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Managing conflict - Coggle Diagram
Managing conflict
A good manager tries to avoid wasting the energies of his people. According to Townsend, you’re your boss and your people fight you openly when they think you’re wrong: it’s healthy.
Misunderstanding is not necessarily a conflict; it may not arise from a lack of shared interests, but simply from a lack of understanding of otherviews.
Instead, disagreement does not necessarily imply emotions; it is simply a divergence of opinions, and therefore it is necessary to be very rational.
Conflict, on the other hand, arises from people who have opposing interests and objectives; this involves emotional reactions as well as radically reducing people’s ability to act rationally.
The causes of workplace conflict are Organisational change, Team dynamics and Culture and personality.
Organisational change: Globalisation has led to radical changes in the way companies work; this may increase tensions between the head office (whose purpose is to maintain authority) and the subsidiaries (whose purpose is to maintain autonomy).
Another cause may be the pressure to be competitive internationally produces frequent restructuring, sudden changes in position and responsibilities and increased workload.
To avoid or manage conflicts in this complex environment, managers must communicate decisions (which are often more than transparent or logical) in a clear and engaging way.
- Team dynamics Another common source of conflict is the lack of understanding of how teams work. In carrying out an activity (a project for example) the teams go through 5 main phases:
1 Forming the team starts exploring the task; 2 Storming divergences and tensions arise; 3 Norming tasks are clarified and common understanding is achieved;
4 Performing
trust is established and tasks are carried out creatively; 5 Adjourning the task is completed and the team breaks up.
- Team dynamics: the storm phase The assault is an inevitable and even necessary phase of the development team. This natural process can be managed through 3 techniques :
1 Prepare the team for the assault phase,
2 Emphasizing the value of diversity,
3 Establish rules to manage clashes
- Culture and personalities. Cultural orientations may be sources of conflict as time, hierarchy, space, thinking patterns, etc. create misunderstandings and communicative misalignments, if interlocutors are not aware of differences.
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