Entrepreneurship
Fashion and Creative Business

ENT6-A1. What is conflict management?

Topic
Materials

TIMING/LENGTH (IN MINUTES): 20’

DESCRIPTION

In this activity, you will learn what is a conflict and how to manage it in your business, thanks to conflict management. To help through it, read articles and watch videos that are in the “NECESSARY RESOURCES”.

Broadly speaking, conflict is defined as a clash between individuals arising out of a difference in thought process, attitudes, understanding, interests, requirements and even sometimes perceptions.

A conflict results in heated arguments, physical abuses and definitely loss of peace and harmony. A conflict can actually change relationships.

In the case of a conflict at work, we use the term Organizational Conflict.

Organizational Conflict or otherwise known as workplace conflict, is described as the state of disagreement or misunderstanding, resulting from the actual or perceived dissent of needs, beliefs, resources and relationship between the members of the organization. At the workplace, whenever, two or more persons interact, conflict occurs when opinions with respect to any task or decision are in contradiction.To learn more about factors, causes than can start a conflict: https://businessjargons.com/organizational-conflict.html

DEVELOPMENT/ METHODOLOGY

LEARN

Conflict management is the practice of being able to identify and handle conflicts sensibly, fairly, and efficiently. Since conflicts in a business are a natural part of the workplace, it is important that there are people who understand conflicts and know how to resolve them.

According to Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann, 5 styles of conflict management exist:

An accommodating manager is one who cooperates to a high degree. This may be at the manager’s own expense and actually work against that manager’s own goals, objectives, and desired outcomes. This approach is effective when the other person is the expert or has a better solution.

Avoiding an issue is one way a manager might attempt to resolve conflict. This type of conflict style does not help the other staff members reach their goals. However, this works well when the issue is trivial or when the manager has no chance of winning.

Collaborating managers become partners or pair up with each other to achieve both of their goals in this style. This is how managers break free of the win-lose paradigm and seek the win-win.

Competing: This is the win-lose approach. A manager is acting in a very assertive way to achieve his or her own goals without seeking to cooperate with other employees, and it may be at the expense of those other employees. This approach may be appropriate for emergencies.

Compromising: This is the lose-lose scenario where neither person nor manager really achieves what they want. This requires a moderate level of assertiveness and cooperation. It may be appropriate for scenarios where you need a temporary solution.

Source: https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-conflict-management-definition-styles-strategies.html

To help you watch this video that sum up those 5 styles of conflict management:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAIaA5rMVJQ (5:05).