Final Essay
Conflicts
For the human resources professional, it is important to be able to expect conflict to occur in our organizations, identify conflict in the workplace and know how to quickly and effectively resolve the underlying issues in a positive way. Resolving conflict in a positive manner can lead to much-improved professional and personal relationships. Mastering a few fundamental conflict resolution skills can enable you to become a better leader, decision-maker, co-worker and friend.
Whether dealing with a disagreement between co-workers or breaking through a standstill in a job contract negotiation, conflict resolution is best approached through a deliberate process that considers the different conflict resolution styles of each participant. Done well, conflict resolution can save relationships, time and resources, while improving productivity and helping move projects forward toward completion.
DEFINING CONFLICTS AND IT’S ORIGINS
Conflict is defined as an interactive process manifested in incompatibility, disagreement, or dissonance within or between social entities (i.e., individual, group, organization, etc.). Some of the manifestations of conflict behavior are expressing disagreement with the opponent, yelling, verbal abuse, interference, and so on. Conflict occurs when one or more social entities:
are required to engage in an activity that is incongruent with his or her needs or interests; hold behavioral preferences, the satisfaction of which is incompatible with another person’s implementation of his or her preferences; want some mutually desirable resource that is in short supply, such that the wants of everyone may not be satisfied fully; possesse attitudes, values, skills, and goals that are salient in directing one’s behavior but that are perceived to be exclusive of the attitudes, values, skills, and goals held by the other(s); have partially exclusive behavioral preferences regarding
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