Managing Conflict

What is a conflict?
• The result of a situation wherein the needs or
ideas of one person are at odds or in
opposition to the need or ideas of another.
The ingredients of conflict are:
• Needs
• Perceptions
• Power
• Values
• Feelings and emotions
• Needs - Needs are things that are essential to our
well-being. Conflicts arise when we ignore others'
needs, our own needs or the group's needs. Be careful
not to confuse needs with desires (things we would
like, but are not essential).
• Perceptions - People interpret reality differently.
They perceive differences in the severity, causes and
consequences of problems. Misperceptions or
differing perceptions may come from: self-
perceptions, others' perceptions, differing perceptions
of situations and perceptions of threat.
• Power - How people define and use power is an
important influence on the number and types of
conflicts that occur. This also influences how conflict
is managed. Conflicts can arise when people try to
make others change their actions or to gain an unfair
advantage.
• Values - Values are beliefs or principles we consider
to be very important. Serious conflicts arise when
people hold incompatible values or when values are
not clear. Conflicts also arise when one party refuses
to accept the fact that the other party holds something
as a value rather than a preference.
• Feelings and emotions – Many people let
their feelings and emotions become a major
influence over how they deal with conflict.
Conflicts can also occur because people ignore
their own or others' feelings and emotions.
Other conflicts occur when feelings and
emotions differ over a particular issue.
 Managing Conflict
There are five steps to managing conflict.
• Analyze the conflict
• Determine management strategy
• Pre-negotiation
• Negotiation
• Post-negotiation
 Step 1: Analyze the conflict
• The first step in managing conflict is to
analyze the nature and type of conflict. To do
this, you'll find it helpful to ask questions.
 Step 2: Determine management
strategy
• Once you have a general understanding of the
conflict, the groups involved will need to
analyze and select the most appropriate
strategy. In some cases it may be necessary to
have a neutral facilitator to help move the
groups toward consensus.
 Conflict Management Strategies
Strategies of managing conflict:-
• Withdrawal/Mulling
• Accommodating
• Forcing
• Compromising
• Collaborating
Withdrawal
• A form of conflict management in which
people physically or psychologically remove
themselves from the conflict.
Accommodating
• A form of conflict management in which
people attempt to satisfy others’ need while
ignoring their own.
Forcing
• Demanding through physical threats, verbal
attacks, coercion, or manipulation that your
needs be satisfied or your ideas be accepted.
Compromising
• Both parties make sacrifices to find common
ground.
Collaborating
• Problem solving by addressing the needs and
issues of each party to arrive at a solution that
is mutually satisfying.
 Step 3: Pre-negotiation
To set the stage for effective negotiation, the
groundwork must be laid. The following
should occur prior to negotiation.
• Initiation
• Assessment
• Grounds rules and agenda
 Step 4: Negotiation.

• Interests
• Options
• Evaluation
• Written agreement
Interests
• Interests include the reasons, needs, concerns
and motivations underlying positions.
Satisfaction of interests should be the common
goal.
Options
• To resolve conflicts, concentrate on inventing
options for satisfying interests. Do not judge
ideas or favor any of the options suggested.
Encourage creativity, not commitment.
Evaluation
• Only after the partners have finished listing
options, should the options be discussed.
Determine together which ideas are best for
satisfying various interests
Written agreement
• Document areas of agreement and
disagreement to ensure common
understanding. This helps ensure that
agreements can be remembered and
communicated clearly.
 Step 5: Post-negotiation
Once negotiation is complete, the group will
need to implement the decisions made.
Some key steps include:
• Ratification
• Implementation
Ratification
• The partners must get support for the
agreement from organizations that have a role
to play in the agreement. These organizations
should be partners and should have been
involved in the previous steps. Each
organization will need to follow its own
procedures to review and adopt the agreement
Implementation
• You and your partners' jobs are not done when
you've reached agreement. Communication
and collaboration should continue as the
agreement is carried out. The partnership will
need to have a plan to monitor progress,
document success, resolve problems,
renegotiate terms and celebrate success.
 Conflict Style Model
Compete Collaborate
Unassertive----------------------Assertive
ASSERTIVENESS

Compromise

Avoid Accommodate
COOPERATIVENESS
Uncooperative-------------------------------------Cooperative
When to Withdraw?
• When issue is truly trivial
• When one needs time to cool down, reduce
tensions, acquire skills, or regain composure
and perspective
• It is effective as a temporary effort to create
time to think
When to Compromise?
• When goals are moderately important, when
time is short, or when other attempts don’t
work.
• When two opponents with equal power are
strongly committed to mutually exclusive
goals.
• When temporary settlements are needed on
complex issues.
When to Accommodate?
• When one realizes one is wrong
• When the issue is much more important to
the other person
• When “credits” need to be accumulated for
issues that are more important
When to Force?
• In emergencies, when it is critical to one’s or
others’ welfare, if someone is taking
advantage of you
When to Collaborate?
• When both sets of concerns are too important
to be compromised
• When the objective is to test one’s own
assumptions or better understand the views
of others
Managing Conflict at Work
• Conflict resolution is a positive process where
individuals resolve issues in an informal or
formal atmosphere or issues are resolved as part
of the ongoing interaction between individuals.
• Conflict is a normal part of doing business
– Organizational members have different and often
opposing goals
– These differing goals keep the organization vital by
stimulating creativity, promoting innovation, and
bringing about change
• Ideally, conflict resolution involves dealing with
problems while they are manageable
– Early recognition of conflict is critical since what can be
dealt with effectively today may be much more difficult
to mutually resolve tomorrow
• Conflicts are inevitable
– Anger, grudges, hurt and blame are not unmanaged
conflicts, disagreements and out of control emotions can
harm work
– Effectively managed conflict can actually promote
cooperation and build stronger relationships
 Conflict Resolution Skills
• Initiate discussion – choose the issue you want to
discuss and be specific
• Communicate – choose language that is concise,
avoiding vague/general terms
• Effectively listen – develop active listening skills
• Learn and use what you have learned
• Seek out resources as necessary
 Problem Solving Guidelines
– Attack the problem, not the person
– Be clear about what you see, how you judge and
react to people and situations
– Verbalize your feelings appropriately
– Understand and take charge of your own feelings
and behaviors
– Move from justification to resolution
– Look forward, not backward to place blame
Five Tips for Managing Conflict
1. Share negative emotions only in person or
on the phone: E-mails, answering machine
messages, and notes are too impersonal for the
delicate nature of negative words. What feels like a
bomb on paper may feel like a feather when delivered
in person.
2. Pepper your responses with the phrase, "I
understand“: This phrase will support your goals
when the tension is high and you need to find
common ground to form compromises or agreements
with the other party.
3. Take notice when you feel threatened by
what someone is saying to you: Resist the
temptation to defend yourself or to "shut down" the
other person's communication. It will take this kind of
discipline to become an open, trusting
communicator.
4. Practice making requests of others when
you are angry: It is often much more useful to
make a request than to share your anger.
5. Try repeating the exact words that
someone is saying to you when they are in a
lot of emotional pain or when you disagree
with them completely:
This mirroring technique can keep both the
speaker and the listener 'centered' in a difficult
conversation, especially when the attitude of the
person doing the mirroring is to gain understanding
of a different point of view.