The Essence of Conflict at Work Place - Research Paper Example

Team work is a key to achievement of success in professional as well as personal life. In personal life, one has to team up with the family members to achieve harmony and happiness in relationships, while at work place one has to team up with colleagues and supervisors to achieve professional goals. However, being a team player is not an easy thing. It demands flexibility, ability to understand other people’s point of view, patience and calm attitude. As different people have different thinking patters, they have different opinions and ideas about how a particular target should be achieved. This leads to disagreement among the team players as everyone thinks that his idea is better than the other’s. This disagreement among the people is the essence of conflict at work place (Masters & Albright, 2002). Unfortunately, conflicts at work can lead to lot of problems like under performance, attrition, major strike etc.(Masters & Albright, 2002). Hence, conflict resolution is extremely important for smooth functioning of an organization. However, as conflict affects both the emotional, physiological and the psychological aspects of life, what is more important is to resolve a conflict in such a way that everyone involved should be happy and satisfied with the resolution. My Experience I had a chance to learn about conflict resolution during my group work. I found that working in a team is not an easy job. Being a part of team is not only a challenge to your creativity but is also a challenge to your social and emotional skills. Moreover, I realized that what happens in a group work affects your personal life also as you tend to carry home the emotions that you feel during the group work. We were four people in group. During our group work, we experienced conflict in many issues. We experienced conflict right from the beginning of the work as the schedule of the meeting in itself became a matter of conflict. There were only 4 days left for the presentation and we were not able to decide the time of meeting as one of the group member had to leave early. We tried to find a solution which was acceptable by everyone. Hence, we decided to meet at lunch time when every one of us was free. Later on, we had a difference of opinion regarding which videos to choose for the presentation. Two members wanted one video for presentation while I and other member were thinking of other video clip. To resolve the conflict between the choices of the videos, we decided to show only one video which was “South Park”. I learnt different things from my experience of group work. However, the most important thing that I learned was that it is very necessary to express your opinion during the task conflict. In my situation, I was a listener most of the time and avoided talking. Even when I had some useful suggestions, I was not able to express them in front of the team. This made me lose my confidence and I became a passive part of the team and did not contribute much even when I was capable. I have learnt that by not contributing actively to the team, the chances of performing the task smoothly decreases. It is important not to let conflicts during the task affect your contribution to the team. It is better to resolve it by being vocal about it rather than suffer silently and risk team’s performance level. However, to resolve a conflict what is necessary is to understand what a conflict is. Definition According to Folger, Poole, and Stutman (2005), conflict is “the interaction of interdependent people who perceive incompatibility and the possibility of interference from the others as a result of this incompatibility (Shapiro & Dempsey, 2008, p. 157). Looking at the definition, it is clear that conflict occurs not only when people experience resistance to their ideas from other people but also when they ‘perceive’ resistance from others. This shows that most of the times, conflict is a result of negative or imaginary perception. The result of the negative perception is lack of communication. De Dreu & Van de Vliert (1997) found that conflicts between the team members are in fact positive and contributes in improving the quality of work (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). How people approach conflict and what actions they take to resolve it depends on their values (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). These values are influenced by ethnical background and the country you are living in (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). For example, Kirkbride, Tang & Westwood (1991) found that during conflict resolution, people from Hong Kong prefer to compromise with their team members while people from Britain prefer direct confrontation rather than compromise (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). Study by Tjosvold(1990) found that when the team members adopt the method of direct discussion with their counterparts during the conflict, it leads to a constructible and positive resolution (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). However, when the team members avoid confrontation when they feel conflict inside them, the results are not constructive but destructive (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). At the same time, Amason (1996) found that direct confrontation during conflicts has a potential to harm a relationship (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). So the question is, what is the best way to resolve a conflict? Understanding Conflict Resolution Studies have found that the type of conflict impacts the chances of resolution of that conflict (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). For example, Jehn (1997) found that the conflicts that arise due to difference in opinion about the ways to complete a task can be solved constructively by adopting direct confrontation method, while conflicts arising due to problems in relationships between the employees worsen if handled in confrontational way (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). The task conflicts make team members challenge other person’s idea by providing an alternate idea. This leads to constructive and creative thinking which in fact improves the performance of the team. Moreover, Deutsch (1990) found that people run a risk of hampering their future performance and relationship if they avoid confrontation when they feel conflict (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). This is because instead of disappearing, the conflicts get suppressed in the mind and when other conflict situations arise, the suppressed conflicts come on the surface and makes the matter worse (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). Barker et al (1988) found that avoiding conflicts lead to unnecessary competition between people as it encourages a behavior pattern where they try to out do each other instead of cooperating each other (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). Hence, instead of focusing on achieving a task, they focus on proving the other members in the team wrong. This hampers the performance of the team. Tjosvold and McNeely (1998) found that when people take an open approach towards conflicts, their relationship become strong and cooperative and not negative (Tjosvold, Hui, Daniel & Hu, 2003). In fact, it has been found that team conflict facilitates team learning (Woerkom & Engen, 2009). This shows that the old belief that conflicts are negative and hamper relationships is not completely true. Hence, it is important to be open about conflict rather then be quite about it. Conflict Resolution There are different steps needed to be taken to resolve a conflict. They are as follows: 1. The most important step towards resolution of a conflict in a team is to accept that resolving a team conflict is a responsibility of the whole team and not just of an individual (Tambe & Jung, 1999). It is a team effort. 2. According to Ellis et al.(2003), members in the team should interact with each other rather than keeping quite or avoiding conflict as the knowledge, skill and expertise that each member has can be shared with other members (Woerkom & Engen, 2009). This improves the problem solving skills of members in the team and improves the team performance. 3. According to Jehn and Bendersky (2003), when there is a conflict between the members in the team regarding the personal beliefs, behavior or personal values, the communication, cooperation and understanding with each other decreases (Woerkom & Engen, 2009). This hampers the performance of the team. The members in the team should understand that personal beliefs are part of everyone’s personal life and do not affect the professional performance. It is important not to mix personal aspects of life with professional aspects. People who are going through relationship conflict should make efforts to change their behavior pattern in such a way that they can adapt to changing circumstances and people easily. 4. Developing good interpersonal relationship helps in preventing team and relationship conflicts (Woerkom & Engen, 2009). Hence, members in the team should interact with each other on a regular basis to create an open and healthy atmosphere for team interactions (Woerkom & Engen, 2009). This not creates opportunity to know each other but also enhances a bonding in the team. 5. As discussed earlier, conflict felt by a members of team is not always real. For example, people suffering from low self-esteem think that their ideas will get rejected no matter how good they are. Even if they are given positive feedbacks, they avoid communicating their ideas in team meetings as they have a tendency to interpret things negatively (Vallacher, Coleman, Nowak & Bui-Wrzosinska, 2010). Hence, it is extremely important for members in team not to ‘perceive’ anything negative during conflict. It is always better to communicate openly by asking questions, voicing doubts, challenging other’s ideas and expressing ideas. This not only prevents misunderstandings but also provides a creative solution to a problem. Being open about your thoughts and emotions help in conflict resolution. Conclusion My experience in group work taught me that communicating openly without any inhibition and ‘perceived’ conflict is important for healthy and harmonious professional life. Also, one should be open and positive towards other member’s opinion. Every one is unique and has a capability to contribute something unique to the team. Hence, only a positive and open approach to conflict can lead to a win-win conflict resolution and achievement of goals. References Masters, M.F. & Albright, R.R. (2002). The complete guide to conflict resolution in the workplace. New York, NY: AMACOM Shapiro, E.J. & Dempsey, C.J. (2008). Conflict Resolution in Team teaching: A Case Study in interdisciplinary teaching. College Teaching, 56 (3), 157-162. Tambe, M. & Jung, H. (1999). The Benefits of American Association for Artificial Intelligence, 85-92. Tjosvold, D., Hui, C., Daniel, D. & Hu, J. (2003). Conflict Values and Team Relationship: Conflict’s Contribution to Team effectiveness and Citizenship in China. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24 (1), 69-88. Vallacher, R., Coleman, P., Nowak, A. & Bui-Wrzosinska, L. (2010). Rethinking Intractable Conflict: The Perspective of dynamical systems. American Psychologist, 65(4), 262-278. Woerkom, M. & Engen, M. (2009). Learning from Conflicts? The relations between task and relationship Conflicts, Team learning and Team Performance. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology,18 (4), 381-404. Read More