An Assignment on Conflict in the workplace

                                                                                         For your unique papers at an affordable rate                                                                                                                           contact at

                                                                                                       writinghelpbd088@gmail.com

Conflict is a very common phenomenon in our everyday life not only personal lives but also at the workplace. It is a circumstance when one or both parties or individual perceive something negative with his/her interest. Conflict is an inevitable scenario in the workplace. Heitler (2012) claimed that conflict is disagreement and it can exist in any situation where desires, facts or fears push or pull participants against each other. Everyone may fall on skates or drop a ball once in a great while, in the specific tough situation and if they are going to enjoy their work and relationships, the less often they become argumentative and irritable. A common thought is that conflict is bad for the workplace. But, this thought is not always true rather conflict brings out the matter of disputes into the light which silently kills the harmony in the workplace. The purposes of this reaction paper are to understand the nature, scope and impact of conflict in the workplace and the importance and impact of negotiation to resolve the conflict for keeping the sustainability in the workplace.

Definition of corporate psychopaths and bullying

Conflict and negotiation are interrelated. When there is a conflict, a negotiation process should inevitable to resolve the conflict.  Boddy (2012) mentioned two important issues which provide fuel to initiate conflict in the workplace; corporate psychopaths and bullying. He described ‘Corporate psychopaths are managers with no conscience who are willing to lie and are able to present a charming facade in order to gain managerial promotion via a ruthlessly opportunistic and manipulative approach to career advancement.' Bullying refers regular and repeated ignoring, belittling, humiliating, over-managing, over-supervising, intimidating and ridiculing of a person at work especially with a single person. Clive Boddy claimed that corporate psychopaths creates conflict in the workplace and is a threat to business performance and longevity. There is some prevalence of bullying such as stress, negative emotion, humiliation, anger, fear, depression, isolation, self-doubt that reduces job satisfaction and ruined person's careers. In addition, the individual become hesitant, the confident become doubtful, the effective become ineffective, increase job turnover, unemployment, motivation etc. destroyed by bullying. Unethical managers create unethical followers which in turn generate conflict in the workplace and as a result workers suffer (Scarlet, 2012). This bullying creates the threat in a corporate manner and destructs corporate social responsibility and as consequences conflict is rooted deeply in the workplace.

In 2005, Professor Sandra Speedy participated in Australasian Business and Behavioural Sciences Association Conference, where he mentioned the problem of dysfunctional, ruthless managers and their effect on workplace and society (Speedy, 2005). Bullying takes place when manager or people enjoy hurting others, become cruel, show selfishness, parasitic disrespectful, abusive, guilty, lacking of empathy, remorse or guilt, good at political networking skills. David Maxfield co-author of the book Crucial Conversations and Influencer presented a research result on bullying in America and research showed surprising result, 96% of American employees experience bullying in the workplace, 54% have been bullying for more than five years, 89% of those bullies have been at it for more than a year and 80% of bullies affect five or more people and the nature is changing (Shavin, 2014). There is an inverse relation between workplace bullying and employee performance. Measuring the influence of conflict in the workplace can be possible through identification of a list of the tell-tale signs of psychopath a behavioral measure of the presence of psychopaths was developed. And, management survey is necessary to identify reasons for workplace conflict to remove the conflict.

Different types of conflict in the workplace

Besides the aforementioned, there are several types of conflict generally seen in the workplace either small or large organization such as leadership conflict, interdependency conflict, work style differences, culturally based dissension, personality clashes etc (Farrell, 2014). Leadership conflict arises through corporate psychopaths and bullying where manager or leader wants to lead subordinates to serve him/her interest. In addition, when new supervisor or manager is replaced and the style of leadership is different than predecessor then conflict rise in the workplace. For example; if the previous manager allows workers for time off three days in advance and new manager like a one week notice then conflict will arise. Interdependency conflict is very common in team or group, for example; if a member of a group or team delays to submit monthly sales then the sales manager will definitely be late in submitting final reports. A very common element of conflict is cultural differences in the workplace. In a workplace, different ethnic, gender, religious people working together. The belief, culture is not same with other and the social status also differs. These factors often work as the conflict in the workplace. For example; Asian worker may abused or undermine by the manager or ridiculed by the American worker. Personality clash is one of the biggest reasons for workplace conflict. For example; often employee feels hesitation to communicate or taking help from his/her senior or same ranks employees.

Brookins (2015) focused some effects of conflict within an organization such as increasing frustration, a decrease in productivity, increasing rate of switching job, open violence, job dissatisfaction, disorders in the workplace, reducing respect to other etc. However, corporate psychopaths turn employees into flight or fight mode. In flight mode situation, workers withdrawal their effort, time, commitment, labor and in fight mode employees involve in counter-conflict, counterproductive work behavior, sabotage, productive deviance. As a result, further conflict arises that in turn lessened success. A common thought exists among people that conflict is always bad for the workplace. But, this thought is not right always rather conflict has some positive sides and Stack (2005) claimed that the result of conflicts may be positive or productive, considering upon how those involved select to approach with it. If manager or supervisor can approach conflict positively, it can stimulate the involvement in the discussion, improve the quality of decisions, facilitate employee growth, arouse imagination and creativity, build more synergy and cohesion among teams, increase movement towards goals, test positions and belief, foster new ideas, alternative and solutions.

Resolving conflict in the workplace

Now the question comes, what steps can be taken by a manager to resolution conflict in the workplace? A recent study showed that U.S. organizations spending more than 2.8 hours per week for per employees dealing with conflict and in 2008, it equates nearly 369 billion dollars in paid hours (Smith, 2008). So, this result gives a clear indication of the bad impact of conflict on the workplace and productivity. Negotiation is the process through which conflict situation will be resolved. Ury (2010) claimed that it is important in conflict resolution ‘go to the balcony' that means take the time to consideration and in his video speech he mentioned that conflict includes three sides instead of traditional two and the third side includes community, friend, family, society. In negotiation, negotiator/s should determine the levels of conflict for example, is it intrapersonal or intra-psychic conflict, interpersonal conflict, intra-group conflict or intergroup conflict. Identifying the levels of conflict is very important in resolving conflict situation. It gives a direction to negotiator/s about the best possible solution.

According to Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry (2007), ‘most actual negotiations are a combination of claiming and creating value processes.'  In conflict resolving process, the part of negotiators is very important. The implications for this are very significant, for example, negotiators must be able to recognize situations, negotiators must be versatile and he/she should be familiar with negotiation techniques. In resolving conflict, it is very important to determine the interest factors of conflicting parties because it will run the negotiation process fruitful.

Kelchner (2015) described some techniques to remove conflict from the workplace such as preparation and planning, analysis the situation, communicating and listening, collaborating, free from biases, bargaining and problem solving, implementation and monitoring. In negotiation, first of all, it is very important for negotiator/s make a preparation before starting a negotiation. The negotiator should be aware of the background of the conflict and make the plan accordingly. Unprepared and unplanned negotiation never be seen the path of solution. The negotiator/s must analyze the situation without any biases and negotiator/'s should take the time to consideration, William Ury told it as ‘go to the balcony'. It is very important for negotiator taking the possible time to analyze the situation, communicate with the conflicting parties. Negotiator/s should play the role of the active listener in conflict resolution because both parties and individuals have an opinion on their part. Negotiator/s should be carefully communicating and pointing out the nutshell of the conflict.

The purport of the negotiation process is given and takes in reaching the good solution. Bargaining is an essence in negotiation and good negotiation approach is win-win technique and successful negotiators always try to achieve this approach. Implementing the decision in negotiation and monitoring the result is an essential part of the successful negotiation. Negotiators should check out that the decisions are implementing perfectly and should collect feedback. In negotiation, patience, forecasting, experience of negotiators are playing the vital role to reach a good and fruitful solution.

Tidwell (2001) mentioned that resolving the conflict is a common matter which we all know something and experiencing it regularly in our everyday life whether in the workplace or social life. Weeks (1994), Wandberg (2000) and Harper (2004) emphasized on communication, cooperation, compromise to conflict resolutions that helped negotiators and individuals in solving the conflict. Shakun (2012, p.366) claimed that ‘... negotiation can do anything but enhance decision analysis approach, coupled with some experimental evidence on systematic biases and patterns in laboratory behavior.' However, there has no disagreement among authors to point out conflict at the preliminary stage and take a quick initiative to resolve for the betterment in the productivity and workplace harmony.

So, it is very clear to us that conflict is inevitable and the duty of negotiator/s and the manager is to resolve conflict through suitable negotiation techniques as soon as possible which ensure "Workplace Sustainability".

 References

Boddy, C. [TEDxTalks]. (2012, December 3). Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlB1pFwGhA4

Brookins, M. (2015). The Effects of Conflict Within an Organization. Retrieved 12 July 2015, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/effects-conflict-within-organization-164.html

Farrell, A. (2014). 5 Common Workplace Conflicts Every Small Business Will Encounter. Retrieved 12 July 2015, from http://yfsmagazine.com/2014/02/06/5-common-workplace-conflicts-every-small-business-will-encounter/

Harper, G. (2004). The Joy of Conflict Resolution.  Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers.

Heitler, S. (2012). What Makes Conflict? How Are Conflicts Resolved?. Retrieved 11 July 2015, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201211/what-makes-conflict-how-are-conflicts-resolved

Kelchner, L. (2015) Top Ten Effective Negotiation Skills. Retrieved 12 July 2015, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/top-ten-effective-negotiation-skills-31534.html

Lewicki, E, Saunders, D. and Barry, B. (2007) Negotiations. 6th Edition. New Delhi: Tata- McGraw Hill.

Scarlet, J. (2012). Characteristics of Corporate Psychopaths and Their Corporations. Retrieved 11 July 2015, from https://psychopathyinfo.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/characteristics-of-corporate-psychopaths-and-their-corporations/

Shakun, M. (2012) Negotiating Processes: Modeling Frameworks and Information Technology. Massachusetts: Springer Science & Business Media.

Shavin, N. (2014). What Workplace Bullying Looks In 2014-And How To Intervene. Retrieved 12 July 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/naomishavin/2014/06/25/what-work-place-bullying-looks-like-in-2014-and-how-to-intervene/

Smith, S. (2008). New Study Details Effects of Workplace Conflict on Businesses. Retrieved 12 July 2015, from http://ehstoday.com/safety/management/NewStudy_WorkplaceConflictonBusinesses

Speedy, S. (2005). Dysfunctional Leadership: Natural Born Predators? In A. Atyiyaman & G. Teal (Eds.), Australian Business and Behavioural Sciences Association.  Paper presented at The Australian Business and Behavioural Sciences Association Annual Conference 2005, Cairns, Australia.

Stack, L. (2005). Conflict in the Workplace: Conflict can be positive and productive. Retrieved 12 July 2015, from http://www.aviationpros.com/article/10385718/conflict-in-the-workplace-conflict-can-be-positive-and-productive

Tidwell, A. (2001). Conflict Resolve?: A Critical Assessment of Conflict Resolution. New York: A & C Black.

Ury, W. [Mukulchaudhri]. (2011, April 26) TED Conflict Negotiation. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xCkhV7zhuw

Wandberg, R. (2000). Conflict Resolution: Communication, Cooperation, Compromise.  Minnesota: Capstone Press

Weeks, D. (1994). The Eight Essential Steps to Conflict Resolution. New York: J.P. Tarcher/Perigee.