Conflict in organizations or workplaces is inevitable. However, they can be resolved using different means. Mostly, many conflicts occur where individuals (two or more people) believe that there is a threat to his or her personal need. This paper will use the Coca-Cola Company for the setting, together with the individual’s details at hand, to provide an in-depth synopsis, analysis, and summary, to explore how a person can move into an authoritative position due to avoiding conflict.
Synopsis
Formed in September 1919, the Coca-Cola Company is a non-alcoholic beverage corporation that markets more than 500 brands. Its main brands include Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, and distilled water. In addition, the company sells and manufactures beverage bases and syrups that include, sparkling and distilled drinks (Reuters, 2014). The company in recent years has started making and selling sparkling as well as still beverages. For example, juices and juice drinks, ready to drink tea and coffee. Coca-Cola sells its products all around the world: specifically in Africa, Europe, Latin and South America, and the better part of Asia. With its Head office in Atlanta, Georgia, the company is shortlisted in the NYSE stock market. The company is a member of DJIA, Russell 1000 growth stock index (Reuters, 2014). Coca-Cola strictly produces the concentrates of the syrup, and then sends it to the company’s distributors who add water and other incidents to complete the beverage formula. Therefore, bottling plants of the Coca-Cola as an organization are independently owned, even though some of the divisions like finance, human resource, marketing, planning all are centrally located (Reuters, 2014). The individuals involved in the conflict were of lower staff members Level. Their roles in the company include mixing the ingredients, checking soda packing of sodas in crates as well as boxes.
Analysis
One of the conflicting individuals indulged in some conflict avoidance strategies. The conflict avoidance strategies, though not advised to use when resolving issues are not always negative. The strategies employed include withdrawal, pretense or changing the subject, exit strategy, and self-induced self-deception.
The individual used withdrawal strategy that involved Swallowing-feelings by concealing his or her feelings and at times walking away. This type of strategy requires the individuals to hide their true feelings, emotions, and opinions. Individuals who enact this strategy price approval from others more than the way they value expressing their personal pain or distress to other people. These individuals have tendencies of smiling or laughing while they are subjected to fear in hiding their emotions (Wang, Fink & Cai, 2012). The kind of behavior leads individuals not to work towards conflict resolution and may create exploitation and abuse of individuals
The individual used a pretending strategy by Change of subject to counter the conflict; this strategy conceals the main point of fighting. Individuals using the technique tend to use the style because they believe that the situation is too complex and ambiguous to solve, however they communicate with the individuals. Most of the time, individuals try to change the topic by distracting the other parties with less contentious issues. The method does not allow conflict resolution and at times may lead to postponement of the conflict thus preventing resolutions to the most important issues (Wang et al., 2012).
The individual reached a point that he acted as if he was hiding, retreating, or escaping from the conflict and the person in disagreement. Commonly known as overt conflict or exit strategy, individuals employing this method may go to measures of altering their lifestyle and behavior, thus avoiding particular places, people, or activities (Wang et al., 2012). At times, the individual used to deceive himself by intentionally adopting fabricated views to avoid disappointments. These individuals always seem to desire a particular result or resolution to the conflict but deceive themselves to avoid conflict. Therefore, they may refuse to acknowledge truthful info and develop inner conflicts that lead to alienation of oneself (Thomas, n.d.).
Summary
The situation at hand was that the individuals disagreed on who was more superior to the other yet they were both in the same rank in the organization. Most of the strategies employed by the individuals only postponed the conflict to another day, which might escalate the whole situation by piling up the problem (Thomas, n.d.). Conflict avoidance strategies are never the best in handling workplace or conflicts. Meaning, when opportunities arise, individuals in a conflict should strive to attain a situation with the best desirable characteristics.
While doing this, the conflicting individuals ought to know if the conflict is an approach-avoidance conflict, an approach-approach or avoid-avoid. According to the Psychological Concepts, situations with both desirable and undesirable outcomes fall under approach-avoid category (2011). A conflict that has undesirable outcomes for both parties is avoid-avoid conflict resolution strategy. Lastly, the approach-approach situation is one that has two desirable outcomes. Under our situation, the best strategy would be the approach-approach strategy mainly because the promotion of one person creates respect between the two thus minimizing or avoids the conflict as a whole (Psychological Concept, 2011). However, conflict avoidance strategies also have a positive outcome. For example, an individual might decide to avoid approaching a conflict because of overwhelming emotions. Therefore, postponing the conflict aids the individual to control their emotions before the tackling the difficult situation. According to Psychological Concept, to ascertain if avoidance is the best approach to the conflicts determined by the time, of sane conscious mind as well as the magnitude of the conflict (2011).
References
Psychologyconcepts.com. (2011). Approach-avoidance Conflict Psychology Concepts. Retrieved 24 November 2014, from http://www.psychologyconcepts.com/approach-avoidance-conflict/
Reuters.com. (2014). The Coca-Cola Co (KO) Company Profile Reuters.com. Retrieved 25 November 2014, from http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyProfile?symbol=KO
Thomas, K. (n.d.). Making Conflict Management a Strategic Advantage. Retrieved 26 November 2014, from https://www.cpp.com/pdfs/conflict_whitepaper.pdf
Wang, Q., Fink, E., & Cai, D. (2012). The Effect of Conflict Goals on Avoidance Strategies: What Does Not Communicating Communicate? Human Communication Research, 38(2), 222-252. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2011.01421.x
