Conflict Resolution at Work
Content
Conflict Resolution at Work
No two humans come out of the same mold and differences in ideas and opinions are bound to arise. Differences lead to Conflicts. When well-handled, conflicts are in effect good for the organization as they often lead to creative ideas and changes for the better. Conflicts become counterproductive when they give rise to enmity, hostility, tension, confusion and sabotage among the workers. If supervisors and managers themselves are parties to the conflicts, they may make poor decisions and judgments based on personal reasons rather than professional considerations. Story:
The Eagle and the Beetle
(Illus by Milo Winter)
An Eagle was chasing a hare, which was running for dear life and was at her wits' end to know where to turn for help. Presently she espied a Beetle, and begged it to aid her. So when the Eagle came up the Beetle warned her not to touch the hare, which was under its protection. But the Eagle never noticed the Beetle because it was so small, seized the hare and ate her up. The Beetle never forgot this, and used to keep an eye on the Eagle's nest, and whenever the Eagle laid an egg it climbed up and rolled it out of the nest and broke it. At last the Eagle got so worried over the loss of her eggs that she went up to Jupiter, who is the special protector of Eagles, and begged him to give her a safe place to nest in; so he let her lay her eggs in his lap. But the Beetle noticed this and made a ball of dirt the size of an Eagle's egg, and flew up and deposited it in Jupiter's lap. When Jupiter saw the dirt, he stood up to shake it out of his robe, and, forgetting about the eggs, he shook them
out too, and they were broken just as before. Ever since then, they say, Eagles never lay their eggs at the season when Beetles are about. Moral: Even the weakest may find means to avenge a wrong Quotable Quotes: “The successful person has unusual skill at dealing with conflict and ensuring the best outcome for all.” ... Sun Tzu “Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.” ... William Ellery Channing “He never wants anything but what's right and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's everything that he wants and nothing that you want. And that's his idea of a compromise.” ... Thomas Hughes “Avoid fight or flight, talk through differences.” ... Stephen Covey “Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views ... The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.” ... Peter F. Drucker “When two men always agree, one of them is unnecessary.” ... William Wrigley
[browse collection of quotes and quotations] Lessons in life: What would you have done if you were Jupiter? Wouldn't you agree that a bulk of an executive or manager's time is spent in resolving people problems? Entertaining disputes, differences, criticisms, unhappiness raised by workers against co-workers? Ideally, organizations would have liked a Collaborative and Cooperative office environment. Some employers go to the extent of including such criteria in their staff's appraisal, although others might subtly work this into their definition of a team player. Everything happens for a reason. It is important to understand the cause of the conflict in order to adequately resolve it. Some of the usual causes of conflict situations in office are:1. Logistics support This can range from lack of stationery supplies to slow machines to sharing of workstations. These are not difficult issues and can be easily managed. 2. Staffing needs Staff wages and office rent are often the leading cost components of any business. Today's staff are expected to multi-task, work long hours and handle increased work volumes. In a stressful workplace like this, any unintended but offensive remark may trigger violent reactions from the other party. 3. Work distribution Given a job, who would you assign it to – a worker who is
efficient and delivers on time, or a worker who is the exact opposite? Bosses are often faced with a dilemma on who to delegate a job to. We know that overloading an efficient worker may eventually lead to his burnout. In spite of this, we continue to assign more work to our good workers and risk their unhappiness. 4. Rewards and incentives This is another major source of conflict. Employees often compare the rewards they receive and inevitably think that they have put in more efforts than the colleagues next to them and deserve better rewards. 5. Rivalry and competition Empowerment is a good thing but authority has to be clearly defined. Try having two deputy CEOs perform overlapping functions and you will soon find both stabbing at each other's backs. 6. Personality clashes With increasing reliance on foreign talents, and employees coming from diverse backgrounds and cultures, conflicts are unavoidable. Approaches to Conflict Resolution A. Ignore and forget Many choose to be non-confrontational. When faced with an unpleasant situation, they would rather ignore and pretend that they were not part of it. In situations caused by misunderstandings or sudden flare of temper, withdrawing rather than confronting may be a wise approach. However,
where one party is always aggressive and unreasonable, walking away is perceived by people as lacking courage and dignity. This is avoiding a problem, not resolving it. B. Be assertive The other end of the spectrum is to be assertive and insist on your stand. This may sometimes work when the need to take charge of the situation far outweighs the need for good human relations. Hence, in many industrial strikes where workers demand higher pay and better benefits, you may find the management taking aggressive steps like issuing threats and ultimatums. If the management turns soft, it is likely to see repeats of the demands and may eventually be at the mercy of the workers. Where relationships are important, let the parties know your position on the matter with clear statements like “I know ...”, “I want ...”, “I feel ...”, “I would like ...” Said calmly and in a matter-of-fact tone, the other party would understand your position and mull over his possibilities. C. Win-win In a conflict situation, viewing each other as enemies will always lead to heightened emotions like anger. We should look at it as a problem that has surfaced, hear each other's needs, and work together as partners, instead of adversaries, to arrive at a win-win outcome. In a classic example by Stephen Covey, if two persons are fighting over an orange, a win-win situation is not to divide it and give each person half the orange. It may be that one of them wants to drink the orange juice whereas the other wants the rind to bake his cake. If the needs had been discussed, both can have exactly what they want, i.e., all the rind and all the juice. D. Creative solutions
Think of conflicts as presenting a challenge, an opportunity for you to do something creative and think out of the box. To give an example, a staff may insist in having his workstation relocated and the boss denies his request, citing space constraints. If the boss had probed, he would learn that the staff is unhappy because the workstation faces a washroom. What both parties should do is to put on their thinking caps. Perhaps they could realign the door of the workstation to face another direction, or shift the position of the desk and chair. E. Active listening When a customer comes to you with complaints and seems extremely emotional about an issue, the job of a good customer relations officer is to listen and defuse the tension. The mistake that many officers make is to take on a defensive stance and launch into textbook statements of how glorious the company's track records are. This only infuriates a customer who is not bothered about the history, but has no qualms in making the company a history. Listen and understand their emotions. The louder they shout, the more they want to be heard, so acknowledge their problem and empathize with them. At the appropriate part of the conversation, let them know a little about your position or the company's policies. Try not to propose a solution, but lead the customer to suggest a solution and state what he wants. Take positive steps and always keep the customer informed about what happens next. Related Articles: Bosses who want their way Autocrats, dictators, and dominant bosses Customer service – accept blame, own the problem Learn the Art of Saying NO
Cope with Work Stress Boss's pet and Favoritism Books worth reading: Confronting a coworker or friend about a sticky situation is never easy but authors Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen have made it possible for you in their book Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most . Read their tips on handling these difficult conversations without hurting anyone and grow your confidence in communication skills and techniques. For a change, parents with young children who are often at each other's necks may want to check out this bestseller book Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Sibling rivalry may arise from jealousy and the book outlines solutions to avoid conflict and to defuse such explosive situations as comparing, assigning roles, or taking sides.
No two humans come out of the same mold and differences in ideas and opinions are bound to arise. Differences lead to Conflicts. When well-handled, conflicts are in effect good for the organization as they often lead to creative ideas and changes for the better. Conflicts become counterproductive when they give rise to enmity, hostility, tension, confusion and sabotage among the workers. If supervisors and managers themselves are parties to the conflicts, they may make poor decisions and judgments based on personal reasons rather than professional considerations. Story:
The Eagle and the Beetle
(Illus by Milo Winter)
An Eagle was chasing a hare, which was running for dear life and was at her wits' end to know where to turn for help. Presently she espied a Beetle, and begged it to aid her. So when the Eagle came up the Beetle warned her not to touch the hare, which was under its protection. But the Eagle never noticed the Beetle because it was so small, seized the hare and ate her up. The Beetle never forgot this, and used to keep an eye on the Eagle's nest, and whenever the Eagle laid an egg it climbed up and rolled it out of the nest and broke it. At last the Eagle got so worried over the loss of her eggs that she went up to Jupiter, who is the special protector of Eagles, and begged him to give her a safe place to nest in; so he let her lay her eggs in his lap. But the Beetle noticed this and made a ball of dirt the size of an Eagle's egg, and flew up and deposited it in Jupiter's lap. When Jupiter saw the dirt, he stood up to shake it out of his robe, and, forgetting about the eggs, he shook them
out too, and they were broken just as before. Ever since then, they say, Eagles never lay their eggs at the season when Beetles are about. Moral: Even the weakest may find means to avenge a wrong Quotable Quotes: “The successful person has unusual skill at dealing with conflict and ensuring the best outcome for all.” ... Sun Tzu “Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.” ... William Ellery Channing “He never wants anything but what's right and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's everything that he wants and nothing that you want. And that's his idea of a compromise.” ... Thomas Hughes “Avoid fight or flight, talk through differences.” ... Stephen Covey “Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views ... The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.” ... Peter F. Drucker “When two men always agree, one of them is unnecessary.” ... William Wrigley
[browse collection of quotes and quotations] Lessons in life: What would you have done if you were Jupiter? Wouldn't you agree that a bulk of an executive or manager's time is spent in resolving people problems? Entertaining disputes, differences, criticisms, unhappiness raised by workers against co-workers? Ideally, organizations would have liked a Collaborative and Cooperative office environment. Some employers go to the extent of including such criteria in their staff's appraisal, although others might subtly work this into their definition of a team player. Everything happens for a reason. It is important to understand the cause of the conflict in order to adequately resolve it. Some of the usual causes of conflict situations in office are:1. Logistics support This can range from lack of stationery supplies to slow machines to sharing of workstations. These are not difficult issues and can be easily managed. 2. Staffing needs Staff wages and office rent are often the leading cost components of any business. Today's staff are expected to multi-task, work long hours and handle increased work volumes. In a stressful workplace like this, any unintended but offensive remark may trigger violent reactions from the other party. 3. Work distribution Given a job, who would you assign it to – a worker who is
efficient and delivers on time, or a worker who is the exact opposite? Bosses are often faced with a dilemma on who to delegate a job to. We know that overloading an efficient worker may eventually lead to his burnout. In spite of this, we continue to assign more work to our good workers and risk their unhappiness. 4. Rewards and incentives This is another major source of conflict. Employees often compare the rewards they receive and inevitably think that they have put in more efforts than the colleagues next to them and deserve better rewards. 5. Rivalry and competition Empowerment is a good thing but authority has to be clearly defined. Try having two deputy CEOs perform overlapping functions and you will soon find both stabbing at each other's backs. 6. Personality clashes With increasing reliance on foreign talents, and employees coming from diverse backgrounds and cultures, conflicts are unavoidable. Approaches to Conflict Resolution A. Ignore and forget Many choose to be non-confrontational. When faced with an unpleasant situation, they would rather ignore and pretend that they were not part of it. In situations caused by misunderstandings or sudden flare of temper, withdrawing rather than confronting may be a wise approach. However,
where one party is always aggressive and unreasonable, walking away is perceived by people as lacking courage and dignity. This is avoiding a problem, not resolving it. B. Be assertive The other end of the spectrum is to be assertive and insist on your stand. This may sometimes work when the need to take charge of the situation far outweighs the need for good human relations. Hence, in many industrial strikes where workers demand higher pay and better benefits, you may find the management taking aggressive steps like issuing threats and ultimatums. If the management turns soft, it is likely to see repeats of the demands and may eventually be at the mercy of the workers. Where relationships are important, let the parties know your position on the matter with clear statements like “I know ...”, “I want ...”, “I feel ...”, “I would like ...” Said calmly and in a matter-of-fact tone, the other party would understand your position and mull over his possibilities. C. Win-win In a conflict situation, viewing each other as enemies will always lead to heightened emotions like anger. We should look at it as a problem that has surfaced, hear each other's needs, and work together as partners, instead of adversaries, to arrive at a win-win outcome. In a classic example by Stephen Covey, if two persons are fighting over an orange, a win-win situation is not to divide it and give each person half the orange. It may be that one of them wants to drink the orange juice whereas the other wants the rind to bake his cake. If the needs had been discussed, both can have exactly what they want, i.e., all the rind and all the juice. D. Creative solutions
Think of conflicts as presenting a challenge, an opportunity for you to do something creative and think out of the box. To give an example, a staff may insist in having his workstation relocated and the boss denies his request, citing space constraints. If the boss had probed, he would learn that the staff is unhappy because the workstation faces a washroom. What both parties should do is to put on their thinking caps. Perhaps they could realign the door of the workstation to face another direction, or shift the position of the desk and chair. E. Active listening When a customer comes to you with complaints and seems extremely emotional about an issue, the job of a good customer relations officer is to listen and defuse the tension. The mistake that many officers make is to take on a defensive stance and launch into textbook statements of how glorious the company's track records are. This only infuriates a customer who is not bothered about the history, but has no qualms in making the company a history. Listen and understand their emotions. The louder they shout, the more they want to be heard, so acknowledge their problem and empathize with them. At the appropriate part of the conversation, let them know a little about your position or the company's policies. Try not to propose a solution, but lead the customer to suggest a solution and state what he wants. Take positive steps and always keep the customer informed about what happens next. Related Articles: Bosses who want their way Autocrats, dictators, and dominant bosses Customer service – accept blame, own the problem Learn the Art of Saying NO
Cope with Work Stress Boss's pet and Favoritism Books worth reading: Confronting a coworker or friend about a sticky situation is never easy but authors Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen have made it possible for you in their book Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most . Read their tips on handling these difficult conversations without hurting anyone and grow your confidence in communication skills and techniques. For a change, parents with young children who are often at each other's necks may want to check out this bestseller book Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Sibling rivalry may arise from jealousy and the book outlines solutions to avoid conflict and to defuse such explosive situations as comparing, assigning roles, or taking sides.
