Connotation Of Conflict

The word conflict often carries a negative connotation bringing thoughts of tension, frustration, and anger. Conflict is not necessarily bad, if fact if properly managed it can be a positive agent of change. The process of issue differentiation can help people to see other’s perspectives and if properly resolved through an integration process can bring parties closer together. There are many well documented and common sense strategies to successfully manage conflict; so why does the negative connotation persist, why do we frequently fail to effectively manage conflict when it arises? This essay will discuss some common obstacles to successful conflict management and use personal examples to help illustrate the challenges.
Conflicts start
One of my customers (company X) was planning on doing some system maintenance over the weekend. While it was not explicitly part of my job, I helped the customer create their maintenance plan for the coming weekend. Mid-day on Saturday of that week-end, while I was out with my family, I got a call from Rob. I answered the phone, and he immediately started yelling, “Where are you, why aren’t you at company X’s? Did you know they were doing maintenance this weekend?” Before I even started to answer Rob, his tone made me angry and put me on the defensive. I responded to Rob in as calm of a voice as I could muster, “Yes, I knew they were doing maintenance, and no one ever discussed me being onsite with them. I am out with my family right, what is going on?” Rob replied, again in a yelling condescending tone, “The updates failed, sh!~ is bad, you should have been there! We will discuss this on Monday.” Then he hung up on me. I remember my wife who overheard this conversation saying to me, “what was that, where does he get off talking to you like that.” I stewed on this over the weekend. Despite wanting to tell Rob how inappropriate I thought he had been, given his power over me and in the company, I avoided the conflict and said nothing. The only thing he said to me was don’t do it again. We never really discussed the issue; what went wrong, how to
This created a culture where the team tried to avoid engaging with Rob about work items in fear of what we perceived to be irrational responses. There was also a face-saving element to the culture driven by CYA (Cover You A$$) mentality taken on by myself and many of my peers. As I look back on this environment now, I can see that Rob and I had common goals of providing great service to our customers. If, with that shared goal in mind we were able to openly and maturely discuss how to best achieve that goal and how to best deal with challenge to that goal, we would have avoided many escalated conflicts. Unfortunately, Rob’s emotions often got the better of him causing him to come from a place of anger when dealing with issues. My response to having a person of power engaging with anger, caused me to put up walls and try to avoid conflict all together. I regret that I did not stand up for myself more and that I was not able to get through to Rob that we are trying to accomplish the same goals, and needed to find a more productive method of working through conflict. I left that job after four years, while there were many contributing factors, my relationship with Rob certainly contributed to my decision to leave the firm. Despite the best conflict management strategies, things like emotions, face-saving, and power dynamics can create obstacles to successful conflict