In
all forms of communication, there are various forms of conflict. Some conflict
is healthy some conflict is not. And with all conflict, there is resolution. It
is the intent of the author to analyze the conflict presented and come up with
probable solutions to conflict resolution.
In the
textbook, Cahn states that, “We believe that conflict is not simply a part
of life; conflict is life as usual. People regularly experience times
when their wants and desires are contradictory to the wants and desires of
people important to them. Equally important, we can see no reason for conflicts
to ever evolve into violent behavior. Conflicts exist as a fact of life, but we
believe violence does not.” With conflict existing as a fact of life, it is
known that we must accept that in all communication, there will be some form of
conflict. It is the duty of the communicator to take the conflict and turn the
conflict as a building block for the relationships involved.
Without
conflict, long-term communication remains stagnant.
Organization Conflict
According
to Rahim Afzalur in Managing Conflict in Organizations, “Organizational
conflict as it stands now is considered legitimate and inevitable and a
positive indicator of effective organizational management. It is now recognized
that conflict within certain limits is essential to productivity. Conflict can
be functional to the extent to which it results in the creative solution to
problems or the effective attainment of subsystem or organizational objectives
that otherwise would not have been possible. Little or no conflict in
organizations may lead to stagnation, poor decisions, and ineffectiveness. On
the other hand, organizational conflict left uncontrolled may have
dysfunctional outcomes.” (Afzalur, 2001, page 16)
Afzalur
also describes a situation in which conflicts may be placed along a continuum
of cooperative to competitive actions. The former occurring when there is
outcomes and the latter occurring when only joint payoffs occur such that one
party wins and the other party loses. It is the person’s ensuing conflict
responsibility to choose to positively fix the conflict.
Also,
according to Thomas, author of Conflict Styles of Men and Women at Six
organizations, “The
influence of organization level and gender on conflict style is important for a
number of reasons. Level and gender are salient and ubiquitous features in
organizations. Moderate or strong effects on conflict styles would have
significant implications. Conflict researchers would need to be aware of those
relationships, at a minimum, to control for their effects when studying the
influence of other variables. Moreover, practitioners in training and
organization development commonly use conflict style instruments for diagnostic
purposes. Sizeable effects of gender and level would have a number of
implications for them as well. For example, measures of conflict style may
require separate statistical norms for different organization levels and
genders. Trainers and coaches working with a given organizational level would
also benefit from knowing the typical conflict styles used by men and women at
that organization level and how those styles are likely to differ at the next
level up. It would also be helpful to know how style preferences differ across
genders, and whether those differences apply to executives as well as
lower-level personnel. This knowledge would help trainers fine-tune their
training to those realities. Organization development practitioners, likewise,
would benefit from knowing where they are most likely to encounter different
patterns of conflict styles.” (Thomas, 2008, para 6)
The positive and negative effects of conflict
Jeff
Whitfield, author of Conflict in Construction stated, “Positive conflict has
enabled civil rights movements to remove inequitable laws. Conflicts can also
product positive aesthetic results. Many of our great works of art have been
created as a result of the internal conflicts raging within talented
individuals. One such example could be Vincent Van Gogh. Creative individuals
who challenged established thinking were often regarded as eccentric or even
borderline insane. Why is it then that conflict, often so damaging, can
sometimes produce such positive results.” (Whitfield, 2012, page 5)
Essentially,
conflicts can eventually cause positive results. So while it is easy to become
flustered or upset about something, it is likely a conflict will become
positive with the proper thinking.
Also,
according to Whitfield, “If you believe it will have a negative impact on the
situation, substitute your negative thoughts with a positive one and re-run the
scenario. You may find that a positive reaction offers a better outcome.”
(Whitfield, 2012, page 91)
Whitfield
also suggests that in a scenario where one feels a negative impact approaching,
to try using a positive thought to overcome the negativity.
Stress and Anger in the Workplace
According
to Seth Allcom and Michael Diamond in Anger in the Workplace, “anger is an
emotion that arises after other feelings such as pain, threat or fear,
frustration or humiliation are experienced.” (Allcom & Diamond, 1994, page
5) With all of these emotions encountered, often times embarrassment is
accompanied with the workplace or public conflict.
Allcom
and Diamond also make a point by stating, “Employees also make their contribution
to anger in the workplace in the form of low self-esteem and ineffective coping
strategies. The work place is extraordinarily complex interpersonal environment
in which virtually anything can and does happen. People who feel insecure and
unprepared to cope with organizational life will very likely find some behavior
offensive, frustrating, and even threatening and becoming anxious and angry as
a result.”
With
stress and anger, proper communication is difficult and sometimes dull.
Allcom
and Diamond also discuss how some anger is justified.
“Anger
is sometimes justified; however, frequent anger is an indication of a
maladjustment. Anger is often focused at hated authority figures. Anger may be
vented in words. Anger is something I try to control. Anger is a way of making
your point. Anger is an emotion that expresses feelings of frustration at
myself. Anger is a scary and difficult emotion at that, if expressed, is
followed by punishment and isolation. Anger is a response to the threat of
nonexistence. Anger is a self-directed response to frustration that is
sometimes productive by more often destructive,
Ethics and workplace conflicts
Ethics
is defined, by the author of Ethics Management for Public Administrators, as
“values and principles that guide right and wrong behavior. The Golden Rule is
an example of an ethical principle that guides behavior.”
According
to Menzell in Ethics Management, “The possibility of ethics management has
become a reality only in recent decades, although interest in ethics in Western
culture can be traced to the Age of Antiquity. The Greek philosopher Aristotle
wrote about moral virtues such as courage, honesty, temperance, and responsibility.
Virtue ethics, as this approach became known, has inspired and motivated human
beings in a vastly different cultures for century’s. (Menzell, nd, page 5)
In
a guide for developing a process for managing ethics, author Michael Alford
discusses the importance of ethics in a business setting, “Businesses develop formal
ethics programs for a variety of reasons. These range from programs designed to
comply with the law to programs that provide for both compliance and conducting
business on a higher level of trust between the stakeholders. Recent research
indicates that some larger firms have developed formal codes of ethics and
appointed a Vice President for Ethics in order to avoid the financial penalties
imposed for ethics violations. The rationale is that a firm will likely receive
a lighter penalty for ethics violations if it has a strong code and an ethics
education program in place than if it does not. This approach is merely a
tradeoff between the cost of developing an ethics program and the projected
cost of possible violations. It neglects some very positive and powerful
incentives to actively manage ethics in the workplace.” (Alford, 2011, para 7)
With this aspect taken, a
code of ethics takes a very important role in the business world in relation to
communication.
In Communications Styles and Conflict, Author Kathy
Jourdain states, “A well-functioning team should have all of these
communication styles for true effectiveness. All teams need to focus on the
task, and they need to take care of relationships in order to achieve those
tasks. They need the big picture perspective or the context of their work, and
they need the details to be identified and taken care of for success. We all
have aspects of each style within us. Some of us can easily move from one style
to another and adapt our style to the needs of the situation at hand-whether
the focus is on casks or relationships. For others, a dominant style is very
evident, and it is more challenging to see the situation from the perspective
of another style. The work environment can influence communication styles
either by the type of work that is required or by the predominance of one style
reflected in that environment. Some people use one style at work and another at
home. The good news about communication styles is that we all have the ability
to develop flexibility in our styles. The greater the flexibility we have, the
more skilled we usually are at handling possible and actual conflicts. Usually
it has to be relevant to us to do so, either because we think it is important
or because there are incentives in our environment to encourage it. The key is
that we have to want to become flexible with our communication style. As Henry
Ford said, "Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right!"”
(Jordain, nd, para 13)
Conclusion
It
was discovered in the research done that with all conflict there is growth.
Some growth is immediate and some is long-term, or found in hind-sight. And
just like stated in the beginning, in all communication there is conflict.
References
Photo credit: http://nicholasferguson.org/10-characteristics-of-healthy-communication-in-conflict/
