Effective Conflict

Resolution and
Negotiation
 Conflict
• Conflict is generally defined as the internal or
external discord that results from differences in
ideas, values, or feelings between two or more
people. Because managers have interpersonal
relationships with people having a variety of
different values, beliefs, backgrounds, and goals,
conflict is an expected outcome
• Conflict
is neither good nor bad, and it can produce
growth or destruction, depending on how it is
managed.
• Conflictresolution, or problem solving, appears to be
learned less frequently through developmental
experiences; rather, it requires a conscious learning
effort. Thus, the skills necessary to manage conflict
effectively can be learned.
• Incivility,
workplace violence, bullying, and mobbing
are presented as threats to safety as well as patient
care and negotiation as a conflict resolution strategy is
emphasized. Leadership skills and management
functions necessary for conflict resolution
 Leadership Roles and Management
Functions Associated with Conflict
Resolution
LEADERSHIP ROLES
1. is
self-aware and conscientiously works to resolve
intrapersonal conflict.
2. Addresses conflict as soon as it is perceived and before it
becomes felt or manifest.
3. immediately confronts and intervenes when incivility,
bullying, and mobbing occur.
4. Seeks a win–win solution to conflict whenever feasible.
 5. Lessens the perceptual differences that exist between
conflicting parties and broadens the parties’
understanding about the problems
6. Assists subordinates in identifying alternative conflict
resolutions.
7. recognizes and accepts individual differences in team
members.
8. Uses assertive communication skills to increase
persuasiveness and foster open communication.
9. role models honest and collaborative negotiation
efforts.
10. encourages consensus building when group support
is needed to resolve conflicts .
 MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS
1. Createsa work environment that minimizes the
antecedent conditions for conflict.
2. establishes a workplace culture that has zero tolerance
for incivility, bullying, mobbing, and violence.
3. Appropriately uses legitimate authority in a
competing approach when a quick or unpopular decision
needs to be made.
4. When appropriate, formally facilitates conflict
resolution among team members.
5. Accepts mutual responsibility for reaching
predetermined supraordinate goals.
6. Obtains needed unit resources through effective
negotiation strategies.
7. Compromises unit needs only when the need is not
critical to unit functioning and when higher management
gives up something of equal value.
8. is adequately prepared to negotiate for unit resources,
including the advance determination of a bottom line and
possible trade-offs.
9. Addresses the need for closure and follow-up to
negotiation.
10. pursues alternative dispute resolution (ADr) when
conflicts cannot be resolved using traditional conflict
management strategies
 THE HISTORY OF CONFLICT
MANAGEMENT
• Earlyin the 20th century, conflict was considered to be an
indication of poor organizational management, was deemed
destructive, and was avoided at all costs. When conflict
occurred, it was ignored, denied, or dealt with immediately and
harshly
• Inthe mid-20th century, when organizations recognized that
worker satisfaction and feedback were important, conflict was
accepted passively and perceived as normal and expected.
Attention centered on teaching managers how to resolve
conflict rather than how to prevent it. Although conflict was
considered to be primarily dysfunctional, it was believed that
conflict and cooperation could happen simultaneously.
• Some level of conflict in an organization appears
desirable, although the optimum level for a specific
person or unit at a given time is difficult to
determine.
• Too little conflict results in organizational stasis. Too much
conflict reduces the organization’s effectiveness and
eventually immobilizes its employees.
• Conflict also has a qualitative nature. A person may be
totally overwhelmed in one conflict situation yet can handle
several simultaneous conflicts at a later time. Although
quantitative and qualitative conflicts produce distress at the
time they occur, they can lead to growth, energy, and
creativity by generating new ideas and solutions. mobilizes
its employees
 CATEGORIES OF CONFLICT
• Intergroup conflict occurs between two or more groups of
people, departments, and organizations. An example of
intergroup conflict might be two political affiliations with
widely differing or contradictory beliefs or nurses experiencing
intergroup conflict with family and work issues.
• Intrapersonal conflict occurs within the person. It involves
an internal struggle to clarify contradictory values or wants.
• Interpersonal conflict happens between two or more people
with differing values, goals, and beliefs and may be closely
linked with bullying, incivility, and mobbing
• Whenbullying, incivility, and mobbing occur in
the workplace, this is known as workplace
violence.
• Unfortunately,many nurses report having
been bullied during their work life. Indeed,
research by Roche, Diers, Duffield, and
Catling-Pauli (2010) found that about one-
third of nurses perceived emotional abuse
during the last five shifts worked, 14%
reported threats, and 20% reported actual
violence.
 THE CONFLICT PROCESS
• The first stage in the conflict process, latent conflict,
implies the existence of antecedent conditions such as short
staffing and rapid chang
 In this stage, conditions are ripe for conflict, although no conflict has
actually occurred and none may ever occur
• If the conflict progresses, it may develop into the second
stage: perceived conflict. Perceived or substantive conflict
is intellectualized and often involves issues and roles.
 The person recognizes it logically and impersonally as occurring.
Sometimes, conflict can be resolved at this stage before it is
internalized or felt.
• Thethird stage, felt conflict, occurs when the conflict is
emotionalized. Felt emotions include hostility, fear, mistrust,
and anger. It is also referred to as affective conflict.
It is possible to perceive conflict and not feel it (e.g., no emotion is
attached to the conflict, and the person views it only as a problem to be
solved).
A person also can feel the conflict but not perceive the problem (e.g., he or
she is unable to identify the cause of the felt conflict).
• Thefourth stage, manifest conflict, also called overt
conflict, action is taken.
 The action may be to withdraw, compete, debate, or seek conflict
resolution.
Individuals are uncomfortable with or reluctant to address conflict for
many reasons.
These include fear of retaliation, fear of ridicule, fear of alienating others,
a sense that they do not have the right to speak up, and past negative
experiences with conflict situations.
• Thefinal stage in the conflict process is conflict
aftermath
 There is always conflict aftermath—positive or negative.
 If the conflict is managed well, people involved in the
conflict will believe that their position was given a fair
hearing
 If the conflict is managed poorly, the conflict issues
frequently remain and may return later to cause more
conflict.
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
• The optimal goal in resolving conflict is
creating a win–win solution for all
involved. This outcome is not possible in
every situation, and often the manager’s
goal is to manage the conflict in a way that
lessens the perceptual differences that
exist between the involved parties
 Common conflict management
strategies
• COMPROMISING- each party gives up
something it wants. Although many see compromise
as an optimum conflict resolution strategy,
antagonistic cooperation may result in a lose–lose
situation because either or both parties perceive that
they have given up more than the other and may
therefore feel defeated.
• COMPETING - used when one party pursues what it
wants at the expense of the others. Because only one
party typically wins, the competing party seeks to win
regardless of the cost to others.it is entirely possible
that both parties may lose, particularly if the outcome
adversely affects the subsequent working
relationship. This is because win–lose conflict
resolution strategies leave the loser angry, frustrated,
and wanting to get even in the future.
• COOPERATING/ACCOMMODATING -
Cooperating opposite of competing. one
party sacrifices his or her beliefs and allows
the other party to win. The actual problem is
usually not solved in this win–lose situation.
Accommodating is another term that may
be used for this strategy. The person
cooperating or accommodating often expects
some type of payback or an accommodation
from the winning party in the future.
• SMOOTHING- Smoothing occurs when one
party in a conflict attempts to pacify the other
party or to focus on agreements rather than
differences. In doing so, the emotional
component of the conflict is minimized.
• AVOIDING - the parties involved are aware of
a conflict but choose not to acknowledge it or
attempt to resolve it. The greatest problem in
using avoidance is that the conflict remains,
often only to reemerge at a later time in an
even more exaggerated fashion
• COLLABORATING - an assertive and
cooperative means of conflict resolution that
results in a win–win solution. all parties set
aside their original goals and work together to
establish a supraordinate or priority common
goal. In doing so, all parties accept mutual
responsibility for reaching the supraordinate
goal.
 MANAGING UNIT CONFLICT
• Managing conflict effectively requires an understanding of
its origin.
 List of strategies that a manager
may use to facilitate conflict
resolution between members in the
workplace:
• Confrontation - Managers an urge subordinates to attempt
to handle their own problems by using face-to-face
communication to resolve conflicts, as e-mails, answering
machine messages, and notes are too impersonal for
interpersonal conflicts that can have significant conflict
aftermath.
• Third-party consultation - managers can be used as a
neutral party to help others resolve conflicts constructively.
This should be done only if all parties are motivated to solve
the problem and if no differences exist in the status or power
of the parties involved
• Behavior change. This is reserved for serious cases
of dysfunctional conflict. Educational modes,
training development, or sensitivity training can be
used to solve conflict by developing self-awareness
and behavior change in the involved parties.
• Responsibility charting. When ambiguity results
from unclear or new roles, it is often necessary to
have the parties come together to delineate the
function and responsibility of roles. If areas of joint
responsibility exist, the manager must clearly define
such areas as ultimate responsibility, approval
mechanisms, support services, and responsibility for
informing.
• Structure change. Sometimes, managers need to
intervene in unit conflict by transferring or discharging
people. Other structure changes may be moving a
department under another manager, adding an
ombudsman, or putting a grievance procedure in place.
• Soothing one party. This is a temporary solution
that should be used in a crisis when there is no time to
handle the conflict effectively or when the parties are
so enraged that immediate conflict resolution is
unlikely.
 NEGOTIATION
• Negotiationin its most creative form is similar to
collaboration and in its most poorly managed
form may resemble a competing approach.
Negotiation frequently resembles compromise
when it is used
•Amajor goal of effective negotiation is to make
the other party feel satisfied with the outcome.
The focus in negotiation should be to create a
win–win situations a conflict resolution strategy
• CLOSURE AND FOLLOW-UP TO
NEGOTIATION - Just as it is important to start
the formal negotiation with some pleasantries, it
is also good to close on a friendly note. Once a
compromise has been reached, restate it so that
everyone is clear about what has been agreed
upon. If managers win more in negotiation than
they anticipated, they should try to hide their
astonishment.
 ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE
RESOLUTION
• Mediation - which uses a neutral third party, is a
confidential, legally nonbinding process designed to
help bring the parties together to devise a solution to
the conflict. As such, the mediator does not take sides
and has no vested interest in the outcome. the
mediator asks questions to clarify the issues at hand (
Fact finding), listens to both parties, meets with
parties privately as necessary, and helps to identify
solutions both parties can live with.
• Due process hearings - are actual court
hearings, which focus on evaluating and
resolving conflicts through discovery,
presentation of evidence, sworn testimony
including that of expert witnesses, and cross-
examination A hearing officer objectively
listens to both sides of the issue and makes a
decision following the letter of the law Case law
established through precedence often
determines the outcome.
• Guidance from ombudspersons -
Ombudspersons generally hold an official title
as such within an organization. Their function
is to investigate grievances filed by one party
against another and to ensure that individuals
involved in conflicts understand their rights as
well as the process that should be used to
report and resolve the conflict.
 SEEKING CONSENSUS
• Consensus means that negotiating parties
reach an agreement that all parties can support,
even if it does not represent everyone’s first
priorities. Consensus decision making does not
provide complete satisfaction for everyone
involved in the negotiation as an initially
unanimous decision would, but it does indicate
willingness by all parties to accept the agreed
upon conditions.
• The greatest challenge in using
consensus as a conflict resolution
strategy is that like collaboration, it is
time consuming. It also requires all of
the parties involved in the negotiation
to have good communication skills
and to be open minded and flexible.
INTEGRATING LEADERSHIP SKILLS
AND MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS IN
MANAGING CONFLICT
• Benefitsto establishing and
maintaining an appropriate amount of
conflict in the workplace, including
increased harmony and productivity, a
pleasant working environment,
reductions in stress and anxiety, and
decreased victimized behavior
• Conflictthat is constructive will result in
creativity, innovation, and growth for the unit.
When conflict is deemed to be destructive,
managers must deal appropriately with that
conflict or risk an aftermath that may be even
more destructive than the original conflict.
• Negotiation
also requires both management
functions and leadership skills. Wellprepared
managers know with whom they will be
negotiating and prepare their negotiation
accordingly
• Successful negotiation mandates the use of the
leadership components of self-confidence and risk
taking. If these attributes are not present, the leader-
manager has little power in negotiation and thus
compromises the unit’s ability to secure desired
resources
• Other attributes that make leaders effective in
negotiation are sensitivity to others and the
environment and interpersonal communication skills.
The leader’s use of assertive communication skills,
rather than destructive tactics, results in an
acceptable level of satisfaction for all parties at the
close of the negotiation.