The centering issue revolves around the manner in which the home care nurses operate. The director has a totally different understanding regarding how Xi’s department should operate. As such, this makes it a task conflict. The nurses have formed the tendency of having an informal meeting every morning that they use constructively to device ways in which they can improve on their service delivery to their client. The meeting has been productive since it has made the department have superior performance compared to the other department. As such, this means that the department has a high quality rate services compared to the other departments. However, the new director fails to observe the contribution that the meeting makes to the organization. Therefore, the director perceives the meeting as a waste of time and making the department have a negative public image which is contrary to his focus of enforcing policies, which has to cater for a good public reputation, and ensuring a strong financial performance. The director wants the home care nurses to have two ten minutes break and one thirty minutes break like the rest of the staff
Power refers to one’s ability to prevent an action or ability to make things happen. Therefore, from the definition, power can only be relative but cannot have an absolute definition. As such, each party to a confrontation has element of power that can make them prevent an action from happening or make an action happen. As such, in a confrontation, it is all about power play. Critically refers to the degree of importance. Therefore, during the power play, the concept of critically will have some significance but will be highly dependent on the power that each party holds. As such, confrontation will be seen as an imbalance in power that causes perverted criticality in issues. The director does not appreciate the impact the informal meeting has on the good performance of Xi’s department hence ignoring the criticality of the matter that has led to a confrontation with Xi. Moreover, the director is in the position of power, and authority and is making spirited efforts to impose his approach on Xi’s department. As such, the director ignores Xi’s contribution on the matter. Therefore, the director decision will carry the day however it will have negative effects on the productivity of Xi’s department since the director’s choses to exercise power without consideration of other key personnel input.
Accommodation refers to a high degree of cooperation in order to solve the conflict (Cellucci, & Wiggins, 2010). Therefore, it implies that one will have to acknowledge and accept the other person point of view. The style is seen, in most cases, like letting the other party have things done his/her way. However, it is mostly applied when one is handling an expert in a field that one is not an expert that means that the other party has a better understanding of the situation hence higher possibility of offering better solutions to the problem. The method is effective since it fosters good future relationship since it maintains the working harmony through avoiding unwarranted disruptions. on the other hand, the method can be ineffective since it has a higher chance that one’s need are not met, and the one who accommodates the other may feel as being taken advantage of and resentful. Since the two are experts in their respective fields, both Xi and the new director can opt to reason together and appreciate that the meeting has a considerable input in the quality of the care that the department gives. On the other hand, Xi will need to understand that the director needs to implement policies and ensure the financial soundness of the department. The gesture by the nurses to park the vans behind the coffee shop is a good initiative, but they need to convince the director on the importance of meeting in that shop or altogether have a new place to be meeting. As such, combined reasoning that will help each person attain their goals will lead to a better result.
Avoidance simply refers to one intentionally avoiding a confrontation (Cellucci, & Wiggins, 2010). The method is applicable in a situation where trivial matters are the basis of the confrontation. As such, this means that when trivial issues are the cause of the confrontation, then none of the party is benefitting from the confrontation therefore it is not helping either party achieve its goals. Also, the method is essential when the situation is highly emotionally charged, and some space is need for either party to cool off. Although hope is not a strategy, in some cases one will only have to hope that things will resolve themselves. Also, the method is highly used when considering that one will not have any chance of winning. In this case, the director seems paranoid, and the basis for his arguments can be seen as trivial and considering his attitude, Xi has no chance of winning. Currently, Xi’s department has not been reported to have abandoned their duties for the nurses to have their meeting nor has any other form of complaining been received against that department. Moreover, the previous director did not complain that the meeting was interfering with the organization financials and reputation. As such, the new director has picked up a confrontation on a trivial matter that Xi can simply choose to not engage in the confrontation.
Collaboration refers to the context in which the two parties unite in order to achieve their individual goals hence solving the confrontation (Cellucci, & Wiggins, 2010). As such, the two parties will effectively overcome the ‘win-lose’ paradigm and adopt the ‘win-win’ paradigm. The method comes in handy in situation in which novel solution needs to be achieved. As such, the implication of this strategy is creating additional space in order to accommodate each person ideas and input. However, in order to create a space, high levels of trust and ability to make compromises in order to arrive at a consensus are needed. It, therefore, means that patience will be demanded this method to be applicable to accommodate each idea made by the participants. In this case, a ‘win-win’ situation is easy to realize. Xi and the director can agree on modalities that involve timing of the meetings and the budget in order to keep the meeting going and the director meets the duties of financials and policy enforcement. As such, the nurses will still have a meeting, and the director responsibilities will be achieved.
Competing strategy entirely adopts the ‘win-lose’ paradigm. Therefore, one will need to behave in assertive ways thus ignoring any room for compromises (Cellucci, & Wiggins, 2010). The method is highly effective when the situation being handled is an emergency since there is little time to make compromises. However, the other people must support the approach hence they must be fully aware of the reason the approach is used applied. Currently, the director is employing this approach though unnecessarily since there is no emergency. Hence, Xi can only inform her team of the new requirement by the director but can have little to do to reverse that direction. Therefore, Xi will be on losing the side.
Compromising can be viewed as a ‘lose-lose’ scenario (Cellucci, & Wiggins, 2010). Therefore, none of the party will achieve what they needed to achieve. In order for this method to be applied, and then a moderate level of cooperation and assertiveness is needed. However, this method is useful when the situation requires temporary solutions and the parties that are involved have important goals to achieve. In this case, Xi can stand firm and vehemently defend the nurses as she has done. Therefore, she will choose not to be bombarded with approaches that seem not to add value in her teams work. As such, although a bad relation will develop between the two, both will maintain their approaches. The two will exercise some degree of assertiveness and corporation in order not to interfere with the running of the department.
Avoidance is the best placed approach that Xi can use. The reason for adopting avoidance approach is that the director is seeking to find the problem where there is none. As a result, he has picked a confrontation on a very trivial issue. Xi should inform the team and let them know that the director is not in support of their meeting. Also, she will need to let the director know that she cannot do away with the meeting since it is one of the pillars that drive the quality of service in the department and inform the director that enforcing policies and having strong financial performance is not the core objective of healthcare services. As such, it is pointless to have good finances and well implemented policies but have quality of service is low.
References
Cellucci, L. W., & Wiggins, C. (2010). Essential techniques for healthcare managers. Chicago: Health Administration Press
