Involvement of Power as a Matter of Mediation in Conflicting Issues - Essay Example

PANOPTICISM: Involvement of Power as a Matter of Mediation in Conflicting Issues in Business Organizations Conflict is viewed in organizational setups as process creating progress possible for the organization. Through the undeniable implications of human empowerment when being involved in healthy conflicts, the growth of the organizations is ensured. Thus through this particular explanation, it could be noted that conflict is viewed as balancing agent that sets the differences of individuals around the world in an equal manner. To be able to understand this, it has been more clarified by philosophers of human communication that conflict is a mere mediation that sets the different vectors of power in a modulated manner that they are primarily applied to support the differences of each individual living within the human communities around the world. Making use of conflict as an agent of equalizing the differences, business organizations are sure to gain strength from the said idealism. As mentioned earlier, competition among organizational members is one particular form of conflict. However, instead of seeing it as a major source of conflict of differences in the organization, it could be used as the key matter that could motivate people in achieving higher than what the others is able to achieve. In this track, the conflict of competition is already viewed as something that is healthy for the organizations' sake. However, dealing with the situation usually involves more than just making amends between the two different ongoing opinions between two different individuals or groups at that, who are thriving within a certain single organization. The conflicts between people and how each undeniable misunderstanding occurs are based in a process of conversing, interpreting and wrong response. To understand further, here are some of the communication problems that occur which usually turns into different levels of relationship conflicts: Judging Criticizing This is the way by which a person intends to manipulate the thinking of the other person through questioning the attitudes of the other. Not only that, the situation usually aggravates the questioning of the attitude of the other towards the other person. Robert Bolton comments on the matter saying: "Many of us feel we need to be critical, or other people will never improve we make a negative evaluation of the other person, for his or her actions, or attitudes." (1999) The attitude of man to even aggravate the situation being faced by the other because of some emotional attachment to the issue makes this particular roadblock an effective way of stopping or heating up a particular conversation. Name-calling At some point, when people get pissed off because of a heated conversation, they tend to course the other or at times they name-call the others with insulting titles that makes it hard for the other party of communication to understand clearly what is happening. The result then leads to a more aggravated heated conversation. Bolton further adds, "Name calling and labeling usually have negative overtones to both the sender and receiver. Labeling prevents us from getting to know ourselves and other individuals." (1999) Diagnosing At some point, when people argue over something, they become too much sensitive with how the other reacts upon a certain situation or how a person intends to talk back to them. The sensitiveness results to diagnosis of the reaction of the other and the way of speech that he or she uses within the conversation. Instead of simply listening to what the person says, reading between the lines becomes another way of decoding the bodily message of the person who is speaking. Another comment from Bolton reads: "We analyze why a person is behaving as he or she is. Playing amateur psychiatrist. Diagnosing is a form of labeling. Instead of listening to the substance of what a person is saying, some people play emotional detective." Praising Evaluatively Praising others with the good things that they do is not wrong. However, praising them with hidden motives of insulting them is a major roadblock in communication. Particularly, people tend to do this through disposing the message in double meaning. Whereas the evaluative praising is done to actually connote a wrong attitude of the person being talked to. This procedure of speaking is made through over-praising that is usually based on fraudulent backgrounds. Sending Solutions Sometimes, when two people are talking to each other, they have the tendency of giving each other an advice, which they think, is necessary for the situation being dealt with by the other. However, it appears that at times, listening is better than giving one's opinion on the matter at all. It could be observed through this that the importance of listening is really appreciated during times of low emotional situations of other people. Ordering and Threatening Most likely, when a person gets overwhelmed with a situation whereas another close person is involved with, he tends to create a possibility by which he could fix the situation for the other person. He intends to order the other to take some steps and later on threaten him with the consequences that might face him if he does not follow the orders given to him. The motive is good indeed but the process of sending the proposed help for the other is wrong making the conversation less refreshing than expected. Moralizing and excessive Questioning To straighten up the path of the other, one tends to moralize him through giving him advices, which he thinks would help him clean up possible mess that he made. Aside form this; excessive questioning regarding the situation even makes the moralization procedure a bit more irritating as it intends to increase the tension, which is already felt by the other person. Advising As mentioned earlier, at times, a person simply needs somebody who would be ready to listen to him. Consequently not all who are becoming the confidant of others realize this. Hence, they tend to advice the person of what should be done, when actually it is not that necessary. The confusion then occurs and the disagreement develops. Bolton again says: "We give the other person a solution to their problems. The advice-giving trap is a rather constant temptation to us, and we find we are most apt to give in to it when someone we love talks over a problem with usAdvice is often a basic insult to the intelligence of the other person. It implies a lack of intelligence in the capacity of the person with the problem to understand and cope with their own difficultiesanother problem with advice is that the advisor seldom understands the full implications of the problem, the complexities, the feelings, and other factors that lie hidden beneath the surface." (1999). Yes, sometimes, people already know what to do; they just need somebody to hear them out. Avoiding other's concerns Diverting Sometimes when people are so eager to share something, they tend to talk and talk and talk. When it is the time of the other to talk, they intend to divert the conversation back to where they started and talk about their own story again. To many, this is quite insulting especially because it denotes that the other is not really that interested in listening to what the other person has to say. Logical Argument To display intelligence, some tent to be sarcastically logical in evaluating the conversation. Primarily this would insult the other speaker making the conversation less productive. Moreover, these comments are less emotionally concerned. People tend to talk and talk continuously without actually giving concern to what the others are saying. Reassuring At some point, when someone becomes the confidant of a certain person, he feels the need of being able to be of help with the person and the situation that he is dealing with. He then tends to help the other by reassuring him when actually he fears of the pressure placed upon his responsibility because of the conversation. These roadblocks to effective conversation certainly make it harder for people to resolve the problems that they are dealing with. Learning all these particular truths about conversation's basics, points out to the importance of the one particular element of effective element of communication that is listening. Through understanding these elements of misunderstanding, it could be observed that conflicts usually occur in the different level of psychological power that one has over the other. Conflicts and Power Conflicts in organizations are likely to occur in different levels influencing the growth of the entire business group. For instance, ethical measures of business operations may be noted as one factor that could contribute to the process. On the other hand managerial operations may also increase conflict between members of the business organization. Because humans are directly different from each other, it is undeniable that conflicts between opinions and personal ideas are likely to occur. This especially involves decision-making procedures in organizations. In a certain organization, decision making plays a very important role. In management, specifically decision making is considered the core of the job. The process of this so called task is quite intangible. Although two techniques are usually known, the formal and the logical judgment, it is still considered a complicated task. On this area of business existence, it is very important that the decision maker is able to understand how he should meet the requirements for what he is deciding on. Very little is known about how the human brain arrives at a decision. According to Martinez (1983), "Introspection sheds little light on the subject because it is difficult to analyze one's own thought processes". But although this is true, formal logic, which is usually learned in school, could always be applied when making decisions. This though would involve a certain standard agreeable result. Ethics as for example, is such an important aspect of decision making. It is much more considerable for a decision maker to follow some morally acquainted process to arrive at a certain solution when facing a certain situation an organization. What is considered ethical when making decisions come to the picture First, it involves analyzing or identifying an occurring situation., next is knowing and exploring the alternative solutions for the issue and third is the implementation and evaluation of the gained results. Considerably on this area, strong perception is required. Dealing with certain organizational situations is not an easy job as the existence of the whole organization depends on it. There were several points shown by Wilmot in his book Interpersonal Conflict with regards the developing dilemma that organizations are usually involved with especially with regards communication conflicts. The four horses of the apocalypse as he described could well picture how the used-to-be fine relationship of people could turn out to be a source of misunderstanding among individuals in the organization. The said four horses had been illustrated as follows: Diagram 1: THE FOUR HORSES OF APOCALYPSE and their explanation as based from Wilmot's illustration Interpretation of the diagram: Understanding the worded explanation beside each stage of conflict, it could be noted that the response and interpretation of an individual directly affects how the conflict is supposed to affect the being of the other. The way the conversation continues primarily depends on the capability of the ones involved in the conversation to adjust to the thinking of the other. This is to primarily set a balance between their opinions of the ongoing situation between them. HOW To Deal With the Issues of Conflict The power of equality in conflicts usually occurs when both parties are able to realize that they are responsible for creating a fine environment at work despite the differences they have. What does it take then to help individuals realize this particular fact There are at least five ways with which the systems of conflict could be successfully dealt with. The said five ways are to be discussed as follows: Power Restraint [the limit of one's use of power over the other] Normally, psychological imbalance sets the power that one has over the other. However, through the limited use of power on the part of the more powerful one, the balance in the conversation is being set; thus, giving both sides the right amount of attention in conversation that they are due. Focus on Interdependence: Power to the Unit To disperse the conversation belongs to one particular party involved in the conversation. Thus, the one handling that particular authority should see to it that the impact of the conversation depends on both ends of the communication, whereas the conversation intends to depend on both sides of the conversation. Calm Persistence Making improvements on the understanding of both party on what the problem is all about should be noted as a major issue that needs to be dealt with carefully. Through the application of calm persistence, the root of the problem could be reveled thus be given solution to as per observed within conversations. Staying Actively Engaged Conversing continuously aims to break the barriers. Being able to connect to the other's primary thoughts could be noted as one point of balance that the conversationalists could attain while they are exchanging their ideas as they communicate. Metacommunication Metacommunication gives way to the less-powerful. Being noted as a part of the conversation, the less powerful on authority when it comes to the exchange of ideas should be given a higher regard for being heard during the conversation. Through these procedures of dealing with the conflicting conversations occurring between parties of communication, it could be observed that there is so much importance implied on the capability of each party, whether they are the stronger or the weaker side to actually share their thoughts about the issue being dealt with. Everyone is given the voice that belongs to them in a conversation. Conclusion These five concepts of communication obviously involve the presence of arising conflicts within the process. As obviously mentioned in the explanation, the individuality of each member of the organizations actually notes the possibility of developing conflicts between them. It is through the usage of effective dealing with conflict could the organizations survive the procedures of dealing with their member's individual differences. Facing destructive conflicts may not be as easy as with dealing with the constructive conflicts. This is primarily because of the fact that destructive conflict aims to destroy the thinking and the perception of the parties involved, whereas constructive conflict could still be turned around just to be able to use the conflict as key reasons for human motivation. [e.g. competition-based conflicts could bring in the possibilities of people wanting to achieve better than the others; thus constructive enough for the organization's growth]. References: Wilmot, W. W., Hocker, J. L. (2007). Interpersonal Conflict (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Ways of Reading: AN ANTHOLOGY FOR WRITERS. Eighth Ed. Read More