Conflict Management

Baden Eunson

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780731406517
• eBook ISBN: 9781118395547
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

Conflict Management is an easy-to-read and high-powered tool for understanding and managing conflict situations. Conflict can spiral out of control, but if you understand how the spiral works you may be able to prevent it from even beginning.

In this book you will find many options for managing conflict, including:

• planning
• goal setting
• compromise
• mediation

Expert communicator Baden Eunson also takes an in-depth look at negotiation skills. He offers a visual and fresh approach to the work of strategies and tactics, negotiation styles, the importance of listening and questioning skills, the reasons why the location of negotiation can affect its outcome, and why the phrase 'win-win' is not a cliché but a technique for success.

Chapter 1

Conflict — the Basics

Conflict strikes most people as being unpleasant and stressful, and it often is. But does conflict have its uses? That is, can conflict be a solution as well as a problem (and perhaps even both at the same time)? Related to this is the apparently trivial matter of whether those involved in conflict want to ‘resolve’ it or ‘manage’ it. To clarify this further, it will help to consider what styles of conflict there may be in the world, and how you can use these to better understand and manage conflict.

Is Conflict Always a Bad Thing?

Why can’t people just get along? Why is there conflict in the world? We see conflict in the kindergarten, in marriages, in friendships, in the workplace, in courtrooms and between nations — the phenomenon seems universal. We usually think of conflict as a negative, stressful experience, leading to verbal violence and, all too often, to physical violence. Conflict, as we all know from bitter experience, can be nasty.

Conflict can lead to:

• negative emotions
• blocked communication
• increased negative stereotyping of those we are in conflict with
• reduced coordination between people who have to work and live together
• a shift towards autocratic leadership when discussion-based decision making breaks down
• reduced ability to view other perspectives and a breakdown in empathy and vision.

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Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplike passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving … conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity.

John Dewey

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Surprisingly enough, however, conflict can sometimes produce positive payoffs — for example:

• Pressures and frustrations are released. When unexpressed conflicts are finally expressed, combatants sometimes experience a sense of relief, and can calm down and consider the situation with less heat and more light — for example, ‘I was just letting off steam’, ‘At least I got it out of my system’.
• New perspectives and information can be gathered about the other side. Combatants can become aware of each other’s point of view, and may see some merit in the opposing views. Empathy increases, and better decisions can be made.
• New perspectives can be gained about our side. We may not even be aware of our own views until a conflict situation forces the expression of those views. Also, we may become aware of weaknesses and inconsistencies in our own views. Conflict energises us to do and think new things.
• Better decision making and problem solving can take place. New information and perspectives are created as a result of the conflict. These allow us to see things more clearly and take appropriate action.
• Cohesiveness can increase. Groups, teams, couples and organisations may find that members are closer after the stress of conflict (and the release that comes with a successful resolution of that conflict) than they were before — the bonds between them are stronger, not weaker.
• Complacency can be challenged. Lack of, or suppression of, conflict in some situations may mean that various unhealthy things are happening — there may be opposition to new ideas, as well as paralysing timidity and myopic denial of unresolved tensions. Conflict may challenge all of these.
• Change can take place. Conflict is often the engine of change. Charles Darwin argued that conflict between organisms produced the survival of the fittest, so that evolution was dependent on conflict. Karl Marx argued that human progress depended on conflicts between social classes. George Bernard Shaw put it another way: ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’
• Differences can be appreciated. If differences between partners in a conflict are not perceived to be insurmountable, then a new synthesis, a combination of the energies of differing people (synergy) can take place.
• Intrapersonal conflicts can be resolved. We can have conflicts within ourselves as well as conflicts with others. Sometimes engaging in and resolving conflicts with others can resolve inner conflicts.

Resolving and Managing Conflict

If conflict can have its uses, then perhaps we need to increase, rather than decrease, conflict in certain situations. Conflict creation is discussed further in chapter 5. Given this rather novel (and perhaps disconcerting) approach to conflict, I will have to be careful about the terms I use. It is common, for example, for the terms ‘conflict resolution’ and ‘conflict management’ to be used interchangeably. But ‘conflict resolution’ might be the wrong approach to take in situations that call for the presence of, or an increase in, conflict, rather than an absence of conflict.

Absence of conflict may mean that conflict has been ‘resolved’ or ‘solved’ into nothingness, but even then that state would probably be only a temporary one. If the removal of the symptoms of conflict does not remove the causes of conflict, then the ‘solution’ reached is an illusory one. It may be better, therefore, to manage conflict rather than to simply solve or resolve it, allowing us to exercise the option of getting rid of conflict, but also preserving the option of increasing conflict where necessary.

By the same token, we need to be wary of unthinkingly talking about ‘conflict management’ if this means that we underestimate the power and irrationality of conflict dynamics. We may delude ourselves into thinking that technical tinkering with human behaviour will fix a situation, when in fact the situation may be much more out of control and potentially dangerous. We might just as well delude ourselves by calling a brawl ‘punch management’ or nuclear war ‘weapons management’ — the terms are simply too tame and misleading. The best way to mismanage conflict is to think that it can always be merely ‘managed’.

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It’s a well-known proposition that you know who’s going to win a negotiation — it’s he who pauses the longest.

Robert Holmes à Court

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What Causes Conflict?

There are many possible causes of conflict, some of which are also causes of aggression. Some of the major ones are:

• Scarce resources. Two parties want the same thing — a coat in a shop, a window view, an inheritance, a parking space, access to a river, a broadcasting licence, land, the affections of a third person, political control of a na...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Conflict — the basics
• Chapter 2 Conflict development
• Chapter 3 Approaches to managing conflict
• Chapter 4 Negotiation — the basics
• Chapter 5 Positions, concessions and interests
• Chapter 6 Getting ready to negotiate
• Chapter 7 Negotiation styles
• Chapter 8 Negotiation tools and planning
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Index