. 2).
Sources of Conflict at workplace
Conflict in the workplace arises when individuals disagree on the objectives, perceptions or values since Individuals are most interested in the outcome of what they are doing (Donais 2010, par. 5). The causes of disagreement in the workplace include; style dissimilar or personality as well as individual predicaments like family predicaments, substance abuse and childcare issues. Organizational factors like disagreement, leadership, budget and administration on mission, vision and goals can play a major part in causing conflict. In addition, the major causes of conflict in the workplace include poor performance, poor communication, scarce resources, personality or individuality clashes, differing interest and different values (Boston University 2010, par.2).
Communication
Poor communication in the workplace can develop into misunderstandings among workers or between a worker and an employer. In addition, lack of proper communication leads to disagreement ‘underground’. The solution towards conflict in the workplace is managed, prevented and resolved through proper or open communication. The deficiency of appropriate communication drives disagreement underground and can lead to a downward spiral of aggression and misapprehending.
People’s capability to achieve their objectives and goals rely on the aid and collaboration of other individuals, which raises the chance of conflict occurrence (Gatlin, Wysocki & Kepner 2009, par. 3). All workplaces are composed of people who perceive things and world in different ways. Hence, conflict arises in case of lack of comprehension and agreement of these differences.
On the other hand, increased association is also a fertile ground for conflict occurrence in workplace. The more people associate with each other, the more the chances of disagreeing. Group work and heightening levels of collaboration in a company or any other work place will need higher skills on conflict resolution. The major elements of conflict include; two or more individuals, comprehended incongruity between goals, thoughts, beliefs or actions, and the differing sides that view their direction as the best way to accomplish their objectives and goals (Foster 2010, par. 9).
Differing interests and scarce resources
Moreover, people in the workplace have disagreeing interests where every one fights for their own goals disregarding the company’s goals, and the well-being of the organization. When there are few resources at the workplace, the workers tend to compete for the resources that are available in order to achieve their objective. Thus, in an organization where resources are scarce, chances of conflict arising is very high despite the fact that employees are aware of the shortage. People are different and have different personality, thus, the workplace environment is composed of different personalities (Dreu & Gelfand 2010, par. 5).
Therefore, unless employees accept and comprehend one another in the manner of their approach to problem-solving and work performance, conflict will always prevail in the workplaces. Employers ought not to blame conflict occurring at the workplace on interpersonal differences. Such tactics that are adopted by most of the managers are excuses to escape from handling the main cause of the conflict in the organization. In addition, employers should be in a position to identify the symptoms of disagreement and address them immediately. Similarly, if one or more employees within an organization or department are not performing as required, and the issue is not addressed appropriately and on time, conflict will concur (Faculty and Staff Assistance Program 2010, par. 3).
Office romances
Other causes of conflict in the workplaces include office romances. Approximately 76 percent of the executives and 81 percent of the human resource personnel say that romances in the workplace are a great risk since they can result to conflict within the company. Public exhibitions of love could make colleagues uneasy and accusations of preferential treatment might happen, particularly if the interaction involves a subsidiary and a supervisor. If the association goes wrong, one of the individuals might choose to take vengeance on the other person (Lynem 2006, par.3-4).
Conflicting needs and styles
Conflict that is not resolved in the workplace could be associated with poor communication or miscommunication. This might result from confusion, gossip, delays or missed deadlines, minimized group problem solving and imaginative collaboration, mistrust, disturbance to work flow, heightened stress among the workers and reduced client satisfaction. Approaching conflicts or disagreements as chances to enhance and advance departmental operations, productivity and policies instead of approaching it as diseases or problems to be eliminated and treated, will lead to more dynamic and productive labor force and greater organizational performance or efficiency (Turner & Weed 2005, par. 12).
Impact of conflict in the workplace
Conflicts in the workplaces can lead to several undesirable consequences, most of which are harmful to the organization. Firstly, there is unproductive utilization of valuable time since employers use approximately 25 to 40 percent of their precious time tackling workers’ disagreement. In addition, conflicts at workplace if managed poorly lead to high rates of worker turnover since a large number of workers change their working environment due to unresolved conflicts. Other undesired effects include reduced healthcare cost and heightened absenteeism from work. Stress is identified as a condition that is not healthy and it leads to the high levels of absenteeism at workplace due to conflict (Sandrar 2009, par. 2).
Similarly, conflicts in companies can result to behavioral reactions, most of which are harmful to the workplace. The most frequent reaction to disagreement at workplace is verbalization. Individuals involved in workplace disagreement like to or are ford of speak about the conflict several times. Instead of talking about the issue directly to the other involved person, they opt to talk to other colleagues outside the dispute or other individuals outside the company (Negotiation beyond conflict 2009, par. 9).
Behavioral reactions to dispute can be categorized as uncontrollable, direct or indirect. Direct reaction or response involve discussing the matter with the involved individual, indirect response refers to sabotaging the other person secretly and uncontrollable response involves behavior like crying. In addition, behaviors can be categorized by the strength of reaction. Escaping or keeping off from the other person could be referred to as the low edge of intensity while facing or hitting the other party could be referred to as the high edge (Collins & Rourke 2008, p.3).
At workplace, dispute, which lasts for long period might make individuals adopt or get into huge behavioral reactions as patterns of character, continue to evolve. Disputing individuals might attempt one plan or strategy for handling the disagreement but change to another strategy if their original response is not successful (Money Instructor 2005, par. 3). A major pattern of reacting ranges from verbalization such as discussing the matter or shouting at each other to helplessness like ignoring the dispute, crying, or failure to communicate with the other person and back to verbalization.
For instance, such a pattern may be observed when a worker initially reacts to a dispute by complaining to the colleagues (verbalization) and keeping off the other person (helplessness) though finally discusses the matter with the other person directly (verbalization) (Collins & Rourke 2008, p.4).
People should not fear conflict but rather be interested in the poor administration and management of dispute, which permits it to become harmful. Social scientists and managers have come to identify the probable positive effects of conflict. Convectional perceptions of conflict that put blame of mischief-makers, underline or stress on legalistic forms of authorization, and fail to identify the significance of dispute, have provided a way to see that disagreement is an important part of alteration, which create chances for heightened trust, cooperative problem solving and relational improvement. The interest of precluding dispute has provided a way to the concept that dispute can be productive and that there is an optimum degree of disagreement in a company, which is more beneficial than no disagreement al all (Collins & Rourke 2008, p.5).
Constructive conflict and destructive conflict
Constructive disagreement is also referred to as substantive conflict or cognitive conflict. It is featured by discussion about strategies, thoughts, facts or information. The advantages of optimal degree of substantive conflict involve inventive approaches to solving predicaments and better conclusions. The challenging thing is how to manage the dispute in order to remain at an optimum degree, and is not tackled in a non-adaptive method (Henderson & Atkinson 2008, par. 12).
Constructive conflict increases cooperation if the involved parties are willing to work together and come up with an applicable solution. In addition, it divides or separates someone from the predicament since the individual is mostly focused on getting the solution rather than discussing the problem. Moreover, constructive conflict strengthens relationships since the involved parties are interested in solving their differences in order to achieve the goals of the company. It also results into professional and personal growth and development. Constructive conflict improves the quality of the results of an organization since it helps the managers to understand the importance of changing some ideas and practices within the organization (Collins & Rourke 2008, p.6).
On the other hand, destructive conflict leads to increased competition since employees seem to be competing for the scarce resources within an organization. In addition, it involves individual attacks especially if it results from personality differences. The two parties are most likely to shout at each other or fight. Destructive conflicts do not solve problems because the involved people might decide not to communicate with each other.
In addition, the manger might blame the personality differences to be the major cause of conflict within an organization, hence, fails to identify the root cause of the problem. As a result, unresolved conflict will lower the productivity of the employees and the entire organization, thus reducing the quality of the company’s results or outcome. In addition, it weakens relationships and leads to hurtful behaviors, mostly because the involved parties are not interested in the growth and development of the organization but rather in their own goals. Hence, they are not ready to resolve the conflict and work as a team, therefore, employees relationship is weakened (Collins & Rourke 2008, p.6).
Theories of conflict
Equity theory
Equity theory is also referred to as social exchange theory. For the workplace surrounding, equity theory consists of organizational fairness or judgment about justice in the company. There are two major areas regarding justice; the manner in which rewards are allocated (distributive fairness) and the manner in which things are done (procedural fairness). In order to make sure that there is distributive fairness, individual employers and companies mostly create rules and regulations on the way rewards will be distributed (Kramer & Tyler 2009, p. 231). For instance, rewards distribution regulations in a company could be dependent on the need, equity or equality.
In addition, workers will also judge or scrutinize whether the procedures utilized in distributing resources or making the regulations were just, and the processes were appropriate or not. Therefore, conflict or disagreement could arise from the thought that resources were or are not allocated fairly, or processes for distributing were or are unjust. In the workplace situations, comprehended unfairness mostly arise when workers fail to get the reward they anticipate. Workers execute a specific task with the anticipations that they will get a specific type of reward in repay. Their anticipations on the rewards could be based on their past encounter or equivalence with others (Accel Team 2010, par. 2-3).
Equity prevails when all workers see that their honors are equivalent to their participation, particularly as equated with other workers. On the other hand, inequity prevails when a worker perceives that the honor she or he is getting seems to be different from the rewards that other employees get while performing a similar task. For instance, there could be two employees in the same company with same seniority level, same salary and same position title, but one of them has a bigger working place area than the other one.
The other party who has a smaller office might see this as unfair treatment and fail to be satisfied, and conflict might arise from such a treatment. An appealing area of the theory of equity is the declaration that the unfairness could be an under-gain or over-gain, and these two could be stressful for the individual who perceive it. For example, in the case mentioned above, the worker that has a bigger office might be uneasy with the organization just as the worker with a smaller office, if he comprehends his bigger office as an over-gain proportional to the other worker (Murphy 2009, p. 124).
Psychodynamic theory and personality theory
The two theories focus mainly on the individual. They can also be referred to as type theory and trait theory. Trait theory is interested in recognizing the features of an individual and mostly with identifying the characters, which are when merged or mixed, can be utilized to define individuality or personality (Collins 2009, par. 13).
For individuals attempting to handle their own disputes or conflicts, and mostly for employers assisting workers with disagreement, blaming individuality for harmful disagreement is not of any importance, and surely an appropriate evaluation. If disagreement is handled properly, then individuality differences ought not to be blamed or be the center of all the argument. It is simpler to always forgive individuals whom people love and work with, though one ought not to like an individual’s character so that one can work with him or her (Ayoko, Goodwin, Folger, Cahn, Johnson & Engleberg 2008, p.68).
Advocators of the theory of psychodynamic depend mostly on the vibrant drives of the subconscious mind to describe the characters, thoughts and emotions of a person. These unconscious aspects can make individuals conduct themselves in manners, which are self-harmful and unsuccessful (Hebdon 2005, p.42-44).
For example, a worker might be angry at his employer and when he goes home he displaces the anger, and starts arguing with his wife. On the other hand, an employer who is experiencing family problems might displace his anger to the employees. Therefore, psychodynamic theory in this case shows that sometimes disagreements are not because of what people think they are on the surface. Therefore, psychodynamic and personality theories help people to view the causal of conflict beyond personality level. Putting blame of personality as the cause of conflict leads to destructive conflict and make it difficult for individuals to come up with workable solutions (Ayoko, Goodwin, Folger, Cahn, Johnson & Engleberg 2008, p.70).
There are two principles concerning the utilization of personality theory in dealing with conflict in the workplaces. The first perception is that the different knowledge employees possess, will assist in recognizing the abilities people contribute in order to achieve the goals of the organization. All the different types of personalities have various set of resources or strengths, which contribute in a great way in decision-making.
Secondly, the knowledge of personal divergences when assigned to divergences in personality theory could assist to minimize conflict or disagreement by redirecting probable sources of misinterpretation. Although knowledge and comprehension of psychological type and predilections type, when disagreement does happen, it could be examined and assigned to naturally happening type of differences. Within the setting of the type theory, faulting and destructive components of disagreement could be managed (Murphy 2009, p. 124).
Transformational theory
In this theory, disagreement is perceived as an essential thing that brings growth, advancement or development in the companies, relationships, and communities. Disagreement happens if there is difference between the way things are and the way people perceive things the way they ought to be. However, disagreement can trigger desired development and alteration. A transformational model of handling disagreement does not center on getting a solution to an instant predicament, but instead it focuses on evaluating the fundamental factors, associations and measuring the way they are forming and being impacted by disagreement. Therefore, the interest is on changing interactions or associations for long-term gain (Bratton & Gold 2007, p. 58).
For instance, food industries are establishing healthier commodities in response to clients’ interests on health matters. Some have ended up having new labeling requirements and judicial proceeding. Hence, due to the conflict created because of consumer interest, the organization has taken the conflict as a constructive conflict. As a result, the food industries like Burger King and McDonald’s have introduced long-term solutions like addition of more salads to the food in order to sustain and advance their interaction with consumers. Therefore, organizations, should always perceive conflict as a productive issues that can improve their productivity and relationship with their customers (Bratton & Gold 2007, p. 58).
Systems theory
System theory states that companies are clear, social setting is made up of people involved in organized practices, which are mutually beneficial in the procedure of generating outputs. Basically, an open system gets resources from external sources, changes them by the patterned practices of the system, then generates outputs that are later exported to the surrounding (Kramer & Tyler 2009, p. 342). Companies are composed of several subsystems.
The primary elements of social systems consist of their values, rules and responsibilities. Roles or responsibilities describe the conducts which individuals are anticipated to carry out when they take up different titles or positions in the structure. Norms or rules refer to the common anticipations the way in which things ought to be conducted while values refer to ideological in real life. These elements ensure that practices will always be recapitulated and patterns will advance (Ayoko, Goodwin, Folger, Cahn, Johnson & Engleberg 2008, p.74).
In the settings of a company, systems are in operation if they are working or achieving the goals of the company, though conflict or disagreement might happen if the systems are not managed properly. As a result, the system might fail to function. For instance, one section of the system might fail to collaborate with another system. In addition, when a system fails to function or become dysfunctional, conflict might arise (Rahim 2009, p.121).
Individuals within the system could get involved in a practice of unsuccessful conduct and keep recapitulating the practice, though they are aware of its ineffectiveness. For instance, several individuals have worked in bigger companies where they have handled ineffective, outdated processes, which are slow to alter or modify and they cause predicaments to the company. Eventually, collapses or damages in a system might take place especially when one section of the system requires too much energy or heightened anticipations, leading to disability (Griffin 2006, p.14).
The communication systems model permits people to integrate a part of the above-mentioned theories into people’s comprehension of conflict or disagreement by perceiving the whole conflict system. For many employers or bosses, academic theories of conflict are very important just as their implementation or application to enterprise problems. Every theory gives a dissimilar and significant method of perceiving about conflict. Each allows people to think diverse ways about the disagreement system and inquire dissimilar questions to assist individuals to comprehend it better. In addition, when systems within an organization encounter a case of conflict, an alteration to one of the components of the systems will affect the whole system (Javitch 2010, par.13).
Advantages and disadvantages of conflict in the workplace
Conflict in workplaces is common and inevitable and, eliminating them could be dangerous. In fact, most of the imaginative, high productive workplaces tend to survive in conflicts. It is better for one to evaluate several probabilities if they want to advance, however, such evaluations can only occur if there are many different thoughts. These different thoughts lead to conflict occurrence.
Effective management of conflict in the workplace should lead to the growth and development of the organization. In order for an organization to thrive in the stiff competitive world, it needs to capture or embrace the advantages of a modern and innovative structural form. Conflicts in workplace have several advantages if managed appropriately. Firstly, conflict brings in better decisions since interactive companies understand the way in which they can take advantage on workplace disagreements in order to have the differences obtain suitable consideration, thus, resulting into better perception or thinking, excellent and stronger decisions (Lenski 2007, par. 3).
In addition, disagreements lead to learning. Conflict trains an individual more about him or herself. It assists one to open up and look at things in a different way. Moreover, it helps one to learn things she or he does not know as long as the person is willing to cooperate with the other parties in order to come up with workable solutions (Lenski 2007, par. 5).
Individuals who understand how to handle conflicts appropriately come to realize their personality differences and the manner in which they affect or assist each other. They get to understand where their strong points and limitations are, and this helps them to handle their conflicts better in future.
Too much firmness leads to doldrums. If everyone accepted, what everyone says in all things at all the time, there is nothing that can be altered and nothing would be developed. When a team of individuals agrees too much to everything, the team gets into an agreement that eventually becomes steady. Therefore, it occurs to the team as though they are doing the correct thing, and there is no need of any alteration. This sometimes results into dangers since people fail to respond to the changes in the outside world. The only treatment for such a group is disagreement that will make them perceive the importance of changing from their comfort zone.
Moreover, conflicts are solved out well when they the individuals recognize it in the initial phase instead of noticing it when it has already resulted into circumstances, which no one can assume. Where conflict is accepted, discussions lead to corrections of the mistakes committed, before they lead to dangerous outcomes and hence, the productivity at the workplace advances (Giacalone & Jurkiewicz 2005, p.414).
Although conflicts are advantageous, they are also disadvantageous. They are disadvantageous since they are not controlled by thoughts, desire or opinions for solutions, but rather by deep emotional reactions to frightening circumstances. The reasons why dysfunctional conflict could prevail in the companies or any other workplace are several (Moriarty 2009, par. 4). For instance, the main cause could be the authority structure of the company, the manner in which employers treat team, or personal disagreements, or even lack of comfortability between personal desires and group objectives.
The common thing among all the causes of destructive conflict is the gap between individuals’ objectives, needs or anticipations, and what they perceive to be the truth of the circumstance. The thing that makes the disagreement particularly dysfunctional is if these gaps fail to be identified during the initial stage and solutions made in order to rectify them (Falconer 2009, p.5).
The disadvantages of failing to correct the above mentioned gaps are that individuals will start to center on winning points instead of getting the solution. In addition, the dysfunctional conflict creates an environment of blame where individuals are worried of giving out new ideas. Moreover, conflicts, if they are managed inappropriately will lead to secrecy such that significant information does not get to all people who need it. Another disadvantage is that destructive politics become important where individualities are more essential than any other issues. Destructive conflict wastes time, and can lead to proceedings which are extremely expensive in time, emotion and money wise (Falconer 2009, p.5).
Effective ways of managing conflict in the work place
There are several ways of managing conflicts. First, if conflict seems to create an atmosphere, which is too emotional, there is the need for a person to avoid discussing it immediately so that individuals can first calm down in order to discuss it more constructively. Secondly, conflicts at workplace can be managed by accommodating the situation (Badler 2010, pa6. 7). This implies that one allows the needs of another individual to be fulfilled at expense of one’s own needs. This happens mostly if the person who is accommodating the conflict has little powers in the organization. In addition, allowing the other individual to get their way will most likely strengthen relationships. However, one should not be too accommodative since this could weaken the position of an individual to a stage where one cannot raise their voices any more (Swinton 2010, par. 2-3).
Another method of managing conflict effectively at the workplace includes compromising. This is the act of surrendering ones position so that one can receive another position somewhere else. In this case, the management may choose to embrace the idea of compromising if time is tight, and might end up winning something. In addition, comprise is appropriate if a party cannot drive in their resolutions to the other party (Swinton 2010, par. 4).
Similarly, conflict can be managed through the following processes, evaluation, acknowledgement, attitude, action and analysis. Evaluation stage involves the investigative phase when one is handling a disagreement occurrence. During this stage, one need to research and combine all the data associated with the conflict (Gleason 2007, p.65). These consist of the type of conflict, the person who is responsible for the disagreement and whether there has been any history related to the present conflict, or not. Secondly, there is the acknowledgement stage, whereby when a thorough evaluation has been conducted, there is need to accept that a dispute does exist.
At such point, the employer should start the official dispute management processes. Thirdly, the persons involved in the conflict should cooperate in the procedure of resolve the conflict with the appropriate attitude. If one approaches the situation with a negative attitude, chances of failing to resolve the conflict are very high (Masters& Albright 2009, p.8).
During the time of resolving the conflict a number of agreed practices should be recorded, and should be finished within the agreed timeframe (Ury, Brett & Goldberg 2008, p.14). The major factors in resolving a conflict include taking actions and offering feedback. When the disagreement occurrence has been resolved, it ought to be evaluated or analyzed in order to measure the causal factors of the conflict and what techniques can be implemented in order to avoid the re-occurrence of the same situation (Masters & Albright 2009, p.9).
Conclusion
In summary, conflicts are common and inevitable. They occur in several forms and they depend with the individuals who are involved. Based on the individual’s experiences at the workplace, conflicts can be termed as organizational, personal and professional. Several individuals have faced some level of grief, pain, suffering, and anxiety due to conflict at the workplace with subordinate, colleague, customers or superior. Typically, disagreement occurs where there is a dispute between two or more people depending on each other.
The manner in which conflict is managed, affects both people’s personal lives as well as the quality of work. The psychological and physiological complications of disagreement go beyond the usual period and space weaknesses of the workplace. Achievement in life and workplace relies on the important measures taken by people in order to deal with disagreement effectively. In order for one to deal with disagreement appropriately, there is the need to react at three distinct degrees.
First, one should be able to put up with the disagreement whether they are because of colleagues, managers or external persons. Secondly, one should be in a position to advance others within the company to cope up efficiently with the disagreement that results among them. Thirdly, one must be in a position to direct the organization towards a successful approach in handling the disagreement with the workplace.
Conflict at the workplace can be either advantageous or disadvantageous but it depends on how one manages it. Effective management of conflict includes the following processes, namely, assessment, acknowledgement, attitude, action, and analysis. Therefore, one should create and apply a suitable, quality strategy of managing conflicts at the workplace effectively if the company is to grow and develop. Proper and open communication is the primary solution in managing and preventing disagreement situations.
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