Techniques of conflict resolution and management

Conflict management: why conflicts occur and various techniques tp resolve conflicts.

What is Conflict?

Conflict is an inevitable part of personal, organizational and societal life.

We all experience conflict of one kind or the others in our life, group organization and society, Conflicts arise due to competition, differences in values, attitudes, experiences, goals and perception of limited resources.

You and your boss don’t agree on the amount of budget the project requires or you and your colleagues have different ideas on how to implement new performance management system.

Similarly, Pepsi and Coke are fighting to capture same customer base indulge into such advertising campaign that reflect their conflict.

There is no dearth of definition of conflict.

The common theme in all definitions are two or more competing goals, ideas, attitudes, behaviours of one or more parties are perceived in disagreement and feeling of aversely affected interests.

Let us define conflict as a process where one party perceives that another party has adversely affected or has tried to affect adversely something that the first party values.

Read: Functional and Dysfunctional Conflict

Techniques of conflict resolution and management

Conflicts are commonly observed at places where people come and work together. People may have different perspective of things and may have different priorities and expectations from their work, because of which conflicts may arise while at work. By knowing how to deal with conflicts, managers can keep the employees engaged and productive.

It is important for people to understand and apply various conflict resolution techniques. Here we take a look at few of these techniques.

Styles of conflict resolution:

Withdraw/Avoid

In this technique, you avoid the conflict (or withdrawing from it) and hope that the issue will resolve itself.
Scenarios where people withdraw: When the issue is trivial and not worth the effort, when you may have something more pressing at hand, when you are unprepared, when the other party is very hostile.

Advantages: Saves you time
Disadvantages: You may come across as weak

Accommodate/ Giving In/ smoothing
In this technique, you go as per the other persons concerns rather than yours. You behave as if the problem never existed, thus avoiding a tough discussion.

Scenarios where people accommodate: Accommodate temporarily and buy time (if you are unprepared) to respond in a better way, when the issue is not important to you (as it is to the other person), when you realize that you are on the wrong side.

Advantages: Creates goodwill and gives you time to find a permanent solution.
Disadvantages: Since you’re giving more concerns to other parties, you could be taken advantage of.

Compromising/Reconcile
Here you try to make a compromise by take suggestions of all the parties involved. All the parties involved in the conflict gain something, and usually everybody goes home feeling satisfied

Advantages: This technique keeps all the parties involved cool.
Disadvantages: This technique may not bring out the best solution, and the conflict could resurface again in future.

Collaborate/Win-win
In this technique, you try to look for a lasting solution that is agreeable to all, by considering multiple viewpoints.
Scenarios where people collaborate: When a high level of trust exists between the parties, when it’s necessary to address the interests of multiple stakeholders, when a long-term relationship is important

Advantages: This technique is considered a win-win approach.
Disadvantage: Takes time and effort to find a solution.

Organizations should take adequate steps to reduce conflicts at the workplace as it can impact with the productivity of the employees and can cause delays in projects. Organizations should invest in training programs and provide managers and employees with the know-how to effectively deal with conflicts at the workplace.

MBA (management) question on conflict management:

Q) Mr. Amit is the departmental head of Marketing and has seven employees directly reporting to him. The seven members of the team are never in consensus with each other on major important decisions. There had been heated discussion among them in various meeting scheduled by Mr. Amit. The team members are not having great rapport with Production and R&D departments’ Head because of lack of coordination within the team. There is total chaos and confusion in the organization.
Mr. Amit is worried about the online course that he has joined and has not been able to commit himself for the course. He is not able to give time to solve the assignments, check the MCQs, and participate in the discussion forum which are a part of the course. Mr. Amit’s relationship with the seniors is cordial. He doesn’t like the Production Department head as the latter doesn’t provide him with regular reports and delivery status.

a. Enumerate types of conflicts and identify various types of conflict in the above case?
b. What are the various ways to resolve the conflict?

Q) Shiva and Sanjay work in an Information Technology (IT) multi-national company (MNC) in the same team as management trainees. They both got selected through campus placement. It has been six months since they joined the company. While filling up their confirmation forms Shiva came to know that Sanjay draws more remuneration than him. This had visibly upset Shiva and he started dumping all his work to Sanjay. The strained relationship between them could be sensed by their colleagues as well. Sanjay probed for this and from one of Shiva’s new confidante he came to know the reason.

a. What kind of conflict was between Shiva & Sanjay? Discuss the same with suitable concepts & reasons.
b. How can the conflict be resolved or managed by Shiva. Discuss