Conflict Management - Essay Example

Reflective Essay on the Practice session: Conflict Management Module: Term and year: Educator: An Overview of the Conflict Scenario The practice session conflict in the enclosed video tape is interpersonal in nature that has occurred between me and Leslie, who is my close friend and shared the apartment with me. The scenario is as follows: Leslie was facing some personal problems almost three and a half months ago and we had a fight/argument about issues relating to our home and wanting changes in how things worked at home. We stayed apart for a while after having a verbal argument, not having any direct chat or communication during that period. We only communicated via e mail throughout this period. The video-taped conflict situation occurred when we reunited to attempt solving the problem and to discuss on it. The following essay will address and reflect upon the conflict resolution skills applied by me and an evaluative analysis of what I could have done differently to obtain better outcome from the situation. Evaluation of Conflict management skills used with suggestions for improvement Following four conflict resolution skills were utilized and applied in this situation: 1) Inner Conflict Exploration I used Inner conflict exploration as basic conflict resolution strategy in this situation. During the time period I had alone for speculation, I reached a certain level of self awareness. At least I am now able to identify why and when I behave inappropriately. There is either hurt, or guilt for not fulfilling my responsibilities and obligations towards my close ones that underlay my aggressive outbursts. The application of this technique is evident by the following verbatim: Grant: ‘I become really overwhelmed when I get hurt and you know my anger kind of blindens me’. In addition to this, I believe I have also discovered the unconscious guilt that leads me to react aggressively in conflict situations. Following statement made by me is a proof of this: Grant: ‘I was trying to act responsibly, meet my minimum requirement without having to do the work’. Inner conflict resolution technique has I think been partially successful in my case. I have identified my inner conflict correctly however; I am still steps away from resolving it. I have identified that I feel angry and overwhelmed when I get hurt by people I am close to but I haven’t really chalked out a solution to this. My statement in case of successful inner conflict resolution would have been: Grant: ‘I get angry when I am hurt due to the fact that I am guilty of not working hard enough to fulfill my responsibility and obligations towards you and your needs that you are expressive about.’ On the whole however I believe that even though I am a few steps away from my complete inner self resolution, I have explored my inner conflicts and have identified the issues that bother me and the feelings that are generated as a result. 2) Appropriate Assertiveness Appropriate assertiveness is very effective in conflict resolution. According to Taylor & Francis (2004), an Australian study that compared conflict resolution trained and un-trained individuals’ behavior and skills concluded that training in active listening, assertiveness and problem solving enhances the likelihood of conflict resolution. Appropriate self assertiveness which is an essential in conflict resolution was also applied by me in the situation being discussed. I believe I asserted my point effectively and appropriately without being either passive or aggressive this time. I asserted that sometimes Leslie’s needs that she expresses seem so huge that I become submissive and I did this without stumping Leslie’s ability to express how she feels. For instance when I said: ‘I didn’t really meet my needs because your needs seemed so overwhelming and large….i was sacrificing elements of myself..’ I said this in an effective assertive manner, because even after I said this, Leslie was able to have in her say which is evident in following statement made by her: ‘I knew you were feeling like that...other people can feel that too you know, but because of that I withdrew myself even more and for me it became worse..’ I however feel I could have been more effectively assertive had I been more specific and clear about which of her behaviors was specifically causing this problem in me. My statement would have been more effective and assertive had I included her specific behavior that was triggering anger in me. Use of an I-statement would have been helpful at this point: ‘I was unable to express or even identify my needs because your needs seemed so huge and I felt my needs were being ignored due to that, which caused frustration in me’. My behavior was clearly assertive since I listened actively, expressed what I thought I deserved without discouraging Leslie to express her opinion on the matter. 3) Cooperative Power Cooperative power in conflict management is a skill or technique that divides or distributes the power equally among the conflicting parties. It follows the power-with principle rather than power-over principle. Redirecting and reframing the conversation in light of initially identified needs is one way of power cooperation (Conflict Resolution Network). In the current case, power cooperation is also evident. In the situation under discussion, I also applied cooperative power. Leslie and I shared the responsibility and we discussed future changes that can be brought about in a positive way. Following statements are examples of sharing the responsibility: Grant: ‘what we need to do is to talk to each other calmly always…’ Leslie: ‘yup, and then just say let’s talk about it…’ Grant: ‘we tried to help each other too much.’ Leslie: ‘we hardly communicated with each other about…anything at all.’ The above statements express the power cooperation and we also positively discussed what to do in future. However, this could have been improved at my part by not playing victim. For instance, instead of saying ‘things were angry..i was blind..i was hurt..your needs were so huge…I compromised pieces of myself’ I could have avoided playing victim by accepting my share of responsibility in the conflict. I could instead have made statements like: ‘my needs are…we can work together on this…we failed to acknowledge each other’s needs…we should balance our needs’ to convey the same meaning. 4) Effective Communication Effective communication according to Scott (2008) must be assertive and a true representative of one’s feelings but must be delivered in a manner that does not cause defensiveness in the addressee. This is another technique I applied quite effectively. I was frank and open in identifying and communicating my feelings and needs. Grant: ‘I feel overwhelmed when I’m hurt; we were not being honest; I feel quite unnaturally cross’. This technique could have also been enhanced had I been more assertive and specific in my talk. According to Canary, cited in Suppiah & Rose (2006), communication in conflict resolution is a must feature and consists of two components, namely: appropriateness and effectiveness. My communication in the situation was I believe effective however some of it might have been inappropriate since I was also controlling my emotions at the same time. For instance, instead of saying ‘I was really hurt’ right after I said ‘I know you were let down’, I could have said ‘I was hurt’ at a later time when I was identifying my feelings, not Leslie’’s. Alternate strategies that could have been used There are many other conflict resolution techniques that could have alternatively applied in this situation. One of these is the Win-Win approach. According to Fischer (2000), a win-win approach is a collaborative approach that identifies goals of both the parties and moves systematically towards problem solving in a rational way. It addresses both the parties’ needs and values. This could have been used in the current situation. For this to be implemented, we would each have to be even more explicit about our needs, problems and demands and then discuss the validity of our future plans to fulfill these needs rationally. In such a case, our discussion would have been in terms of me and Leslie versus the conflict situation rather than me versus Leslie or my needs versus Leslie’s needs. Mirror imaging technique is another useful strategy in conflict resolution. To realize the position of others, this empathetic technique is helpful. In this technique, both the parties are required to view their own behavior for a while like as outsider would (Conflict Research Consortium, 1998). The conflicting parties in this way get a chance of critically evaluating their own behavior and identifying the faulty elements in it. They get a chance to think how they would feel or behave if they were in place of their opponents. This technique is basically helpful because it enables an empathetic atmosphere during the negotiations. Conclusion To sum up, this essay reflects on an interpersonal conflict between me and my friend Leslie, which basically originated due to lack of effective communication on part of both of us. The four main conflict management skills that I applied can be identified as: Inner conflict exploration, appropriate assertiveness, power cooperation and effective communication. From among these I mostly used inner conflict exploration and identified my feelings and needs underlying my behavior successfully but the process could have been enhanced had I moved ahead and focused a bit more on the solution of the same also. As far as appropriate assertiveness is concerned, I believe I was quite successful in that. I conveyed my view point and sensitive issues faced by me without offending Leslie or making her defensive. This is the key in appropriate assertiveness. Thirdly, I applied power cooperation strategy. In this regard, I admit that I succeeded only partially and I need to work hard on improvement of cooperative power skills in the future. I tried to distribute the power and responsibility in which I also succeeded, but on viewing and reviewing the video tape I realized that I kept playing victim which I could have avoided. I repeatedly conveyed that I was hurt and I was angry because of being hurt and I had to compromise bits of myself and so on. This could have been avoided by phrasing my sentences in other way that avoided victim statements. For instance I could have stressed more that both of us had been hurt instead of repeating that I was hurt and also though I apologized for my part of mistake, yet I failed to identify and acknowledge the impact my extreme emotionally charged behavior must have had on Leslie emotionally during our initial argument I guess this could have been avoided if I had used mirror imaging at that point in time. Lastly, I used effective communicative approach to address the issue. This was I believe accomplished to quite an extent. Additionally, I used I-statements where ever possible and tried my best to control my emotions during the situation so as to avoid any emotional outburst of energy on my behalf in which I clearly succeeded. This is evident from the video, I did not raise my voice once during the situation and expressed my feelings as calmly as possible under the circumstances and focused rationally on the solution of the issues. The scenario based conclusion is the we need to communicate effectively immediately about small issues to avoid accumulation of unexpressed complains against each other which result in such conflicting situations with a bundle of long ago complains on both sides. Personal Reflection Personally, I believe I have benefited a lot by these conflict management skills and I have learnt appropriate assertiveness and have also gained a good amount of control on emotional expression. However, there are skills in conflict management that I still need to enhance. These include power cooperation and self de-victimization. References Conflict Research Consortium. (1998). International online training program on intractable conflict. Retrieved from: http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/!treating_overlays.htm 0n September 3rd ,2010. Conflict Resolution network. CR Kit. Retrieved from: http://www.crnhq.org/pages.php?pID=12#skill_5 on September 3rd ,2010. Davidson, J & Wood, C. (2004). Theory into practice: A conflict resolution model. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/pss/3701559 on September 3rd , 2010. Fisher, R. (2000). Sources of conflict and methods of conflict resolution. Retrieved from: http://www.aupeace.org/files/Fisher_SourcesofConflictandMethodsofResolution.pdf on September 3rd ,2010. Scott, E. (2008). Conflict resolution skills for healthy relationships. Retrieved from: http://stress.about.com/od/relationships/a/conflict_res.htm on September 3rd, 2010. Suppiah, W.R & Rose, R.C. (2006). A competence based view to conflict management: Journal of applied sciences. Retrieved from: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7109/is_7_3/ai_n28395620/pg_2/?tag=content;col1 on September 3rd, 2010. Appendix Briefing and Informed Consent Form: PRACTICAL ASSIGNMENT ON CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES You are asked to participate in a practical assignment conducted by Mr. Grant, who is undertaking a course related to conflict management and interpersonal relationships. If you have any questions or concerns about the assignment, feel free to contact on this number: Grant: University: Purpose of Assignment: Purpose of this assignment is for Mr. Grant to demonstrate his learning in conflict management skills so far. Procedure: Your dialogue with Mr. Grant on a certain conflict related issue will be videotaped and Mr. Grant will reflect on it in form of an essay. Confidentiality: The video tape will be kept in the record of institute and will not in any case be used for any purposes other than assignment marking. Potential risks and discomforts: The study poses no potential risks other than slight possible discomfort due to an emotionally charged dialogue. You can if you wish at any stage of the project withdraw your participation if you so wish. Consent: I agree to participate in this assignment. Signature of participant: _______________ Read More