Is Conflict in an Organization a Negative or Positive Force?

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Is Conflict in an Organization a Negative or Positive Force?

Conflict can be defined when individuals or group members incompatibility leads to clashes due to different thought process, attitude, understanding, interests, requirements and perceptions. Each person has different ways on how they perceive and reacts to different situations. Peoples divergences can be explained in terms of ideas, believes, behaviour, needs, roles, religion, politics, relationships, emotions and others. Since all individuals are different and think differently from each other, conflict may arise. Conflicts may result in heated quarrels, physical abuses which leads to disturb harmony, relationships, influence other people and groups negatively. Conflict does not only occur between individuals but also amongst other larger groups such as political parties, religions, different culture ethnics, families, social groups, communities, countries, organisations and between different organisational which may have the same line of business. Conflicts and aggressiveness in general never lead to a good ending. However, I believe that disagreements can be overcome by sorting out these differences through discussions, positive attitude, other peoples intermediations and empathy.

Four common forms of conflict factors within an organisation are explained as follows.

Task Conflict. Refers to conflicts which arises through the day to day work process and on how to execute organisational procedures and standards. Example. A manager keeps on increasing productivity targets on a weekly basis. However, he doesnt support his team with extra labour hours or tools to help the employees to achieve their goals. This may lead to conflict in between employees and management.
Process Conflict. This occurs when employees and groups agree upon goals, targets and projects set by the organisation but disagree on how to move forward to implement.
Relationship Process. This happens through personal disagreements such as religious believes and ethics. Example. Nowadays the hospitality industry is recruiting more foreign national employees. Employees with the same nationality or cultural background tend to form groups within the workplace. Conflict may arise between groups due to lack of teamwork and communication.
Legal Process. Conflict may arise between different organisations, example due to pricing, employee poaching, issue with suppliers and marketing strategies which can undermine other organisations.

In an organisation conflict arises through the result of human interaction across formal and informal groups. Conflict in organisations arises between two staff members, groups, management versus subordinates, at management and board level. Basically, through all different levels of the hierarchy. However, not all conflicts may lead to a negative force, most of the time this can lead to opportunities.

Organisations nowadays are aware of the continuous changes in the external environment, technological changes and customer needs. In order to remain competitive and innovative organisations encourage a controlled level of conflict in order to challenge the traditional ways of doing things and to avoid their employees getting stuck into the Status Quo Managers utilise conflict techniques amongst other skills to Stimulate conflict and to avoid harmful conflicts through Conflict Resolution.

Stimulate conflict is a constructive way to challenge and motivate employees to think outside of the box and to inject positive attributes of conflicts. Example. A manager sets a meeting for his team to announce changes in working procedures and standards. Although employees might conflict on how to adopt to the new changes, such initiative will encourage them to express their ideas, debate more openly to come up with a way forward, brainstorm, share best practises, discuss, and challenge each other ideas to identify better systems and solutions. Another example, if two competing employees working on the same project disagree on how to market a new product, instead of conflict they can join forces and compromise on a better outcome which will make both ideas shine. They can also refer to a senior employee or manager to help them find common grounds on a final decision.

Conflict resolution. Its important for managers to have the ability to understand conflict root cause and tackle negative attributes efficiently. If conflict is not resolved it can disturb the organisation operation, demotivate employees, increase turn over and decrease productivity and profitability.

Bad communication, misunderstandings, gossiping, stubbornness, bad attitude, disputes over promotions, disagreements on how to perform tasks, laziness, understaffing, stress, psychological harm, and disrespect are some examples of negative attributes which might initiate conflict at the workplace. Its up to the managers ability to supress conflicts at an early stage before they escalate further. When faced with such matters managers must trigger their leadership traits according to the situation and tackle each case according to employee personality in order to connect with them and to solve any potential conflicts.

Nowadays, attractive hygiene factors are important to employees job satisfaction and motivation. Therefore, organisations must ensure to keep conflict within control to ensure employee retention, retain talent which is essential for the organisation growth. If tackled in a good manner, conflicts can lead to better ideas, better understanding, and improve work rapports.

References

Managementstudyguide.com. 2020. Understanding Conflict – Meaning And Phases Of Conflict. [online] Available at: [Accessed 11 November 2020].
Staffing, A., 2020. 6 Workplace Conflicts And How To Deal With Them. [online] Atlas Staffing. Available at: [Accessed 11 November 2020].
Griffin, R. and Moorhead, G., 2013. Organizational Behavior. 11th ed. South-Western College Pub; 11th edition (January 25, 2013), pp.15,16,17.

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