Conflict Management

Conflict management is the process of avoiding conflict. However, conflict avoidance

may not be possible in all cases. The conflict management process, in such

circumstances, resolves conflicts on real-time basis. Often we confuse conflict with

competition.

The culture of competition is deliberately created by organizations to extract the best

from their people. This is an example of friendly competition, sparked with deliberate

goals and objectives. Unfriendly competition, on the other hand leads to conflict.

For example, in many organizations, variable pay is linked to individual performance,

that is, targets are assigned to individual employees and on achieving the same they

earn their variable components of pay and incentives. This system reduces their

responsibilities towards their groups and their organizations as a whole, and thus makes

them selfish.

This is an example of unhealthy or unfriendly competition, which culminates in conflict.

On the contrary, professional organizations assign weights to individual, group, and

organizational performance, which truly make it possible for people to deliver their best.

In organizations, two types of conflicts are more visible—conflict over right and conflict

over interest. Conflict over right is more related to employer-employee relationships,

which is settled through the process of collective bargaining, grievance handling, and

partially through the enforcement of workplace discipline. Conflict over interest relates to

perception, attitude, and opinions that differ from person to person. Building a pro-active

organizational culture through shared vision and mission can alleviate this type of

conflict.

Conflicts are avoided by organizations by promoting teamwork and cooperation.

Teamwork can only be possible through a shared vision, empowerment with stake in
decision making, transparency in information, etc. Collective bargaining, conciliation

(inducing a friendly feeling), negotiation, mediation (when negotiation fails), and

arbitration are the most useful examples of conflict resolution in organizations.

However, use of the appropriate conflict management tool must be situation-specific and

need-based. Conflict management requires different levels of interaction between

people, which may be basic communication, use of positive body language, or simple

evasion tactics. This requires training and opportunity to interact and learn through

experiences.

To illustrate, collective bargaining or negotiation skills is possible not only through

theoretical training but it also requires a hands-on exposure to the situation, thus letting

the learners understand the real-life situation by allowing them to witness the process

with their seniors. Slowly, they gain confidence and start contributing to the solution.

During interaction, they team how to escalate and de-escalate the existing situation,

realizing the other person’s action.

In the process they master the following skill-sets:

1. Appropriate selection of policies and strategies to handle a conflict

2. Proper understanding of an individual’s rights and duties, as also their own rights
and duties, to ensure that there exists a proper synergy in actions and
interactions
3. Understanding of the mechanism of positive response
4. Understanding of the process of averting negative behavioural responses
5. Recognizing the emotions and feelings of other people
6. Understanding of the effects of fear and admiration and the process of controlling
these effects
7. Nurturing positive attitude and appearance
8. Understanding of the behaviour of people
9. Mastery over the skills for both verbal and non-verbal communication
10. Understanding of the de-escalation strategy, that is, helping people to control
their emotions
11. Understanding of the process of tackling the effects of an incident, to render
effective post incident support
12. Mastery over counselling skills.