“The fact that their interests are bound to clash when it comes to deciding who gets what share of the cake, all too often obscures the point that management and unions need to co-operate together to increase the total size of the cake and must co-operate if the economic objectives of the company and all the people in it are to be achieved.” – The Industrial Society
IN THE MIDST of recent military, political, business and social conflicts at the international, regional and domestic levels, it is timely to briefly examine the topic of conflict resolution.
In the book Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, it is stated: “Whether you are making a deal or settling a dispute, differences are defined by the difference between your thinking and theirs . . . . Ultimately, however, conflict lies not in objective reality, but in people’s heads.” Such a view of conflict not only reveals that conflict is an inevitable part of life; but that any bloodshed, rancour, broken relationship, is really the result of inadequately managed conflict rather than equivalent to conflict.
At the organisational level, conflict can result from differing personalities or behaviour; scarce resources; communication problems; jurisdictional ambiguities; cultural differences; gender; poor integration of people and tasks (job-ability fit); unmet expectations or objectives. Conflict provides a ‘red-flag’ that highlights where or when adaptation of an existing approach is necessary; and once adequately managed, conflict can lead to innovation, the pooling of a number of different ideas and problem solving.
I will use the analogy of fire and fire control since fire, like conflict, is not necessarily bad in itself but creates problems when uncontrolled. For a fire to exist it requires heat, oxygen and energy. Analogously, conflict requires the “heat” of personality and other clashes, the “oxygen” of fears, and the ‘energy’ of the particular matter of contention. Fire control requires cooling of the heat, smothering of the oxygen and starving of the energy. Therefore, by extending the analogy, conflict management requires the “cooling” of the clashes, the “smothering” of the fears, and the “starving” of the particular matter of contention by seeking to constructively fight the issues and not the people.
A manager has two general thematic options with which to manage conflict within his/her area of responsibility. The first approach is to be a “solver of conflict” and the second is to be a “resolver of conflict”. When the manager acts as a solver of conflict, he/she seeks to personally solve the conflict. Such an approach may only temporarily address the problem and temporarily appease the conflicting parties because the solution is imposed upon said parties by an external source – the manager.
Conversely, when the manager assumes the role of a resolver of conflict, he/she facilitates the conflicting parties in finding a solution to their problem. This approach can be a far more effective means of reducing conflict than the aforementioned one because it empowers a process by which the aggrieved parties have a stake within dealing with the source of their conflict and reaching an agreement which they deem appropriate.
This article on conflict will conclude next week.