Question & Answer
Question & Answer
Resolving or managing conflict is the process where an individual controls and channels a disagreement with an organization. The following are five basic strategies for resolving conflict: Accommodating, competing, collaborating, avoiding, and compromising. Competing is an uncooperative and assertive strategy of resolving a conflict. This strategy can be important when unpopular decisions need has to be made or when one has to stand up for his or her rights.
However, since it often creates situations of quietness and it makes others feel inferior, competition needs to be cautiously applied. Accommodating is another appropriate strategy; however, accommodating is the opposite of competing. When people accommodate the others involved in a conflict, they abandon their own desires to meet the desires of the other party. This is an essential strategy when the situation calls for maintenance of harmony in the environment. Accommodation is also necessary when an issue is important to one party or the other during a dispute.
Avoiding a conflict is both uncooperative and unassertive strategy of resolution. When avoiding a conflict, one or both parties choose not to pursue their concerns. Avoidance of conflict may be necessary and appropriate in case there is no possibility of meeting the goals desire. Additionally, in case both or one of the parties is hostile, avoiding may be the best strategy, at least initially.
However, too much avoidance can leave essential issues unattended or unresolved. Collaborating as a strategy of conflict resolution is the opposite of avoidance. Collaborative is cooperative and assertive. While collaborating, the involved parties attempt to find mutually satisfying solutions to their conflict. Collaboration often takes more than a single technique of conflict management and cannot be used when the parties involved harbor strong negative feelings about one another.
The final strategy is compromising, which literature considers a middle-ground strategy that accompanies cooperative and assertiveness. People who often compromise give up more than the ones who compete but give up more easily compared to accommodators. Choosing the type of conflict resolution strategy to apply requires knowledge of the context, the particular underlying issues and the desires of the parties involved.
Process for Conflict Resolution
A strategy for reducing conflict is to implement the concept of quality circles. The process involves six steps: (1) introduction and ground rules, (2) hearing what has happened and summarizing back, (3) identifying and discussing the issues, (4) mutual understanding and communicating feelings, (5) idea-storming and exploring win-win solutions and (6) signing the voluntary agreements and arranging a follow-up meeting. Better communications result in an improved sense of belonging, focusing clearly on primary purpose, ensuring the provision of quick feedback, and improving positive communication within the organization.
The mediator introduces ground rules in order to promote a positive and strengthening perspective rather than an adversarial approach. In addition, the mediator is to understand opposing points of view and provide constructive responses. Ground rules are such as interruption of others while communication and responding from a position of caring. The second step involves listening to what happened and summarizing back. Listening is so critical for a mediator when it comes to conflict resolution, management, and leadership. It is not difficult to do until one is caught up in emotion such as anger, fear or intellectual tasks such as problem-solving.
The mediator then identifies and addresses the issue. In this step, the mediator inquires a brief outline from both parties as to ‘what happened’ and understanding the effect that the conflict has had on the working relationship between the participants. Mutual understanding is an essential step of conflict resolution because finding points of agreement that support mutual understanding help in solving the problem rather than over-focusing on imprecise details. In addition, the mediator is to allow both parties to express their feelings on the matter.
The subsequent step is exploring all possible sources of conflicts in order to find common goals as well as empathy necessary for a win-win solution that is ultra-stable. After analyzing the conflicted circumstances through exploring issues and participants needs, and after providing an opportunity for emotional sharing, the mediator agrees on a solution and something better. The final step is signing the voluntary agreements and arranging a follow-up meeting. Conflict resolution implies elimination, reduction, or conflict termination. Several studies on mediation and arbitration fall in the follow-up category.
Principles of Leadership and Change Communication
Effective communication skills are essential for leaders. Change communication fulfils an essential function of leadership communication. In that, leadership communication itself can be considered a change agent and can additionally be equated with change communication, in case managers play the part of communication promoters during innovation. In the framework of leadership communication, various principles for change communication have been formulated, these principles include 1) planning for change from a solid base; 2) recognizing discrepancies between informal and formal practice within an organization; 3) taking control of expectations of proposed changes; 4) carefully selecting change agents; 5) formulating support among like-minded people when recruited; 6) recognizing those opposed to change and attempting to neutralize them; and 7) Avoiding future shock.
Change management has been a consultant industry in itself. Most consultants argue that it is challenging to re-engineer an organization. Undoubtedly this claim has some truth in it. A CEO of an organization decided to change the company’s logo a number of times during the early 1980s. The logo was changed, and the bottom line went up. Unfortunately, the connection between changing logos and increased profitability and productivity was not causal. After the arrival of the economic crash, it was evident that it was a strategy that worked only in the boom times. In this regard, there is a valuable lesson to be learned from the corporate change industry; it is essential to recruit carefully change agents. The more people enjoy the process of change the better the results –this is the premise of Grass Root Leadership approach, which brought forward the abstract idea of transformative leadership. With the change agent function of leadership communication in mine, employee orientation gains significance
In another instance, the introduction of changes to Harsco Corporation in 2000 delayed the implementation by union leadership. Setting time frames for change is quite essential part of a planning process. Most plans for change tend to be unrealistic future-oriented. After the change is planned, there is an expectation that disruption created by the change has time with limitations. Constant uncertainties about the future are quite disabling to the effectiveness of cooperation. Therefore, leading change involves risks and challenges. Not leading change poses more risks since change is an essential factor in the management of every organization. Every organization has its history, and it is important not to lose insight of such history because it can introduce an understanding of the way change needs to be implemented.
