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Essay: Conflict Resolution in the Workplace: Recognize, Address, and Resolve

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  • Published: 1 June 2019*
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When we are going to speak of conflicts, is to address a very extensive issue, since, the life of a man is full of them; some can be considered insignificant, and some others more transcendental. Now, conflicts are not the destruction or contamination of organizations or even relationships, conflicts are rather opportunities for the changes to be generated, and in those changes the “conflicts”, if they are channeled and routed in the correct way, will result in a great opportunity to generate a great outcome. There are innumerable examples and experiences of how organizations have benefited from taking advantage of conflicts.

    One of the organizations that I will like to make an analysis on is the workplace. We spend an average of 38.5 hours a week at work, almost eight hours from Monday to Friday, this is more than enough hours for conflicts to arise in a company. Executives or area managers we will not be able to prevent small disputes from arising, but be must assume them as inherent in the interpersonal relationships that occur in the business world. But people capacity is limited, and it becomes a challenge in the management of conflicts in teams or work groups, and how management, leader, and executives could handle the situation will determine that disagreements do not become serious problems or spread through the office. In fact, labor disputes are the third reason for resignations in companies and generate two out of ten dismissals, according to a study by the employment.

    But the most important question is how to deal with those small disagreements in the workplace? Especially when companies do not dedicate enough recourses to train personnel to be able to handle this situation. There are many examples of labor disputes according to Jones (675), but he states some of the most common triggers and mechanisms to put a stop to them. For example, he states that impunctuality is the most common cause, then lies, rumors and negative behavior, failure in communication, structural differences, ambiguity of roles, scarce resources, incompatibility of goals, poorly designed reward systems, differences of power and status, personal differences and previous conflicts that have not been resolved.

    Conflict is defined by Cuban as “perceived incompatible differences that result in mutual interference or opposition. In other words, it is a process in which a party perceives that its interests are in opposition or are adversely affected by another or other parties "(28). While it is true that conflicts denote problems and inconveniences in institutions, it is also a fact that progress and changes arise from them. If there is a point of interpretation of his definition, changes are the only constant pattern in life, and given that a company is an organization made up of the human factor, different types of conflicts are common, so we will now deal with the most common sources and conflict situations that they afflict the organizations and how that conflict can be converted into an improvement use for the company.

    The conflicts that afflict organizations are innumerable and range from the simplest to the most complicated, the truth is that the most usual situations of these differences are those caused by affective-subjective and cognitive-objective according to Ferraro (6).

    Ferraro explains that the “cognitive conflict is that conflict that arises from differences of opinion related to problems and effective conflict refers to the emotional reactions that can occur when disagreements become personal” (9). Cognitive conflict includes disagreements related to goals, allocation of resources, distribution of rewards, policies and procedures and assignments of tasks giving space to be strongly associated with improvements in the performance of the work teams. He also states that affective-subjective conflict “results from feelings of anger, distrust, fear, and resentment; as well as personality clashes and it is related with a decrease in the performance of the work teams”(10).

Now, there is a colloquial saying "every head is a world", and it comes to the case, because according to people are the types of conflicts that develop, there are conflicts that are easily solved and others that can become increasingly complicated , because the people who intervene in the problem cannot agree on a conciliation and the differences subsist and it is precise to those differences that I refer to when mentioning the information of Prof. Víctor Ariel, since he approaches the subject with reference to the components of the personality to give an explanation to the types of conflicts that the human being goes through and therefore the companies.

The primordial source of conflicts or situations that incite the occurrence of conflicts is without a doubt the changes because there is no conflict if we are in an environment of total control and domination.

Different authors consider that there are several stages of the conflict, from my point of view and for the purposes of this essay I will approach the stages that according to my work, a personal and documentary experience I have observed:

1.- First stage thought .- Refers when the differences begin to be created, but the individual chooses not to take it seriously, saying to himself "nothing happens" this stage can be compared to self-deception, saying that the same things are good.

2.- the Second Stage, if that thought of differences is not discarded and fed, it gives way to recognition of the conflict and therefore to initiate a feeling with such a referent, that is, we are faced with the feeling originated by thought.

3.- Third Stage, Action, stage I have named it this way because, if thought becomes fruitful, it gives rise to feeling, when the feeling has manifested in our being, it originates an action, such a motive, it gives as a manifesto to the conflict.

4.- Fourth Stage, Solution, this stage I consider the best of all because it refers to the prosecution of the conflict to produce situations and enriching effect and when the conflict is unmanageable, in other words, there is no viable solution will give the resignation, abandon the problem before getting involved in a draining situation that will have no solution.

It is necessary to mention that not every conflict is synonymous with problem, because there are intrapersonal conflicts, which are those that occur internally, also interpersonal conflicts, those that occur between individuals and there are also labor conflicts that occur between employee and employer, so conflicts can through managing them efficiently become the pretext to move forward and change.

There are different styles to handle conflicts, however, it is important to mention that it will be intrinsically linked to the personality of the individual, since it will depend on their experiences, experiences, to go to the solution.

There is no doubt, talking about conflicts is a very interesting and important issue, because there is no exclusive school to teach us how to act before such or such problems, because it will depend on many occasions of the situations that are facing, now well, There are different options to obtain the tools for its management; One of them is the emotional intelligence and/or neurolinguistic programming to know our personality and control our emotions, since the conflicts eliminated in the beginning can help us to avoid that they become problems and allow us to know in advance the situations that require your attention before it is unmanageable.

To solve the conflicts it is necessary to consider:

1.- Know the people involved.

2 .- What are the interests of the parties, ie the other side of the hand, know, what is the position of each of the parties and respect them.

3.- What are the values, personality, experience, characteristics of each of the parties, since they influence when dealing with conflict management.

By way of conclusion I can say that conflicts are necessary for people and organizations, however, I want to emphasize that it is a priority to be put to use, in a few words, when you go through any type of problem you ask yourself can I turn this situation into an opportunity for growth? And do not forget to see the other side of the hand, maybe your partner sees the palm and your nails, but if you turn the hand you can appreciate what he sees and vice versa, I assure you that you can be surprised.

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