Conflict Resolution
Conflict: Why It’s Necessary
Pre-reading activities
Answer the questions:
1. According to your opinion are conflicts necessary or not?
2. Why do conflicts occur?
3. Should we avoid all conflicts?
Conflicts are a natural and inevitable part of people working together,
sharing diverse thoughts, concerns, perspectives, and goals. As a manager, you’re going
to have to deal with conflict situations both as a mediator (helping resolve conflicts
between others) and as a participant (when you, yourself, are in conflict with someone).
These situations can be complex and difficult to manage – such as an ongoing personality
clash with a coworker – or simple and easy to manage – such as two associates
disagreeing over a meeting agenda.
Unfortunately, managers often make the mistake of treating all conflicts as destructive
confrontations that should be avoided or resolved as quickly as possible. In reality many
conflicts provide an important opportunity to improve business results. Hard to believe
that conflict is a good thing? Yes. Disagreements and differing points of view, when
managed properly, are essential to an innovative workplace.
For the most part, conflicts are not big, emotional blowouts or scenes of physical
violence – although these can and do occur, especially in workplaces in which conflict
is not managed well. Conflicts usually involve the small stuff that continuously grinds
down working relationships. These can include:
– Loud radios, talking, or other noises that distract coworkers
– Someone grabbing the last cup of coffee without making a new pot
– Someone barging into your office and interrupting your work
– Someone leaving the copy machine with the message “refill paper tray”
– Someone discounting what you say in a meeting
Conflicts come in three general types:
A. Intrapersonal Conflict occurs within us: when we are at odds
with ourselves, when we are torn between choices we need to make, when we are frustrated
with our goals or accomplishments. Conflict with ourselves very often leads to conflict
with others.
B. Interpersonal Conflict occurs between two or more
individuals. We might get into a heated debate in a meeting, get in an argument with a
coworker, or have a bad encounter with our boss. This is the type of conflict we are most
concerned with, although our discussion has bearing on the other types.
C. Intergroup Conflict occurs between groups: nations, gangs,
work areas, etc. For example, your department at work might have an “us vs. them”
attitude about some other department.
There are numerous causes of conflict, and these causes can be placed
into three general categories: a) Communication,
b) Personal, c) Process.
Communication causes of conflict come from infrequent or
ineffective communication (e.g., lack of feedback, misunderstandings, lying, criticism,
discounting, and sarcasm).
Personal causes of conflict come from ego, personal biases, and
lack of empathy (e.g., differing personalities, perceived disrespect or lack of concern,
past friction, differing backgrounds, differing values or beliefs, and prejudice).
Process causes of conflict come from differing views about what
should be done or how it should be done (e.g., differing goals, differing approaches to a
problem, differing perspectives on an issue, and differing sources of information.)
Post-Reading activities
1. Answer the questions:
1. What are conflicts?
2. Could you name the types of conflicts?
3. Have you ever had any of these conflicts in your life?
4. How did you solve them?
5. Could you name the causes of conflicts?
6. Give an example for every cause of conflict?
7. Which one of these conflict sources do you think is potentially most
beneficial in the workplace?
2. Find the words in the text that mean the following.
a) a sudden bursting ______________
b) to treat someone in a cruel way for such a long time that they lose
all courage and hope ______________
c) to enter or rush in rudely ______________
d) to regard an idea, opinion, or piece of news as unimportant or
unlikely to be true ______________
e) to be unable to decide between two people or things, because you
want both ______________
f) to disagree ______________
g) feeling annoyed, upset, and impatient, because you cannot control or
change a situation, or achieve something _________
h) advice, criticism etc about how successful or useful something is
______________
i) a tendency to consider one person, group, idea, etc. more favourably
than others ______________
j) the ability to understand other people’s feelings and problems
______________
k) disagreement, angry feelings, or unfriendliness between people
______________
3. Complete these sentences using one of the words above in each
space.
1. He gets ____________ when he can’t win.
2. Larry tends to __________ any suggestion I make in meetings.
3. I’m _____________ getting a new car and going on vacation.
4. Restrictions on trade have caused ____________ between these two
nations.
5. Briggs found himself ___________ with his colleagues.
6. I wish she wouldn’t ____________ in like that.
7. Years of dictatorship had _________ the people ___________.
4. Match these phrases with their Russian equivalents.
1. armed conflict a. разрешить противоречие
2. to provoke a conflict b. конфликт интересов
3. conflict of interests c. вооруженный конфликт
4. to resolve a conflict d. спровоцировать
конфликт
5. Complete the sentences by using the given words.
conflicts over; come into conflict with; in conflict with; conflict
between
1. There has always been the _______ tradition and innovation.
2. They have _____________ wage settlements.
3. Sue was permanently _____________ her superiors.
4. She had often _______________ her mother-in-law.
Keys:
1. 7. Generally speaking, Communication and
Personal sources of conflict are the least beneficial to your organization because they
tend to attack people on a personal level. Process conflicts, on the other hand, often
allow people to clarify what is most important and make positive changes to the way things
are done. For this reason managers should actually encourage constructive Process
conflicts and work to eliminate Communication and Personal conflicts.
2. a) blowout; b) grind down; c) barge in;
d) discount; e) be torn between f) be at odds; g) frustrated;
h) feedback; i) bias; j) empathy; k) friction
3. 1. frustrated; 2. discount; 3. torn
between; 4. friction; 5. at odds; 6. barge; 7. ground the people down
4. 1. c; 2. d; 3. b; 4. a
5. 1. conflict between; 2. conflicts over; 3. in conflict
with; 4. come into conflict
By Natalya Plyugina,
School No. 44, Kaliningrad
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