Personal Conflict Style Analysis

My professional and personal conflict styles differ greatly. In my professional life I am willing to be confrontational, and perhaps look for confrontation time and again. However, my personal life is the exact opposite, I would certainly not seek out conflict and would more than likely avoid it at all cost. Interestingly I think there is more opportunity for conflict lately in my personal life than my professional. We just completed an addition on our home, which is a very trying and time consuming process. In my professional life I often find myself using and aggressive system (pg 36). Often, survival of the fittest is the general climate I feel when confronting others. Looking at the list from Interpersonal Conflict describing the aggressive
system I would agree that many fit my professional style; establish position and have an audience, fight back, and don’t back down all seem to fit my professional style (pg 36). Some that are listed such as showing emotions and be brutally honest would not be descriptions I would use to describe myself. Despite my willingness to be involved in conflict, I often feel my conflict resolution leads to a collaborative system.
Professional conflict?
My office currently is very short on staff. Typically we have six daytime employees and two additional second shift employees, the second shift overlaps first shift by two and a half hours. However, over the next seven months, four of our normal employees will be working overseas. This has created numerous conflicts, frequently around scheduling personnel and scheduling operations. The number of operations that need completed by our office will not change with the number of personnel available. What can change is the way in which we schedule the necessary operations. Prioritizing has become a major element of the daily work environment. The other offices, which are Operations and Maintenance play a major role in scheduling. These are the organizations who schedule my sections daily operations, and when they call for the full day’s schedule early, and prioritize the order of operations it makes my office operate with greater efficiently. In the past this has not been an issue since we had the necessary personnel available to maintain the schedule regardless of how other offices expected the operations to be completed. The conflict arises from Operations and Maintenance not adjusting their mode of operation to allow my office to better schedule our
day.
The first method used by my office to let others recognize we are unable to operate as we did in the past was to deliberately allow missions to fall behind. This is unacceptable, since the overall success of all parties involved hinges on the timely completion of the mission. Moreover, this method was ineffective, as it only made my office appear maladroit, and did nothing to resolve the scheduling issues. The second means my office tried was to request additional support. We requested two additional personnel, expecting for one, we were given none. Both of these approaches used to try and solve the conflict involved an us against them strategy and very little communication. Neither method was effective, or resolved the conflict. Consequently, my openly confrontational style, blaming the other offices because of their lack of support, and causing others grief did nothing to resolve the conflict.
It was through open communication we ultimately helped to solve the conflict.
Accordingly, this meant I had to change the manner in which I was asking for assistance to resolve the dilemma. The other offices were unaware of our personnel shortages and how their scheduling methods were causing us additional work. As an office, we were unaware of the reasoning behind the schedules and who or what was ultimately responsible for generating them. My office finally had a meeting with supervisors from Operations and Maintenance to try and resolve the issues. During the meeting, we were able to illustrate what our complications were and how they could help accommodate us. They were able to illustrate to us how often times they are bound by other circumstances outside their control. They also suggested making schedule changes with personnel to maximize the hours we had the most people available. We were able to come to a compromise on when to schedule people that would allow for the most manning at peak operating hours. Outside those peak hours we are now given additional time to meet the demands asked of my office. This balancing act (pg 51) was a compromise which allows each section to meet their demands without creating additional work for others. The expectations of each office are now clearly understood with this solution. There is no longer retaliation against the other offices regarding what was once considered poor performance, and no negative emotions which could lead to a
further destructive conflict.
Personal conflicts take place often, we have hundreds, and there are so many minuet conflicts that happen we rarely notice them. Should we sign our child up for spring soccer? This was not a great big conflict, no shouting and yelling, but an ongoing discussion, this conflict was not destructive, no competitive system of dominance (pg 26) was present. This was just one of the various conflicts that take place in our regular lives and in a marriage. My wife was uncertain of whether or not we should sign our oldest child Trent up for soccer this spring, since we are about to have our third child during the soccer season. I on the other hand would like him to continue playing soccer. He enjoys it, and I enjoy watching him play. My conflict style at home is very passive, my wife likes to confront everything head on. I am considered by most everyone to have an easy going personality. My wife is considered by most to be extremely nice, but quick to raise her temper, or quick to enter into a conflict. It works for her, I am less eager to enter into open conflict with others.
In this situation, I think my best method for ultimately signing Trent up for soccer was to create a supportive climate. I helped my wife understand the benefits of participating in a sport, which she had already agreed were valid motives to enroll him. Beyond the benefits, I showed her how it would benefit her and our other children. By having soccer on Saturdays it would allow us a chance to get the children out of the house or separate them and give them time apart. This would also allow her or myself time away from the other children to just relax and enjoy watching Trent play soccer. I was able to maintain my normal passive style to resolve this conflict for many reasons. The first being it was not a life changing decisions, there was no reason to get overly enthusiastic about the outcome. The second being that my wife, perhaps knew it best to sign Trent up for soccer, she just needed to be reassured. I was able to remain calm during the discussions and evaluate the benefits and disadvantages of the outcome and convey those to my wife. Ultimately, this allowed my wife to make the decision, she was able to remain in control of the outcome, which allowed her to feel better about the choice.
It is remarkable how my personal and professional styles differ. I believe it originates from having to live with my decisions more at home than at work. At home if I was more confrontational, I would not be able to escape that approach. I would have to resolve things to a much greater degree. At work, I am much more willing to confront others about minuet situations. I believe the fact that I leave work each day, and don’t dwell on work when I am gone allows me to feel more emboldened to openly engage in conflict. The fact I believe my wife makes decisions with our family’s best interest at heart allows me to follow her choices easily as well. I do not feel everyone in my professional life have my best interest at the forefront at all times, and this can cause me to defend my choices to a stronger degree.