Conflict Management Styles in Interpersonal Relationships - Term Paper Example

 Winner Takes All? Conflict Management Styles in Interpersonal Relationships There are four broad categories of conflict: interpersonal and relationship conflict; neighborhood and intergroup conflict; industrial and commercial conflict; and environmental and technical conflict (Tillett and French 1997, pp. 104-144). For the purposes of this essay, I’ll discuss interpersonal conflict in depth. Types of Interpersonal Conflict Conflict is as common as oxygen. Unfortunately, there are many who resolve conflict by dominating other people, bullying their way into winning. Ending up a loser feels really bad, but ending up a winner doesn’t feel much better in the long run. When people learn to manage conflict effectively, they’re happier and more productive in their relationships. Interpersonal conflicts happen between two or more people. Relationships vary in importance to the people in them, and typically the more intense the relationship is, the more opportunity for conflict and conflict resolution. Each person in a relationship brings a set of expectations into it. For instance, married people have expectations about each individual’s role in the couple (husband takes out the garbage and wife cooks). Families, especially when second marriages are involved, are full of conflict (divorce, mediation, visitation, returning to a normal schedule). Close friends expect certain behaviors from each other as well (being available for phone calls or to help move furniture). Acquaintances have lower and more flexible expectations of each other (you like a certain waitress at your favorite coffee shop because she always smiles). Passing acquaintances even have expectations (you appreciate it when someone holds the door for you when entering a building). There are many reasons conflicts arise in interpersonal relationships. Intense relationships (marriages and families) have more likelihood of conflict because they mean so much to the people involved. If a severe conflict happens, the relationship could end, which usually means the people involved will work harder to manage conflicts in meaningful relationships. Change happens to everyone all the time; needs evolve and expectations fluctuate, and we expect the people involved with us to respond to those changing circumstances. Intense relationships might require outside conflict resolution help, such as therapy or mediation services. The goal of any therapy should be to lay the conflict out on the table, discuss it in depth, discover what each party wants and needs, and to resolve the situation in the best manner possible. Good therapy teaches the people involved how to resolve conflict on their own, should the need arise in the future. Work relationships are often difficult to manage because people are sort of thrown together with a loose, common purpose. Conflict can arise in the workplace when bosses or co-workers expect certain behaviors from each other and one or both parties don’t deliver. Of course, people sometimes bring in outside unresolved conflicts and take them out on the people they’re working with. This leads to a vicious circle. Different Ways to Manage Conflict Ragin et.al. (2000) cite Thomas (1976) and state that there are five ways of coping with conflict: competition, collaboration, avoidance, accommodation, and compromise (p. 8). Going a little more in depth, Wisinski (1993, pp. 17-21) expands on these five types of conflict management in a slightly different order: Competition. When decisive decisions are needed, the competition approach doesn’t waste time with a lot of discussion. Unpopular changes can be introduced, and if there’s an atmosphere of low trust, someone in authority must step up to the plate. Accommodation. Accommodation should not be used as a method for avoiding conflict or attempting to resolve the issues. Sometimes it’s more important to preserve a working relationship than it is to be “right.” Accommodation gives the other person the freedom to learn from his own choices and actions, and allows other people to express their views openly. Avoidance. During a heated conflict, it’s a good strategy to call a time out and go back to a conflict later, at a specified time. Or, other people might be able to solve the conflict better than the people directly involved, so it’s a good idea to ask for help if needed. The avoidance strategy should never be used to just give up on resolving conflict; it should only be used to cool off or to gather more information. Compromise. Finding common ground and agreeing to give a little bit on both sides can be an effective way to solve conflicts. The situation itself may be causing the difficulty, not the people in conflict, and compromise recognizes that there are positive solutions if people think things through together. Collaboration. Ideally, each person involved in a conflict should examine the other people’s points of view and try to understand where everyone is coming from. This evaluation requires creativity and a willingness to accept new viewpoints. Empathy is vital to using the collaboration method to resolve conflict. Roark (1978) identifies three undesirable ways to manage conflict: power, smoothing, and avoidance (p. 401). Power is dominating the other party (or parties) in order to “win” a disagreement, similar to competition but in a much more negative sense. Smoothing is not the same as accommodation; it’s simply another way to avoid conflict altogether, but in a “nice” way. Avoidance is when one party shuts down and refuses either to acknowledge there is a conflict or that there’s a solution to the conflict. Unhealthy avoidance does not advance conflict resolution. Munduate et.al. (1999) examine five different styles of conflict management in their comprehensive literature review: integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising (p. 14). I understand from this essay that of the employee managers surveyed, a third of them had no management style, and a third used the dominating style most often. However, a significant portion of the managers surveyed used the integrating style. It seems these managers should study Wisinski’s five styles of conflict management! The dominating style may get things done most quickly, but it avoids conflict by declaring, “Because I said so.” In families, a dominating style can go overboard with discipline and rigidity. In the workplace, a dominating style can lead to more conflict if employees feel they aren’t being respected or that their opinions don’t matter. Unmanaged Conflict Unmanaged conflict damages business and personal relationships in a variety of ways. Some conflicts are simply annoyances that can be dealt with by accepting the situation as it is or ignoring the irritation. In business, once we accept that there are just some people we can’t get along with personally, we can move on and develop strictly professional relationships. If the conflict is minor, we can compensate for the other person’s shortcomings by accommodating their personalities or work styles. This is not to say that we should avoid telling other people what we think, just that we should make sure our problem is really important and judge before beginning a conflict whether there will be a resolution, and if the conflict is worth it. Other conflicts can make the work environment unpleasant or unproductive. I’ve worked with people who just wanted to chat all day long about irrelevant topics, and it’s hard to accomplish the work that I’m there to do if I have someone interrupting me. Unpleasant conflict can result from gossip, people not cleaning up after themselves, people not completing their part of the task well, or people who call in sick too often so that others are left to pick up the slack. If we don’t deal with such unpleasant or unproductive conflicts, they can escalate into bigger problems with the individuals or with entire teams. Often, collaboration or compromise will work to solve these smaller conflicts. Discrimination, whether overt or covert, is a difficult conflict to address because the ones discriminating often don’t recognize their bias or deny that it could be that big a deal. When managers and other bosses are the ones discriminating, it can be almost impossible to work through the conflict in a professional manner. Tempers can flare and accusations fly as each party tries to justify his or her position. These types of conflicts are often best handled with a neutral third party to mediate. In marriage and family life, each person has to determine his or her real priorities and pick the right battles, otherwise there’s constant conflict. It’s best to determine which problems originate within the relationships, and which are caused by outside forces. A bad economy can’t be controlled, but a family budget can be. A child with a chronic illness introduces a lot of conflict into the caregivers’ lives, making accommodation and collaboration vitally necessary for caregivers to keep from going crazy, but the illness itself can’t be changed. In an extended family or a stepfamily, entire arms of the family can be cut off through unresolved conflict. This damages all parties concerned to some extent, and often causes internal conflicts that are taken out in other relationships. Positive Aspects of Managing Conflict In another interesting article I found in my search for sources for this essay, Roark writes, “The tendency to reach for a bigger hammer to settle conflicts leads to retaliation in kind and lose-lose situations where more is invested in winning than any outcome could justify” (p. 401). When either or both parties in a conflict are only interested in winning the disagreement, the conflict is not actually dealt with. There may be a resolution at the end, but really neither party has won. This kind of dominating conflict management style really leads to more conflict, especially for the person who “won,” because this person starts to view any disagreement, big or small, as a battle, and their ideas stagnate because there’s no consideration of other viewpoints. It’s important to deal with interpersonal conflicts as soon as possible, whether they are between family members, roommates, or colleagues at work. The longer people let conflict stew, the bigger it becomes, and the more it affects all aspects of their lives. When conflict is managed in the right way, everyone is relieved when the situation is solved. After considering a reasonable discussion of viewpoints, consensus can often be reached in which neither party “loses” but both parties gain. In order to effectively solve conflicts in this manner, both (or all) parties must be willing to listen and to compromise and integrate the other’s viewpoints. If one or more people in a conflict can’t let go, then the conflict continues. There are times when people must just simply say, “Because I said so,” however. In the workplace, bosses must make final decisions at some point. In the family, parents must be respected even if they allow their children to put in their viewpoints. Marriages will often run more smoothly if the husband and wife trust each other to make decisions on each other’s behalf. This kind of conflict management style could devolve into negative competition if trust is lacking at any point in the relationship. It takes skill and talent to tactfully make a final decision while still acknowledging another person’s point of view. In conflict situations among friends, it could be best to just stop arguing about whatever is the problem. This type of avoidance should be practiced after each person decides what’s really important. If one party is taking advantage of another, then something should be said. If it’s only a minor disagreement, accommodation will keep the relationship going. Again, it’s a fine line between accommodating and allowing someone to take advantage, and healthy, thinking people will both say what they have to say and listen to other people. Integrating Conflict Management Theory With Real Life Everyone is involved in a great number of interpersonal relationships on a daily basis, some more important than others. If conflict arises in one area, it can spill over into another area, often creating confusion between relationships. Unresolved conflict in any area affects all other aspects of a person’s life. Managing conflict brings more harmony into each individual interpersonal relationship. It also brings more intrapersonal harmony (within one’s self). If, when a conflict is resolved, each party feels that his or her voice was heard and taken into account, and that a fair compromise was reached, they feel better about giving a little. For most conflicts, there is no one good way to manage the situation. Most people, and most situations, call for a variety of methods of handling the conflict (Munduate et. al, 1999; Tillett and French, 1993). We learn how to interact with other people from birth on forward, and we learn conflict management from everyone. Often, if a particular method for resolving conflict worked for us in the past, we try it again, even if that style of management is destructive. The best thing to do is to learn as much as possible about conflict management, and be able to apply a given style to a given situation in order to solve it in the best way possible (Ragin et.al 2000, p. 8). This requires a lot more training than most people have, and it requires the person who knows a better method for resolving conflict to teach others. For interpersonal relationships to be successful, people must deal with conflicts as they come up instead of avoiding or accommodating all the time. Anger and resentment build when there’s unhealthy avoidance. Sometimes, the other person doesn’t even know you’re angry, unless you tell them what’s going on. Just airing out a grievance without nagging will bring relief to the situation. Workplace conflicts can often be approached in a more orderly fashion, by identifying the problem, planning for a resolution to it, and using appropriate methods to reach a resolution (Tillett and French 1993, pp. 32-39). This process is an excellent way to approach any real conflict in the workplace, because it keeps tempers down and reduces domination by any one of the parties. While this process would also work to solve interpersonal conflicts among family members and married couples, it seems unwieldy to me, and going through the process deliberately each time you have a disagreement with your family member could cause more conflict! Talking about problems is the first step, and trying to guide conflict management in a positive direction is important, without making it too complex. Works Cited Munduate, L. et al., Jan 1999. “Patterns of styles in conflict management and effectiveness.” International Journal of Conflict Management, Jan 1999, Vol. 10 Issue 1, pp. 5-24. [Online] Available at: http://www.web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=6&hid=3&Sid=ba199d50-227f-4247-9778-6d879b0ec1e8%40sessionmgr109 [Accessed 11 Nov 2008] Ragin, N. et.al. 2000. Strategies for resolving conflicts. [Online] Greensboro: University of North Carolina. Available at: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ ERICServlet?accno=ED453458 [Accessed 6 Nov 2008] Roark, A.E. 1978. “Interpersonal conflict management.” [Online] Personnel & guidance journal, Mar 1978, Vol. 56, issue 7. Available at: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=6&hid= 3&sid=ba199d50-227f-4247-9778-6d879b0ec1e8%40sessionmgr109&bdata=JnNpdGU9Z Whvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=6475518 [Accessed 9 Nov 2008] Tillett, G., and French, B. 1997. Resolving conflict. 3rd ed. Sydney: University Press. Wisinski, J., 1993. Resolving conflicts on the job. New York: AMACOM. Read More