TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO CONFLICTS...........................................................................................................1
MEANING........................................................................................................................................................1
DEFINITION......................................................................................................................................................1
ORIGIN OF CONFLICTS........................................................................................................................................1
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT......................................................................................................................2
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES...........................................................................................2
HOW TO DISCERN YOUR CONFLICT MODE..............................................................................................................2
COMPROMISING......................................................................................................................................2
Compromising Skills...............................................................................................................................3
ACCOMMODATING.................................................................................................................................3
Accommodating Skills.............................................................................................................................3
COMPETING..............................................................................................................................................3
Competing Skills.....................................................................................................................................3
AVOIDING..................................................................................................................................................4
Avoiding Skills........................................................................................................................................4
COLLABORATING....................................................................................................................................4
Collaboration Skills................................................................................................................................4
MATCHING STRATEGIES TO SITUATIONS........................................................................................5
WHAT DO ORGANIZATIONS USE CONFLICT MANAGEMENT FOR? .........................................6
WHAT FACTORS CAN AFFECT OUR CONFLICT STRATEGIES?..................................................6
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................7
FIRM................................................................................................................................................................8
FLEXIBLE......................................................................................................................................................8

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INTRODUCTION TO CONFLICTS

Meaning
Conflicts are endemic to human society. Our workplace is so often
infected by grudges, rumours, grumbling, criticism, sarcasm, unpleasant comments,
gossips and politicking that it leads to an atmosphere of suspicion, mistrust and
negativity. Sometimes, the circumstances become so difficult that employees do not even
like to see each other’s face, leave aside work together. It spreads to the personal level
leading to the mixing of personal and professional lives and annihilating the
organizational harmony. Meanwhile, there are companies where employees love to work
because they can express their feelings to their colleagues and trust their organization and
its leadership. In such places, mutual help takes top priority among employees. The
bonding becomes so strong the employees feel like a “family”. Such employees make a
better team as they respect their organizations and take utmost interest in their tasks.

Definition
Conflict may be defined as a struggle or contest between people with
opposing needs, ideas, beliefs, values, or goals. Conflict on teams is inevitable; however,
the results of conflict are not predetermined. Conflict might escalate and lead to non-
productive results, or conflict can be beneficially resolved and lead to quality final
products. Therefore, learning to manage conflict is integral to a high-performance team.
Although very few people go looking for conflict, more often than not, conflict results
because of miscommunication between people with regard to their needs, ideas, beliefs,
goals, or values.

Origin of conflicts

In organizations conflicts originates from different sources. A Rahim (2000) classifies

conflicts based on their origin as Affective conflict, Substantive conflict, Conflict of
interest, Conflict of values, Goal Conflicts, Realistic and Non-Realistic conflicts,
Institutionalized versus Non-institutionalized conflicts. Conflicts can also be classified
into different categories based on their origination as Intra personal conflicts,
Interpersonal conflicts, Intra group conflicts, and Inter group conflicts.

Each conflict based on its origin has different impact on the organization. Conflicts create
friction between participating entities and most of the time end-up in changing either the
situation or the behavior. Conflicts initiate discussion and review/revalidation of an
existing condition. The resultant change in situation or behavior by a conflict may be
good or bad. The resultant review or revalidation of a situation/behavior by a conflict
may be unnecessary and time consuming. If an organization does not want a change in

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its situation or in its behavior, that organization may look at conflict as destructive or a
waste of time. Other organizations may look at conflicts differently.

Conflict Management
Conflict management is the principle that all conflicts cannot necessarily be
resolved, but learning how to manage conflicts can decrease the odds of non-productive
escalation. Conflict management involves acquiring skills related to conflict resolution,
self-awareness about conflict modes, conflict communication skills, and establishing a
structure for management of conflict in your environment.

Conflict Management Strategies

All people can benefit, both personally and professionally, from learning
conflict management skills. Typically we respond to conflict by using one of five modes:
• Competing
• Avoiding
• Accommodating
• Compromising
• Collaborating
Each of these modes can be characterized by two scales: assertiveness and
cooperation. None of these modes is wrong to use, but there are right and wrong times to
use each. The following sections describe the five modes. The information may help each
team member to characterize her/his model for conflict management.

How to discern your conflict mode

The Thomas-Kidman Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)5 is a widely used

assessment for determining conflict modes. The assessment takes less than fifteen
minutes to complete and yields conflict scores in the areas of avoiding, competing,
compromising, accommodating, and collaborating.

COMPROMISING

The compromising mode is moderate assertiveness and moderate

cooperation. Some people define compromise as “giving up more than you want,” while
others see compromise as both parties winning.

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 Times when the compromising mode is appropriate are when you are
dealing with issues of moderate importance, when you have equal power status, or when
you have a strong commitment for resolution. Compromising mode can also be used as a
temporary solution when there are time constraints.

Compromising Skills

• Negotiating
• Finding a middle ground
• Assessing value
• Making concessions

ACCOMMODATING
The accommodating mode is low assertiveness and high cooperation.
Times when the accommodating mode is appropriate are to show reasonableness, develop
performance, create good will, or keep peace. Some people use the accommodating mode
when the issue or outcome is of low importance to them.
The accommodating mode can be problematic when one uses the mode to
“keep a tally” or to be a martyr. For example, if you keep a list of the number of times
you have accommodated someone and then you expect that person to realize, without
your communicating to the person, that she/he should now accommodate you.

Accommodating Skills

• Forgetting your desires

• Selflessness
• Ability to yield
• Obeying orders

COMPETING
The competing conflict mode is high assertiveness and low cooperation.
Times when the competing mode is appropriate are when quick action needs to be taken,
when unpopular decisions need to be made, when vital issues must be handled, or when
one is protecting self-interests.

Competing Skills

• Arguing or debating
• Using rank or influence
• Asserting your opinions and feelings
• Standing your ground

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• Stating your position clearly

AVOIDING
The avoiding mode is low assertiveness and low cooperation. Many times
people will avoid conflicts out of fear of engaging in a conflict or because they do not
have confidence in their conflict management skills.
Times when the avoiding mode is appropriate are when you have issues of low
importance, to reduce tensions, to buy some time, or when you are in a position of lower
power.

Avoiding Skills

• Ability to withdraw
• Ability to sidestep issues
• Ability to leave things unresolved

COLLABORATING

Collaboration Skills

• Active listening
• No threatening confrontation
• Identifying concerns the collaborating mode is high assertiveness and high cooperation.
Collaboration has been described as “putting an idea on top of an idea on top of an idea…
in order to achieve the best solution to a conflict.” The best solution is defined as a
creative solution to the conflict that would not have been generated by a single
individual. With such a positive outcome for collaboration, some people will profess that
the collaboration mode is always the best conflict mode to use. However, collaborating
takes a great deal of time and energy.
Therefore, the collaborating mode should be used when the conflict
warrants the time and energy. For example, if your team is establishing initial parameters
for how to work effectively together, then using the collaborating mode could be quite
useful. On the other hand, if your team is in conflict about where to go to lunch today, the
time and energy necessary to collaboratively resolve the conflict is probably not
beneficial.Times when the collaborative mode is appropriate are when the conflict is
important to the people who are constructing an integrative solution, when the issues are
too important to compromise, when merging perspectives, when gaining commitment,
when improving relationships, or when learning.

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Matching Strategies to Situations
There are a few key variables that define conflict management situations and
determine which conflict management strategies are likely to be effective.
Time pressure is an important variable--if there were never any time pressures,
collaboration might always be the best approach to use. In addition to time pressures,
some of the most important factors to consider are issue importance, relationship
importance, and relative power:
Issue importance - the extent to which important priorities, principles or values are
involved in the conflict.
Relationship importance - how important it is that you maintain a close, mutually
supportive relationship with the other party.
Relative power - how much power you have compared to how much power other party
has.
When you find yourself in conflict over very important issues, you should normally
try to collaborate with the other party. But, if time is precious and if you have enough
power to impose your will, forcing is more appropriate. Realize that you might need to
repair the relationship after using a forcing strategy if the other party feels that you did
not show adequate consideration for their concerns. Again, collaborating is normally the
best strategy for handling conflicts over important issues.

When dealing with moderately important issues, compromising can often lead to quick
solutions. However, compromise does not completely satisfy either party, and
compromise does not foster innovation the way that taking the time to collaborate can.
So, collaborating is a better approach to dealing with very important issues.
When you find yourself in conflict over a fairly unimportant issue, using an
accommodating strategy is a quick way to resolve the conflict without straining your
relationship with the other party. Collaborating is also an option, but it might not be
worth the time.
Avoiding should normally be reserved for situations where there is a clear advantage
to waiting to resolve the conflict. Too often, interpersonal conflicts persist and even
worsen if there is no attempt to resolve them. Avoiding is appropriate if you are too busy
with more important concerns and if your relationship with the other party is
unimportant. However, if either the issue or the relationship between the parties is
important, then avoidance is a poor strategy

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What do organizations use conflict management for?
For any organization to be effective and efficient in achieving its goals, the people in the
organization need to have a shared vision of what they are striving to achieve, as well as
clear objectives for each team / department and individual. You also need ways of
recognizing and resolving conflict amongst people, so that conflict does not become so
serious that co-operation is impossible. All members of any organization need to have
ways of keeping conflict to a minimum - and of solving problems caused by conflict,
before conflict becomes a major obstacle to your work. This could happen to any
organization, whether it is an NGO, a CBO, a political party, a business or a government.

Conflict management is the process of planning to avoid conflict where possible and
organizing to resolve conflict where it does happen, as rapidly and smoothly as possible.

What factors can affect our conflict strategies?

Some factors that can impact how we respond to conflict are listed below with
explanations of how these factors might affect us.
• Gender- Some of us were socialized to use particular conflict modes because of our
gender. For example, some males, because they are male, were taught “always stand up
to someone, and, if you have to fight, then fight.” If one was socialized this way he will
be more likely to use assertive conflict modes versus using cooperative modes.

• Self-concept -How we think and feel about ourselves affect how we approach conflict.
Do we think our thoughts, feelings, and opinions are worth being heard by the person
with whom we are in conflict?

• Expectations -Do we believe the other person or our team wants to resolve the conflict?

• Situation- Where is the conflict occurring, do we know the person we are in conflict
with, and is the conflict personal or professional?

• Position (Power)- What is our power status relationship, (that is, equal, more, or less)
with the person with whom we are in conflict?

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• Practice- Practice involves being able to use all five conflict modes effectively, being
able to determine what conflict mode would be most effective to resolve the conflict, and
the ability to change modes as necessary while engaged in conflict.
• Determining the best mode- Through knowledge about conflict and through practice we
develop a “conflict management understanding” and can, with ease and limited energy,
determine what conflict mode to use with the particular person with whom we are in
conflict.

• Communication skills- The essence of conflict resolution and conflict management is

the ability to communicate effectively. People who have and use effective
communication will resolve their conflicts with greater ease and success.

• Life experiences - Our life experiences, both personal and professional, have taught us
to frame conflict as either something positive that can be worked through or something
negative to be avoided and ignored at all costs.

CONCLUSION

There is no single solution to conflicts. Each one of them is unique and has to be handled
differently. But there are some general rules or approaches to a conflict. There are nine
approaches a manager can take in a conflict situation. The attached table shows the

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different approaches that can be adopted. Based on the situation and the conflict a
manager may need to adopt one of these approaches or try multiple of
these approaches.

DOMINATE BARGAIN COLLABERATE

“Do it my way” “Let’s make a deal” “Let’s work
You direct, control You trade, take together”
or resist turns or split the You problem solve
I difference together to reach a
N win-win resolution
T SMOOTH COEXIST RELEASE
E “Try it. You will like “Let’s agree to “It’s yours to do”
R it” disagree” You release control
A You accentuate You pursue within agreed-upon
C similarities and difference limits
T downplay independently
I differences
O MAINTAIN DECIDE BY RULE YEILD
N “Wait” “Let’s be fair” “I’ll go along”
You postpone Objective rules You adopt,
confronting determine how accommodate, give
differences differences will be in, or agree
handled

Firm Flexible

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