Intergroup Conflict in the Workplace - Research Paper Example

Intergroup Conflict in the Workplace Conflicts among people are natural and an inevitable part of life. However, when we foresee or experience a conflict, the instantaneous feeling would be depression or sadness. Workplaces are frequently characterized by a variety of destructive conflicts. They may cause physical or emotional damage to the conflicting parties. The intensity of the damage depends on the nature and duration of the conflict. There may be small or minor conflicts which vanish quite quickly without leaving any mark. Some conflicts occurring at a personal level may cause severe damage to the organization also. They may affect the performance of the organization as a whole or a particular division of the organization. Resolving a conflict can be simple or complex depending on the degree of its effect on the employees' productivity. Documentation can be considered as one of the effective tools for resolving conflicts on the job, for it would be helpful in tracing out the step in which the resolution process failed. Managers dealing with conflict situations should understand that employees' expectations are constantly changing. They should realize the employees' importance and their contribution to the bottom line. Managers should help them achieve a balance between their careers and personal lives. This research paper attempts to examine the work place conflict in common among corporate organizations in modern times. The paper takes a descriptive approach where attempt is made to illustrate the real life examples to validate various situations of conflict and its management. I. Introduction Conflict is common in business organizations regardless of the size, type and nature. When it comes to modern turbulent business environment, it is impossible to see a conflict free organization. The reasons for organizational conflict may be many and varied. Some of them are different attitudes, values or perception, poor communication, poor organization structure, lack of team work, etc. There have been as many interpretations as there are causes of work place conflict. Conflict at work place is commonly understood as a state of discord caused due to the difference in needs, wants, values, goals and interest between the people working together. Conflict can have both negative and positive impact on organizational performance depending on the nature of conflict and how it is managed. However, it is imperative that the members of the organization must try to find out the ways to keep the conflict to minimum before the conflict worsens and becomes the major obstacle to their work. So the only way to resolve such conflict is an effective conflict management. II. Workplace Conflict- Meaning and Causes Conflict in common man’s language is said to exist when two or more people perceive that they have incompatible or opposing ideas, interests, needs, or external or internal demands. Webster's Dictionary (Turk, 2008, p. 167) defines conflict as sharp disagreement or opposition of interests or ideas. In other words, ‘what I want does not match what you want’. When conflict occurs within the company team or between the team and outsiders, it can reduce morale, lower productivity, increase absenteeism, and cause small- or large scale confrontations that can even lead to serious and violent behavior. We'll assume that things aren't bad enough to lead to someone getting violent, but it could be bad enough to knock the company or the company's management team off track. The most important source of dissatisfaction in working relationships is created by denigrating a colleague before a superior. This may be accompanied by an act of criticism of the colleague in front of other colleagues or in a public meeting. One basic assumption about relationship with colleagues is that they are based on ‘principles of equity and reciprocity’. But in the real world, this assumption hardly holds good. Richard Duran, Senior Director of Human Resources for Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., once remarked, "I have come to expect conflict as a part of my everyday routine in dealing with business issues. If we walk away from conflict and don't understand it, we are doomed to repeat and recreate the conflict" (Alper, et al, 2000, p.625). In his view, evading the problems slows down the process of understanding. Trying to avoid conflicts increases tension and frustration. He says, "If I work through the conflict I can both understand the other person's point of view and express my perspective. The process of building trust and understanding begins then. I would neither be successful nor a survivor, if I did not deal with conflict openly. It would eat me up inside or cause me political problems within the organization" (Alper, et al, 2000, p.625). This shows the need and inevitability of dealing with conflicts. III. The Root Cause Though conflicts are common phenomena, workplaces have acquired the dubious distinction of being the breeding grounds for conflicts. Conflicts at the workplace may arise out of age differences, gender issues, power-plays, threats, intimidation, insecurity at work, incompetence, etc. Whatever be the cause of conflicts, unresolved conflict situations may lead to performance problems, violations of company rules or the need for discipline or termination. The most important source of dissatisfaction in working relationships is created by denigrating a colleague before a superior. This may be accompanied by an act of criticism of the colleague in front of other colleagues or in a public meeting. One basic assumption about relationship with colleagues is that they are based on "principles of equity and reciprocity". IV. Impact on Organizations Conflicts among people are natural and an inevitable part of life. However, when we foresee or experience a conflict, the instantaneous feeling would be depression or sadness. Workplaces are frequently characterized by a variety of destructive conflicts. They may cause physical or emotional damage to the conflicting parties. The intensity of the damage depends on the nature and duration of the conflict. There may be small or minor conflicts which vanish quite quickly without leaving any mark. Some conflicts occurring at a personal level may cause severe damage to the organization also (Beyerlein, 2002). They may affect the performance of the organization as a whole or a particular division of the organization. Some researchers on psychology argue that conflicts do not always lead to bad results. There is a constructive impact in certain instances. Suppose two people are able to recognize that they have differences and they are able to understand clearly the sources of their differences, they can discuss between themselves and resolve the conflict resulting in strengthening of relationship between them. Similarly, if two people are able to resolve a conflict, there is a higher probability of their trusting each other in the future since they know how their differences can be dealt with. Conflicts may also bring in new innovative ideas and thinking among people, which may be beneficial for the organization. A word of caution here is that all these positive effects are possible only when conflict is limited or maintained at a particular level. Conflict in the workplace can be very destructive, especially when a conflict is related to relationship or personality. To find out how destructive a conflict would be a number of researches had been conducted. A few findings are explained below. It should be noted that only a small part of findings is given below: A study conducted in 1989 showed that thousands of workers in all industries from nine countries had a substantial cost of workplace conflict. It also showed that workplace conflict is nearly universal occurrence one, with 85% of all workers reporting that they have to deal with the conflict. And the dealing of employees’ with conflict is on average of 2.1 hours per week. The study also found that about 33%, that is one in three say that conflict has led to personal injury or attacks, while 22%, that is one in five say conflict has led to illness or absence from work. And additionally, 10% of workers report that project failure is the direct cause for conflict. As per survey conducted by the Society for Human Management found personality conflicts was the major cause behind 51% of all workplace violence in an organization (Evert, 1990, p. 199). The University of North Carolina conducted a survey by taking 1,400 workers in order to measure the fallout of workplace conflict. The survey showed that 53% of workers had an opinion that conflict has lost their time at work, 37% said their commitment to the employer decreased due to conflicts with other workers, 22% said their effort on the job decreased due to conflict and 12% said a conflict caused them to leave their jobs from the workplace (Katzenbach, 2000). V. Theories of Conflict Management Famous thinkers such as Julie Gatlin, Allen Wysocki, and Karl Kepne advocate (Belak, 1998, p. 168) that there are mainly eight common causes of conflict in workplace. And these causes can be either resolved before the conflict worsens or eliminated through a good leadership at the top. These theories are generally acknowledged as the general theories in conflict management and they are applicable to organizational contexts too. Conflicting Needs: In order to carry out the work smoothly, the individuals in the organization should be given same amount of resources like people, space, supplies, funding, or the boss's time, etc. But sometimes there may be possible of indifferent allocation of scarce resources among the individuals. That is one individual will be given less amount of resources compared to the other. The ultimate effect is it leads to conflict. The individual who is given less amount of resources will conflict against the other one to get the same share. Just like the individuals compete for scarce resources, they conflict each other to get same power and recognition. Conflicting Styles: It is a fact that individuals are unique; so all the individuals working in an organization may have different styles. Therefore it is essential that each and every individual must understand their own style as well as try to learn how to adjust with others who are having different styles. If they do not accept each other it may result to conflict. To say it more clearly, an individual who is best suited to work in a structured environment must learn how to work with other individual who is best suited in an unstructured environment and vice versa. And if they do not learn each other’s work style they may conflict each other to get their suitable style. Conflicting Perceptions: It is seen that individuals have conflicting styles; likewise they can have conflicting perceptions also. That is the individuals in the same organization can view the same incident in dramatically different ways. The major reasons for such different perceptions are memos, performance reviews, rumors, and hallway comments. As perception is reality. It is the duty of CEO to provide true information to all the lower level people even the provided information is a bad one. Conflicting Goals: Conflict can also occur when the individuals in the organization are responsible for performing different duties in achieving the same goal. For example, imagine a situation where the software developers are put in dilemma as a result of providing different conflicting goals by the two superiors of the same organization. Like the one superior that is team leader says that rapid development should be given top priority while the other superior test manager says that accuracy and quality should be given as the top priorities. Thus conflicting goals of two superiors may cause conflict. Conflicting Pressures: Conflicting pressures especially occur when two or more individuals or teams are responsible for performing different actions but with the same deadline and same resources. Thus the extent to which these people (individuals or teams) must depend on each other to complete the work can result greatly to conflict. In this case cooperation is impossible. Conflicting Roles: Conflicting roles given to the individuals is yet another cause for conflict. Like the number of times a particular individual has worked for a boss who has given the same task to more than one individual. Or the boss who has given the two tasks to one individual that are mutually exclusive. The first role given by the boss may contribute to power struggles for resources that leads to intentional or unintentional sabotage behavior. The second role may create internal conflict that neither leads to task getting done. Therefore it is desirable to a boss of an organization to avoid such conflicting roles to a particular individual. Different Personal Values: In case of a diverse society the possibility of having a people with different personal values are greater. So the people with different politics, religion, color, or ethnicity can lead to suspicion as well as to a conflict. Therefore the CEO and all managers of an organization should ensure that these personal value differences will not have any effect on the workers in the workplace. Hence the workers must try to learn to accept diversity in the workplace and to work as a team. Unpredictable Policies: It is possible to have misunderstandings among the individuals in the organization when the policies are changing and not properly communicated. So the individuals must try to know and understand the rules and policies; they should not be given a chance to guess. If so then unpredictable things can occur. Thus the absence of clear cut policies or policies that are constantly changing can create an environment of uncertainty and conflict. Therefore, the policies must be clear and communicated to all of the individuals in the organization. VI. Workplace Conflict Management Conflict management is the identification as well as the control of conflict within an organization. In an organizational context, there are mainly three types of conflict namely; interpersonal conflict, intergroup conflict and intrapersonal conflict (Belak, 1998). 1. Intergroup conflict Management Meaning: Intergroup conflict is one of the most important types of conflict. It means and includes the conflict between two or more teams or groups in the same organization that strives to a specific aim. Reasons: The major reasons for such conflict are goal variances; task interdependence; difference in allocation of resources; different reward systems; differences in values and perceptions; overload of work on some groups; and introduction of change. Impact: The impact of intergroup conflict can be either destructive or constructive on organizational performance depending upon how this conflict is managed. Management: There many ways to manage the intergroup conflict. One of the ways to manage interpersonal conflict is through stimulation. Stimulation involves proper communication among members,. Other way is through team building. Team building involves encouraging people who are working together to meet as a group to meet the following purposes; to identify common goals, improve communications and resolve conflict. In the resolution of the intergroup conflict managers play a key role. They help to develop mutual trust with employees, provide information to the teams in case of need and provide training to the employees in team building skills. 2. Interpersonal conflict Relationship conflicts are directly between people and may be over roles, styles, resources or even personalities. Graves says that relationship conflicts can undermine and tear at the fabric of a group's ability to achieve goals effectively and efficiently. Relationship conflict can penetrate and damage all aspects of an organization. When people don't communicate effectively, teams, projects, or even an entire organization may suffer. Relationship conflict can quickly demand all of the attention and energy of a CEO or manager, leaving too little time to accomplish necessary tasks, and hurting the company. Meaning: Interpersonal conflict means a conflict between individuals due to differences in their goals or values. Reasons: The major reasons or causes that lead to interpersonal conflict are differences in values and beliefs; cultural or racial differences; different personalities and different communication styles. Impact: The impact of interpersonal conflict has a major effect on the employees and also to the organizational well-being. To the employees it may it may lead to strain in terms of behavioral, physical and psychological. And to the organization it may affect the employee absence, counter productivity, health costs and turnover. Management: The organizations can manage the interpersonal conflict by taking proactive measures. These include sound organizational practices that can minimize conflict inducing situations, to say fighting for scarce resources. And another measure is through proper training of supervisors so as to identify and mediate conflicts among employees and to avoid the sources of conflict themselves. VII. Organizational behavior The success or failure of any organization depends upon how the employees within the organization behave. It is seen that behavior of the employees are undergoing change in time as a result of this the management of the employees are becoming too difficult .So to face this management of the organization adopts Organizational Behavior in the organization. Organizational behavior is the systematic study of the actions and reactions of individuals, groups and subsystems. More concisely OB can be told as the systematic study of many factors that have an impact on how people (which include individuals and groups) respond and act to the work and organization and how organizations respond to their environments (George and Jones,2005). The basic purpose of Organization Behavior is to find out the ways for the organization through which the people can act effectively and build better relationships by achieving the objectives in terms of human, organizational and social. The concept of Organizational Behavior is important especially to the managers who are involved in the supervision of activities of people in the organization. OB acts a tool to the managers to understand the behavior of the individuals and to understand the complexities involved in the inter-personal relationships. VIII. Managing conflict Conflict management has assumed a greater importance in the field of organizational behavior. Socio-economic changes and the increasing expectations of people in own society facilitated the need for an efficient management of organizational conflict. Thus a Conflict management is the systematic process of identifying and handling conflict in a sensible, fair, and efficient manner. But in the real world, this assumption hardly holds good. Richard Duran, Senior Director of Human Resources for Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., once remarked, "I have come to expect conflict as a part of my everyday routine in dealing with business issues. If we walk away from conflict and don't understand it, we are doomed to repeat and recreate the conflict" (Bolchover, 2002, p. 69). In his view, evading the problems slows down the process of understanding. Trying to avoid conflicts increases tension and frustration. He says, "If I work through the conflict I can both understand the other person's point of view and express my perspective. The process of building trust and understanding begins then. I would neither be successful nor a survivor, if I did not deal with conflict openly. It would eat me up inside or cause me political problems within the organization" (Bolchover, 2002, p. 76). This shows the need and inevitability of dealing with conflicts. Though many companies have policies which provide guidelines for conflicts, a majority of the policies are not proactive, but tend to be reactive. These policies lay down rules on how to deal with problems should they arise rather than those to prevent some common conflict situations. The significant portion of workplace conflicts is interpersonal. When one deals with interpersonal conflicts, you need to be cautious and careful as you will be dealing with emotional issues such as ego, false sense of pride, denigration of colleagues, etc. One has to understand whether the relationships at the workplace are reciprocal or complementary. Any relationship with an element of dominance sub ordinance can be regarded as complementary. In such a relationship, one person takes decisions, imparts information and motivates the other to work together. Since every individual would have his own strengths and weaknesses, interactions and complementary are rare. One may possess more information, be more knowledgeable or have skills pertaining to a particular task or activity. Another may have higher capability in offering suggestions or support and may be more resourceful than the former. Techniques of Conflict Management 1. Managing conflict through resolution The term resolution means an act or process of solving. Therefore a conflict resolution means a range of methods used for eliminating the sources which leads to conflict. There are number of ways or methods for an organization to eliminate conflict. The choice of method largely depends upon certain factors, like why the conflict occurred, the seriousness of the conflict and the nature of the conflict. The organization should note that the use of methods used to eliminate conflict must be done before the conflict worsens. The ways are simple avoidance wherever possible, problem solving, changing certain variables in the work place and finally in-house Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) programs. These resolution methods help the organization to success as well as failure. The key factors to success are helps in building cooperation among enemies, increasing productivity etc. And the obstacles to this success are fear of losing power, lack of perceived benefit, lack of success stories, lack of knowledge about ADR and many. Therefore it is better to say that the responsible measures to reduce barriers and encourage a true paradigm shift are training, incentives, marketing, periodic review, case studies, and top management support and participation. Positive conflict resolution can improve decision making, force people to clarify and articulate their positions, stimulate creativity and innovation, as well as improve performance. On the other hand, if the conflict is not resolved, it can increase stress, which can raise absenteeism and turnover. It can lower performance, decrease job satisfaction, hurt organizational loyalty, and create an `us vs. them' atmosphere. It can also cause an unhealthy competition leading even to sabotage to `win'. Now we are getting to the good stuff-resolution. One method of conflict resolution is collaboration. Collaborating attempts to find a way to satisfy the concerns of all involved. It is appropriate when issues and the relationship are both significant, cooperation is important, a positive outcome is necessary, new ideas are needed and/or there is a reasonable hope that all concerns can be addressed. The use of collaboration is inappropriate when time is of the essence, issues are unimportant, goals of the other party are wrong or illegal, and/or enforcement or a precedent is necessary (Conflict Management, n. d.). Compromising also constitutes a method of resolution. Compromise is seeking the middle ground that partially satisfies all involved. It has been said that with a good compromise, everyone goes away both somewhat happy and a little disappointed. Its use is appropriate when cooperation is important, but time/resources are limited, or finding an outcome, even less than best is better than being without any solution. It is not the right way to go when a creative solution is essential or there are other constraints, such as time or technical capabilities. 2. Negotiation and simulation Negotiation and simulation are the other ways of managing conflict. They provide interdisciplinary perspective on group dynamics, problem solving, team building and communication strategies that can lead to the resolution of conflict in an effective manner. Negotiation is a fundamental process in which two or parties reach to acceptable agreement in a situation which is characterized by some degree of interdependences between the parties. The negotiation commonly takes place between two people, within a group, between groups and over the internet (Morrill, 1995). The negotiation helps to negotiate or share many things in many different situations. It is particularly necessary when one has to achieve objectives through other people. Through negotiation one is able to manage working relationships with others both inside and outside of the organization, and there by managing conflict creatively. Simulation on other hand involves proper communications between each and every levels of organization, bringing outside individuals into the group, altering the organization’s structure and stimulating competition. 3. Resolving group conflict through team building Another best way to manage conflict is through team building. Team building refers to the process of establishing and developing a greater sense of collaboration and trust between team members. To build a greater sense of team work in an organization interactive exercise, team assessments, and group discussions are essential. Through team building an organization to a large extent large can resolve their group conflict. So in an organization there must be an effective team building (Housel, 2001). If there is effective team building there will be high level of interdependence among the team members, every member will contribute to the organization to a maximum, it will provide a good climate for communication, it will build mutual trust among the team members, every team members will be ready to take risks, every team members will be well defined about their roles, responsibilities and what are the targets of the organization. The ultimate effect of an effective team building is it will help to resolve conflict. IX. Prevention of Workplace Conflicts: Proactive Approach Workplace conflict can be properly managed and avoided if some proactive measures are taken as suggested by Kenneth W. Thomas (Thomas, et al 1992). Some of their techniques/proactive measure are discussed below: Think before you speak. Whenever you have issues in the workplace, you're better off thinking through your words before you voice complaints, thoughts or suggestions. And bite your tongue before that provocative remark comes out of your mouth and you find yourself embroiled in a fight. Sometimes managers, co-workers or team members need to express their resentment or unhappiness over some action (or non-action) of yours. Listen when they express strong feelings. You can't argue with feelings. Rather than argue or be defensive, let them vent and get it out of their system. Usually, the best response is a neutral "I'm sorry you feel that way." Try to put yourself in their shoes and give them the empathy that you would want if it were you. Arguing or being defensive only makes the situation worse. Make sure you protect yourself with thorough documentation of any potentially volatile situation. This rule applies to people on both sides of the power structure. A smart employee, like a smart manager, will document issues that relate to self-preservation and job security. This is sometimes known as a CYA or `who shot John' file. Create boundaries and set limits in the workplace. Know how much contact you can take and how much will ignite your internal time bomb. Having created appropriate boundaries, make every effort to be cordial and friendly. Being likeable and popular can only make work life easier. When someone has a problem, he will often create a scenario that invites your overreaction. Overreactions can cause all out `wars'. Don't do it! Assess any dispute with a co-worker or manager. Is it really worth fighting over? Don't try to change your co-workers, especially those above you in the hierarchy. It is a cardinal rule that people can change themselves, but no one can change another. You can point out things—unemotionally, factually, and tactfully—and hope that the person changes his behaviors. Learn to change what you can and accept what you cannot. Take control of potentially volatile work situations and try to manage them. Strategize and evaluate the personalities and apply good people management techniques to the cast of characters. The idea is to minimize conflict or resolve it. Use it for improvement when you can, but don't let conflict damage your organization or your career. Here are a few final summary reminders for managers to minimize or resolve conflicts in the workplace: Communicate. Good open communication is a key to preventing and resolving conflicts. Get your people to keep it cordial and professional. Friendly, courteous and professional actions and words can mitigate a conflict before it flares into the yelling or high stress stage. When conflicts arise, try to quickly resolve any and all underlying problems as well as differences of opinion and genuine work issues. Use the steps described earlier in the article. Make them talk it out and find a way to resolve the conflict, whether it is collaboration, compromise, a management ultimatum or whatever. Otherwise it will continue to fester and create problems. In the worst scenarios, it can completely divide the workforce and ruin productivity. X. Conclusion There are good news and bad news about conflict. No one is a stranger to it. We experience it everywhere and in all aspects of our lives. Conflict can serve as a constructive mechanism for change. Like when people with divergent viewpoints come to a new understanding of each other's perspectives and learn to understand how differently they view an issue or the world. Conflict offers opportunity, such as when it offers new insights about a person or situation. It can allow an opportunity to work with someone who you ordinarily would not. The experience may allow you to learn about why you perceive things differently. Good conflict can foster group unity and improve a respectful sharing of differences. It can lead to improvements in processes or the way that you work, even the way that you think. On the other hand, conflict can cause tense relations with the person holding a different opinion, not to mention personal stress. When people are contentious, they try to compete and win over another at the other's expense. This sets in place a series of moves and countermoves escalating the conflict. This kind of conflict can destroy a company or team. Don't let it happen. To sum up, we can say that resolving a conflict can be simple or complex depending on the degree of its effect on the employees' productivity. Documentation can be considered as one of the effective tools for resolving conflicts on the job, for it would be helpful in tracing out the step in which the resolution process failed. Documentation of the resolution process that had been successful can be used as a format to deal with similar situations. Managers dealing with conflict situations should understand that employees' expectations are constantly changing. They should realize the employees' importance and their contribution to the bottom line. Managers should help them achieve a balance between their careers and personal lives. References Alper, Steve; Tjosvold, Dean; Law, Kenneth S.(2000), Conflict management, efficacy, and performance in organizational teams. Personnel Psychology, Volume 53(3), pp. 625-642 Belak, Tony (1998) Intergroup Conflict in the Workplace, Mediate.com, Retrieved October, 23rd 2009, from http://www.mediate.com/articles/belak1.cfm Beyerlein, MM, Freedman, S, McGee, C, Moran, L (2002), Beyond Teams: Building the Collaborative Organization (Collaborative Work Systems Series), Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, CA. 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