Communication and Conflict Margarita Vela COM325: Communication & Conflict Instructor: Kenneth Newton March 10, 2015 Communication and Conflict Conflict is a contest or struggle between individuals with opposing values, beliefs, needs, goals, and ideas. On teams, conflict is inevitable; on the other hand, the conflict’s outcomes are not predetermined. Conflict may escalate and result in nonproductive outcomes, or it may be beneficially resolved and lead to quality outcomes (Cahn & Abigail, 2014). Hence, learning to handle conflict is essential to a team to guarantee high-performance. Even though few individuals search for conflict more frequently than not, conflict comes up due to miscommunication. It occurs between individuals in reference to their values, goals, beliefs, ideas, and needs. Why Conflict Occurs Occasionally, conflicts can appear to ignite and to increase like a wildfire, acting as a destructive raging force with a mysterious, and later forgotten unknown cause. On the other hand, it does not have to be that challenging or complicated to understand. Many conflicts can be traced to some primary areas of life, such as individual needs and desires. Understanding the way conflict begins can assist to successfully navigate and finally resolve it in professional and personal relationships. Concerning value and political barriers, conflict takes place because there are profound divisions in the society that have interpersonal associations. There are
Whether we like it or not, conflict is a part of everyday lives. It can happen to anyone, from your friends to your family.
Learning to communicate efficiently and manage conflict successfully is challenging. Gaining cooperation between people is complex and mentally demanding. Communication ways and conflict styles are deeply woven into our personalities. Conflict is the expressed struggle of interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, interference from the other party in achieving those goals, and the perception of scarce resources. Perceptions are just as important as reality in regards to conflict. As stated in the text, “we encounter conflict as we compete for acceptance, love, recognition, position, power, success, and many other goals. Judgments of the quality of
This exceptional team management and leadership skill demonstrated our ability to get tasks accomplished, regardless of any hurdles staying in our way. Efficient conflict management is critical when managing stress, productivity levels, and team collaboration abilities. The ways in which we handled this conflict inspired creativity, harmony and cohesion amongst our team members. Reacting in a positive, innovative manner helped maintain a positive group dynamic, elevate our problem solving abilities and prevent future conflicts from
In this writing, we will explore and explain strategies of conflict resolution and, encourage teams, individuals and society as a whole to use some of these ideas for their own resolution purposes. “In many cases, effective conflict resolution skills can make the difference between positive and negative outcomes.” (Conflict resolution, 2008). With this in mind, individuals will have hope for a more positive team experience.
Nor can effective use of power be reduced to wise control of our personal powers, though that may be a good start. Social power, including our own, is concentrated, channelled, and distributed by the culture and structure of our families, communities, organizations, countries, etc. Personal power is limited or extended by such cultures and structures.
The dynamics of a team relies heavily on the interaction of team members during times of conflict not just during times of agreement. Often groups seek to achieve a cohesive relationship in an effort to unite the team towards its goals. Group members can make the mistake of subverting conflict in an attempt to maintain this team unity. Conflict serves a valuable role in effective group interactions that must be understood by participants of a team. An examination into the characteristics of conflict and cohesion and the relationship between the two dynamics can provide perspective to
Conflict results from real or perceived opposition to one’s values, actions, desires or general interests. Conflicts may occur internally or externally between individuals or groups; conflict within a team environment can cause frustration, and occasionally anger. However, conflict resolution can also often generate positive results for the team. Conflict management skills remain in demand; conflict may be managed successfully by reaching an agreement that satisfies the needs of both the individual(s) and the team as a whole
Conflict arises from various sources in the team setting (Capozzoli, 1995). The most common causes of conflict are values, attitudes, needs, expectations, perceptions, resources, and personalities. As we are all raised with different values, morals come into play when the team issue deals directly or indirectly with ones values, morals, or ethics. Conflicting attitudes can bring about problems as two or more team members prove to have differing goals in mind. Individual needs can cause rifts within a team when they are not satisfied. The expectations of team members are not the same on how the goal will be met. We all have different perceptions of life situation and interpret them differently. The lack of resources needed to complete a task can cause conflict. Differing personalities play a major role in team conflict.
Conflict is inevitable and at times stimulates beneficial or creative thinking. Often conflict is a signal that people are miscommunicating and making different assumptions about what has gone unspoken. The conflict in itself is not the problem. It is the team’s reactions to it that determines the impact, thus causing it to be a negative experience. Conflict or divergence can be destructive or it can be constructive. It is up to the people involved in the conflict to manage the outcome. This gives them an opportunity to articulate their assumptions and figure out a way to come to agreement. In a learning team situation, conflict can arise when the original agreement to work together does not address
What is conflict? Even something as basic as a universal definition for the word conflict seems to vary from source to source. A literature review focusing on conflict defined it as “the interaction of interdependent people who perceive incompatibility and the possibility of interference from others as a result of this incompatibility” (Brinkert 2010). Often times the disagreement results not from a concrete difference, but rather a difference in perception (Ellis & Abbott 2012). One of the most important factors effecting conflict management is the resolution style used. The most often used tool for classifying how conflict is managed is the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (Iglesias & Vallejo 2012).
In resolving conflict, ask the question, “How do we keep this from happening again?” The first thing is to be objective. This helps in managing conflict by keeping team members focused on the problem at hand (Huber, 2007)
When two or more people come together with an aligned goal, a team is formed. This team is comprised of members, each with his own plan of action to best achieve the task at hand. Many times one member believes that his point of view is the most correct or most efficient, while another member of the team may disagree, offering her idea as best. When one individual challenges another, conflict is born. This is a very basic example, and only one type of conflict is addressed. In reality, there are several types of conflict; some positive, some negative. The sources of conflict are as varied as each member’s own personality style. Humans differ in countless ways. These differences contribute to the strength of team
For many of us, every day is a struggle to avoid conflict. Yet avoidance is practically impossible since the core characteristics, ideas and beliefs of each individual often conflict with our own. Differences of opinion, competitive zeal, and misinterpretations, among other factors, can all generate ill feelings between co-workers within an organization. While we can’t avoid conflict, we can learn how to sidestep negative confrontations by becoming familiar with the types of conflicts that most commonly arise in the work place and by learning how to resolve them.
“Patient safety is a top priority for all healthcare providers. Yet medical errors are ranked the eighth leading cause of death. Medication administration errors often result from multiple environmental and individual factors” (Yoder, Schadewald, & Dietrich, 2015, p. 140). Nurses are faced with several interruptions including other health care professionals, patients, and family members. Environmental factors such as: phone calls, call lights, alarms, malfunctioning equipment, and emergency situations can distract the nurse and prevent the nurse from administrating medications successfully. Research has shown that the most interruptions were from conversations with other personnel or stopping to do another patient care task (Yoder et al., 2015). The purpose of our paper is to discuss how collaboration, effective communication, and conflict management can improve the nursing medication administration process by both the intraprofessional and the interprofessional teams. The intraprofessional team is comprised of nurses that work on the unit and nurses who work on other units who may try to communicate with the nurse who is administering medications. The interprofessional team is made up of patient care technicians, the unit secretary, physicians, and other disciplines such as physical therapy, social work, pharmacy, and case management. The interprofessional team can also distract or disrupt the nurse trying to administer medications by asking about another patient being
In order to work more productively, creatively, and efficiently, it is very common for people to work in teams. Conflict occurs at this time because our goals are incompatible, our ways to interpret facts are different, and disagree with each other’s behavioral expectations, etc. Some believe that conflict is harmful and must be avoided, while others think that it is absolutely necessary for a team to have conflict to perform effectively. Hence, in the rest of paper, I will describe the important sources of conflict, analyze how these conflicts influence our team performance, and finally give some suggestions to manage these conflicts if I were a team leader.