Taking a Look at Conflict Resolution

Conflict is a stubborn fact of organizational life. Regrettably, it is an inevitable when organizations incorporate individuals with such diverse scopes of life. As conflict is identified in organizational work teams, an analytical approach to conceptualizing conflict is the first step. Further development will then focus on the different sources of conflict and how it can compromise the common goal of the team if it is not handled correctly. Searching for ways in which to manage conflict and avoid conflicts in work teams will bring together the underlying focus of this paper.

There are five conflict-handling styles: Forcing Style, Collaborating Style, Compromising Style, Avoiding Style and Accommodating Style. The compromising style “refers to behaviors at an intermediate level of cooperation and assertiveness. (Hellriegel, Slocum pg. 392) ” The person using is style tries to meet a goal by give-and-take. The accommodating style “refers to cooperative and unassertive behavior. (Hellriegel, Slocum pg. 393) ” The person using this style tries to accomplish a goal by using unselfish acts that will promote cooperation in others by complying with their wishes. The collaborating style “refers to high levels of cooperative and assertive behavior. (Hellriegel, Slocum pg. 391) ” The person using this style is using a win-win approach to working with others and handling conflict. When the CEO of General Hospital, Mike Hammer first attempted to control physician-driven cost he used the collaborating style by trying to convince the Director of

There are five different conflict managing styles. They are: avoiding, accommodating, competing, compromising, and collaborating. First I will

Behavioral scientists Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann, who developed the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, have identified five styles to responding to conflict—competition, collaboration, compromise,

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).

Separate assessments of my conflict style reveal that I have become primarily attuned with the integrating style of conflict management, which came as no surprise to me, as I found the results of the assessments to be accurate. However, the assessments also showed that I was nearly equal in the compromising style, leading them to be a near tie. I would be the first to admit that his has not always been the case. It has taken a fair amount of life experience and focused effort in order to move away from the predominate style of compromise

There are different conflict management styles, the dictatorial style, which insists that things are addressed their way and the low self -esteem style, which just allows others to have it their way. It is up to the individual to decide which way works for them. Additionally, the abdicator handles conflict by bowing out or walking away. This method is unhealthy because it robs the offended growth opportunity, which results from working through issues (Pegues, 2009, p.49). Another style is the collaborator, which often involves cooperation and pulling together to reach a common purpose and are emotionally balanced.

In team settings, individual team members generally handle conflict in five key ways as identified in an adaptation of the Thomas-Kilman Conflict Inventory (1976): Avoidance, Accommodation, Competition, Compromise, and Collaboration. All five conflict styles can be both beneficial and/or costly to individual and team success. It can also be argued that all five conflict styles may be useful to resolve conflicts under certain circumstances. Please review the five conflict styles listed below:

Dr. Rekha S. Rajan writes about how she implemented a twenty-minute structured dramatic play into class time to encourage children to learn to solve conflicts on their own. She first does this by gaining insight on the children’s feelings with a personal story time. Each child tells a story that made them particularly sad, mad, upset, or happy. She then takes those experiences and creates a pre-determined scenario to which, the children will play different roles, share ideas, and come up with a solution.

Effective managers are successful within the workgroup and organization when a style is used to resolve a conflict. People do experience conflict in their lives. There has always been a lot of interest in how to manage conflict once it appears in the open, and that is important. What is not so common is a concern for preventing unnecessary conflict, so it does not start in the first place. Managers are capable of using all five resolutions skills to deal with conflict in the workplace.

Places value on individualism, self-assertion, and competition. Not common in cultures that prioritize cooperation, keep others from failing, finding areas of agreement

Each person has a characteristic personality. Such a style reflects our unique wants, needs, and values. In conflicts, there are specific global patterns that can be identified that are reflective of how individuals deal with such challenges. These global patterns consist of five approaches to conflict management: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding, and Accommodating.

There are four distinct conflict styles which are the levels of assertiveness and cooperativeness that are employed by a person in a conflict situation. Everyone has their own individual conflict style; my own style tends to be accommodating. This means that I am not very assertive and I am very good at cooperating with those I am in conflict with. In this essay I will examine each conflict style and my own choice of style and why I tend to default to this style. I will also examine whether or not my choice of the accommodating style is the best approach to resolving conflict, and discuss the advantages of learning to use each of the styles in specific situations.

The third form of Conflict management is Accommodation. When the task at hand is more important than the conflict that has arisen and when relationships may be damaged putting the entire project in jeopardy. With this method a team member may minimize the conflict in order to protect the relationship and ultimately the project. Some of the negative aspects in using this

In trying to resolve the conflict between Reece and Patel, Edwards used an avoidance strategy. Instead of speaking directly about the root causes, or sources, of the conflict, Edwards focused on the behaviors and treated Reece and Patel like children. Edwards scolded them, and sent them off without bothering to find out what was bothering the two. Of course, this type of conflict resolution is ineffective because it fails to address the underlying issues. As Anderson (n.d.) points out, addressing the problem is key to conflict resolution. "When a conflict does happen, a manager needs to focus the conflicting parties on the issue and have them leave out any personal problems they may be having," (Anderson, n.d.).