The following is a summary of some ideas and methods suggested in the two reference books. I agreed it is a bit long, hopefully you find some ideas useful.
Tillett(1991, p.7) defined conflict as “conflict exists when two or more parties perceive that their values or needs are incompatible”. Conflict is inevitable in our every day life. Since there isn’t any correct way of handling matter in most cases, we can always get it “done” with some other means because we all have our own beliefs and values. Hence, things can easily happen in an unexpected way and this unexpected result will anger us easily. If we do not release this anger, it will build up and eventually “explode”.
Many recent research studies are focusing on resolving conflict. Scott (1990) suggested that if we want to resolve the conflicts, we should regard them as problems to be resolved. He also pointed out that anger and mistrust are the major sources of conflict. Hence, we should analyse the problems and think of some possible ways to resolve them. We should start by learning to control our anger. Regarding the trust issues, we should take up a strong position or belief in the early stage, so that we will not end up investing lot of time and energy in the wrong relationship.
In addition to anger and mistrust, role and responsibility can also trigger a conflict. For instances, the argument over the matter of who should be responsible for the consequences and who is in the role to ensure that things go smoothly could trigger a conflict. Conflict can further be divided into some different levels according to its threatening level over each person’s needs. Maslow (1943, as cited in Tillett, 1991) suggested that human needs can be divided into four different levels. The list from top to bottom is; “altruistic needs (like self-esteem), social needs (like affiliation and affection), security needs (like shelter and clothing) and survival needs (like water, food and air)” (Tillett, p.80). Thus, it is important to analyse the problems based on these criteria to address them in the right level. To illustrate that, conflict between two students could possibly be threatening the social needs only. But if it is between an employer and his employee, it could be threatening the survival needs of the employee.
As a summary, to resolve a conflict one needs to be always creative while looking for solutions, be prepared for unexpected outcomes and always control the anger. Finally, one should always tackle the problem from the right angle (level).
References:
Tillett,G. (1991). Resolving conflict – a practical approach. Australia: Sydney university press in association with Oxford university press.
Scott, G.G. (1990). Resolving conflict – with others and within yourself. Oakland: New Harbinger Publication, Inc.
Case study
I witnessed the incident below during my summer holiday’s full time job.
For background information, it is a relatively small engineering consultant office, where we provide consultation services for building and construction. There are 4 persons including me, initially, in the whole office. It is a partition-separated-office with some meeting rooms. The boss stays in the same room as the staffs.
The conflict was between a 30-year-old Singaporean male named “B” and a 37-year-old PRC Chinese lady named “L” (the ages are estimated). L is an engineer who came to Singapore a decade ago for career advancement and she joined the company 2-3 years ago. B is an engineer’s assistant. He joined the company 5-6 years ago. There is no post assigned to the staffs (as there aren’t many staffs also), and the boss treats everyone fairly and with respect. According to B, the conflict started not long after L joined the office. B used to take care of all the administrative matters before L joined the company.
After L joined them, B started to complain that L never pick up the phone to help him answer the calls when he was busy, L’s working attitudes made it very difficult for him to cooperate with her and L did not pass the whole complete set of information to him to proceed with his work most of the time. As a result, he had to do additional job to collect the information from other parties himself.
B built up anger and unsatisfactoriness towards L as time went by. As a consequence, every thing she did became irritating to B. B had brought up the issue to the boss for a few times, but ended up with no improvement each time. B finally got fed up with L and laid out all the anger and engaged in a serious quarrel with L. They started to air out a list of unsatisfactory things over each other and almost ended up in a fight. A few months after the incident, L resigned from the job.
From the above incident, what should be done to resolve the problem?
Was it because B complaint too much? Or
B had difficulties in controlling his anger? Or
B cannot handle the pressure of increased work load? Or
B had the mindset that he has a senior role in the office and wanted to be treated in a more favorable way? Or
B thought that it is the responsibility of the boss to make sure things are going well in the office? Or
B felt that his survival need was threatened by L and he wanted to protect himself? Or
B just took it too personally; maybe he should think in the position of L, L didn’t answer the calls because most of the calls were regarding administrative matters or she might had a hard time during her working processes and couldn’t manage her emotion well and so on.
Tillett(1991, p.7) defined conflict as “conflict exists when two or more parties perceive that their values or needs are incompatible”. Conflict is inevitable in our every day life. Since there isn’t any correct way of handling matter in most cases, we can always get it “done” with some other means because we all have our own beliefs and values. Hence, things can easily happen in an unexpected way and this unexpected result will anger us easily. If we do not release this anger, it will build up and eventually “explode”.
Many recent research studies are focusing on resolving conflict. Scott (1990) suggested that if we want to resolve the conflicts, we should regard them as problems to be resolved. He also pointed out that anger and mistrust are the major sources of conflict. Hence, we should analyse the problems and think of some possible ways to resolve them. We should start by learning to control our anger. Regarding the trust issues, we should take up a strong position or belief in the early stage, so that we will not end up investing lot of time and energy in the wrong relationship.
In addition to anger and mistrust, role and responsibility can also trigger a conflict. For instances, the argument over the matter of who should be responsible for the consequences and who is in the role to ensure that things go smoothly could trigger a conflict. Conflict can further be divided into some different levels according to its threatening level over each person’s needs. Maslow (1943, as cited in Tillett, 1991) suggested that human needs can be divided into four different levels. The list from top to bottom is; “altruistic needs (like self-esteem), social needs (like affiliation and affection), security needs (like shelter and clothing) and survival needs (like water, food and air)” (Tillett, p.80). Thus, it is important to analyse the problems based on these criteria to address them in the right level. To illustrate that, conflict between two students could possibly be threatening the social needs only. But if it is between an employer and his employee, it could be threatening the survival needs of the employee.
As a summary, to resolve a conflict one needs to be always creative while looking for solutions, be prepared for unexpected outcomes and always control the anger. Finally, one should always tackle the problem from the right angle (level).
References:
Tillett,G. (1991). Resolving conflict – a practical approach. Australia: Sydney university press in association with Oxford university press.
Scott, G.G. (1990). Resolving conflict – with others and within yourself. Oakland: New Harbinger Publication, Inc.
Case study
I witnessed the incident below during my summer holiday’s full time job.
For background information, it is a relatively small engineering consultant office, where we provide consultation services for building and construction. There are 4 persons including me, initially, in the whole office. It is a partition-separated-office with some meeting rooms. The boss stays in the same room as the staffs.
The conflict was between a 30-year-old Singaporean male named “B” and a 37-year-old PRC Chinese lady named “L” (the ages are estimated). L is an engineer who came to Singapore a decade ago for career advancement and she joined the company 2-3 years ago. B is an engineer’s assistant. He joined the company 5-6 years ago. There is no post assigned to the staffs (as there aren’t many staffs also), and the boss treats everyone fairly and with respect. According to B, the conflict started not long after L joined the office. B used to take care of all the administrative matters before L joined the company.
After L joined them, B started to complain that L never pick up the phone to help him answer the calls when he was busy, L’s working attitudes made it very difficult for him to cooperate with her and L did not pass the whole complete set of information to him to proceed with his work most of the time. As a result, he had to do additional job to collect the information from other parties himself.
B built up anger and unsatisfactoriness towards L as time went by. As a consequence, every thing she did became irritating to B. B had brought up the issue to the boss for a few times, but ended up with no improvement each time. B finally got fed up with L and laid out all the anger and engaged in a serious quarrel with L. They started to air out a list of unsatisfactory things over each other and almost ended up in a fight. A few months after the incident, L resigned from the job.
From the above incident, what should be done to resolve the problem?
Was it because B complaint too much? Or
B had difficulties in controlling his anger? Or
B cannot handle the pressure of increased work load? Or
B had the mindset that he has a senior role in the office and wanted to be treated in a more favorable way? Or
B thought that it is the responsibility of the boss to make sure things are going well in the office? Or
B felt that his survival need was threatened by L and he wanted to protect himself? Or
B just took it too personally; maybe he should think in the position of L, L didn’t answer the calls because most of the calls were regarding administrative matters or she might had a hard time during her working processes and couldn’t manage her emotion well and so on.
4 comments:
Hi Sammy,
I feel that in the situation like this. Both parties have faults. B could have done better in managing his feelings and should not have allowed his displeasure to lead to even greater barrier between him and L. Regarding the phone calls, I agree that maybe L did not pick up the phone calls as it might serve no purpose since she might not be sure of the duty of B. Thus B should not use this as a reason to "pick up a fight" with L.
On the other hand, L could also try to communicate better with B, such as telling him the reasons behind the things that she do. Maybe she could not be able to pass along the full information to B because she was unable to obtain those information herself. It would be better to explain the work matters clearly, rather than leave them hanging in mid air.
Hence I feel that managing feelings and good communication can be tools to reduce the intensity of this conflict. :)
ya, Angeline, I felt the same way during that time. In my opinion, they were simply lack of communication and then it amplified into a worse misunderstanding situation and ended at like that.
Dear Sammy,
You really worked hard on this, essentially copying(?) an essay on "conflict" and then adding your case study. The essay does help put your case study in a context.
Still, you pose so many questions at the end that a reader would have a hard time knowing where to start to answer. That might be a reason that you have had few reader responses to this otherwise interesting scenario.
Thanks!
ya, BB. Thanks for the comments. I think it is too long to read also. My idea was just to provide some additional perspective to the way we look at the things. :>
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