CHAPTER 5

Conflict Resolution

Objectives

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

1. differentiate psychological conflict from social conflict;
2. identify levels of organizational conflict;
3. describe different conflict management styles;
4. describe various methods of exerting psychological and social influence;
5. apply techniques to successfully negotiate, mediate, and arbitrate conflict.

Introduction

Conflict often happens when there are opposing options from which to select. Conflict is inevitable in business activity. The handling of conflict both inside and outside an organization depends on the personalities, history, and hierarchy of the firm. Lawyers and courts must at times become involved to settle conflicts that have gotten out of control simply because sufficient guidelines for resolving issues internally were not there. Precipitating events that were not handled effectively often lead to full-fledged conflicts. Courts are the last means of conflict resolution.

Conflict resolution depends on the predisposing elements and factors that exist within individuals and their communicative actions (intrapersonal, interpersonal, or group). Do the individuals involved anticipating a resolution that is win–win, win–lose, lose–lose, or lose–win? The attractiveness of options and the willingness of all parties to seek a mutually agreeable solution influence the type of communication that will be most effective in resolving the conflict.

Psychological and Social Conflict

A conflict that occurs within the individual is a psychological conflict, and the confronted person has options that are either attractive or unattractive. An attractive conflict is one in which the individual has a decision to make that has options he or she likes, while an unattractive conflict is one in which the individual does not have a desirable option. A conflict that occurs between individuals or groups is a social conflict. Social conflict can also be either attractive or unattractive, depending on the availability of desirable outcomes.

Conflict crosses the three of the five levels of managerial communication (MC) discussed in Chapter 2: intrapersonal, interpersonal, or group communications. For example, when a manager can hire only one candidate from among three ideal candidates (these are attractive options), that manager can resolve the conflict through intrapersonal dialog. That same manager might also resolve the problem by asking a colleague for input on the matter. If three managers are in charge of allocating limited funds for employee bonuses and the managers who are assigned the task disagree on allocating the funds, the conflict will likely be resolved in face-to-face meetings. Personal conflicts exist when two or more people in the group do not get along with one another. Some people enjoy keeping everything in turmoil, while others prefer a more calming and nurturing environment. In many cases, just changing one person in a group can entirely alter how the group gets along. When one person does not like someone else in the group, the ensuing conflict affects not only the two individuals but also the entire group.

Substantive conflicts involve individuals not agreeing with the others’ analysis of issues. Substantive conflict may result in creative ways of solving problems as the opposing sides work through the substantive conflict issues.

Window into Practical Reality 5.1 provides an excerpt from an article published in Supervision explaining the challenges managers can face when they have a psychological conflict, whether the options are attractive or unattractive.

Procedural conflict happens when written strategies and policy statements actually keep a group from carrying out their responsibilities effectively. Over utilization of rules is an example of a procedural conflict that results in the hindrance of a group’s ability to be creative or make changes. To avoid such a constraint, Apple made creativity the rule. Former CEO Steve Jobs once said when asked about the importance of market research, that it was useless because people did not know what new invention they wanted next. Jobs recognized the risk of following procedural expectations that resulted in the creation of me-too products, rather than completely new items that would revolutionize the market. Figure 5.1 illustrates examples of the two levels of conflict and the three levels of MC necessary to resolve them.

Managing Conflict

Conflict can be a good thing in some business situations. Out of conflict can come creativity, different values and perceptions, and new ways by which teams can be more productive. A phenomenon known as groupthink, or failure to think outside the box due to group pressure or expectations for conformity, can negatively affect group decision making when the group suppresses or punishes objective critical thinking. In some cases, unfettered groupthink can result in hysteria. Window into Practical Reality 5.2 is a summary of the hysteria that resulted from unfettered groupthink that occurred at Evergreen State College.

Dialectic inquiry (a formal debate of opposing choices between members of the same group) and devil’s advocacy (when one team member is assigned the task of criticizing and finding flaws in the team’s choices) are good examples of constructive techniques used to avoid groupthink. Ideas that might otherwise never have been considered are often discussed because of conflict. Typically, managers will use rich channels, often referred to as media richness, of communication (face-to-face, videoconferencing) for ambiguous messages and less rich channels (e-mail, memos) for low-risk-oriented communications. A channel is richer when the receiver can understand the emotions behind the communication. The more cues that are available to the receiver, the more understanding there will be. Problems arise when managers do not realize the ambiguity of a situation, which often happens in intercultural business communication situations; or when a common language or language variation, is not shared by the group.

Many companies use internal jargon and numbers as a common language internally. The military and government organizations are known for having their own expressions and acronyms, but so do many public and private firms, clubs, and special interest groups.

Influence Strategies

Influence strategies are the methods used by an organization’s personnel when using the power given to a particular position within the firm. These can be coercive or not coercive. When your boss is a dictator, you know that consideration of your ideas depends on whether they mirror his or her ideas. Employees tend to placate such bosses and to avoid offering solutions that do not fit the dictator’s preferences. A boss whose mindset is inclusive of others’ ideas will receive many more possible solutions to problems. Conflict is minimized and influence strategies are stronger in relationship dyads where there is trust and solidarity. The power structure and influence strategies used between two individuals are largely dependent upon the firm’s overall use of influence strategies, the overall trust levels within the firm, and how influence strategies are reciprocated between dyads in the firm.

Our socialization creates automatic triggers for responding to others in various ways. These triggers serve as rules that govern our responses. For example, when someone gives you a gift and you did not think to give one in return, the compulsion you feel to hurry out and get a gift of equal value for that person can be overwhelming and is explained by the reciprocity rule. Some business people will use gift giving to gain an advantage in negotiations. Social programming tells us to assign a value to an item based on its cost. The expensive equals good rule applies when we assign a high value to an item because it was expensive. In reality, a $100 bottle of wine might not taste better than a $9 bottle.

The commitment and consistency rule teaches that once we start something, we should finish it. Logically speaking, abandoning some projects would be more sensible than seeing them through. Following the commitment and consistency rule has resulted in many disastrous management decisions and bankruptcies. For example, Coca Cola tried to improve its taste in the 1980s and ended up nearly destroying the brand, even though preliminary consumer data discouraged the change in formula. Ford went ahead with the release of the Ford Pinto against warnings from safety engineers, and cost itself millions of dollars in legal settlements and massive advertisement campaigns to assuage the public’s distrust of its manufacturing capabilities. Managers, both nationally and internationally, must be on guard against using these “weapons of influence” when resolving conflicts. However, knowing how to use compliance psychology as a tool to influence positive behavior can strengthen your conflict resolution skills.

Conflict Management Styles

Conflict management styles can be categorized as avoidance, distributive, and integrative. Avoidance style involves minimizing or ignoring the conflict situation (Sillars et al. 1982) and is unassertive and uncooperative. Distributive management style is confrontational and generally one-sided, with one side conceding to the other (Putnam and Wilson 1982). Window into Practical Reality 5.3 provides an illustration of distributive management style at work.

Integrative style managers employ cooperative behaviors for a shared solution (Walton and McKersie 1965). How group conflict management norms evolve is particular to the members of the group and not easily predictable (Kuhn 1998). The management style of the person in charge is very important to what a group can achieve.

Kuhn and Poole (2000) found that over time groups tend to repeatedly use the same conflict management style for their decision making. They also found a significant relationship between conflict style and decision-making effectiveness, with integrative groups rated as highly effective and avoidance and distributive style groups as less so. Teams that manage conflict productively are also better facilitators and observers. Even when a topic was contentious and required a great deal of discussion, the integrative groups spent the time necessary to solve the disagreement. Conflict management involves both task and maintenance functions in the groups, with task functions including the completion of the assignment, and maintenance functions including taking care of the group members needs so that they work together effectively. The Window into Practical Reality 5.4 illustrates how a large company prepares its leadership to achieve conflict resolution.

Another interesting study looked at departments in colleges and the management models that were followed. In the bureaucratic model, conflict happens but can be managed with clarifying roles and procedures. In the political model, conflict is viewed as inevitable and normal. While in the collegial model, conflict is perceived as abnormal and in need of elimination. The anarchical model is often seen when resources become scarce and management has to make difficult decisions, which leads to widespread conflicts. The type and degree of conflict tended to determine the management style applied, and most of the department chairs did not consistently follow a single conflict management style (Stanley and Algert 2007).

Organizations generally develop acceptable conflict management styles. However, the appointment of new managers can result in change in the conflict management styles used. In recent years, we have seen a number of CEOs appointed to “clean house.” For instance, Jack Welch, CEO at General Electric, fired the bottom 10 percent of managers every year based on their performance appraisals. Over the long term, you may ask whether this is the correct management style, considering where the corporation is today.

Cultural Elements in Conflict

Cultural distance can affect which channels are acceptable to use between a receiver and a sender. Managers of global operations quickly learn that the channels that work at home often do not work abroad due to the cultural distance between the dyads. Differences in personal constructs of belief systems and attitudes require the acceptance of a global mindset. One definition of a global mindset is

. . . the ability to develop and interpret criteria for personal and business performance that are independent from the assumptions of a single country, culture, or context: and to implement those criteria appropriately in different countries, cultures, and contexts. (Maznevski and Lane 2004, p. 4)

Accomplishing this global mindset is often easier said than done because gaps in technology, business strategy, and economics compound the challenge. Elements that affect cultural distance include language, geographical distance, differences in religion, and social structure. Training both employees and managers who will work well interculturally has been very successful in many organizations. Learning what is different between cultures, then watching out for those trouble spots, gives a global manager an advantage over the untrained manager.

A number of factors affect global communication strategies. For instance, a cosmopolitan orientation refers to that managers’ concern with issues and events in the world. Cognitive world orientation is the ability to differentiate between environmental events and elements that exist in various cultures. Cultural intelligence is an aptitude for understanding and dealing with cultural differences. Universalists tend to see the impact of an event beyond their own culture, versus particularists who tend to look only at how an event affects their own group. Even when managers possess global understanding, having supportive networks is imperative to being successful internationally.

Effective conflict management and organizational decision making are needed to deal with individuals and groups in conflict. An organization’s history and hierarchy also control the handling of conflict both inside and outside the organization. The communication pattern in conflict environments is often aggressive, which leads to the breakdown in the relationship. The voice, tone, word choice, and directness of the communication can also lead to conflict. When aggression, incivility, or competing interests have thwarted agreement and have created conflicts among individuals and groups that seem too difficult to resolve, then common goals and interest are essential. Humor, for example, can be an effective tool to reduce tension and enhance communication when applied with discretion during negotiation, mediation, or arbitration. Humor works best when everyone in the group is from the same culture, as what is perceived as humorous in one culture is not necessarily humorous in another culture. Many times, humor involves a play on words which does not translate well.

Laws and administrative principles often govern conflict resolution. Figure 5.2 illustrates the four main categories for adjudicating complex organizational issues that require conflict resolution: laws and organizational rules, negotiation, mediation, and arbitration.

Under the illustrated categories, the rules for resolving conflicts are more formulaic, and the adjudication process will involve a disinterested (unbiased) third party such as a judge, mediator, or arbitrator. Some situations require going through all four types of conflict resolution, and others will only require one of the conflict resolution methods.

Laws and Organizational Rules

Laws are written by a government or the judicial system. What you write and say in conjunction with your job duties can have legal implications both for you personally as well as for the corporation. For example, it is important to realize that even deleted e-mails are traceable, and recorded phone conversations are the norm in many organizations.

In addition to laws that apply, firms often have guidelines on how to write or discuss hiring or firing decisions, claims, contracts, labor negotiations, pricing policies, reference letters, sales letters, warranties, or other information. Company rules may exist for communicating via e-mail and the phone and for using the Internet. For example, some employers have tried to restrict employee use of technology and the computer to business usage only, which in some cases has resulted in employees taking the employer to court.

Arbitrators and courts have upheld employer rules in many cases, relying on stare decisis, the Latin phrase meaning to stand by an earlier decision that creates a precedent. Webster defines stare decisis as “a doctrine or policy of following rules or principles laid down in previous judicial decisions unless they contravene the ordinary principles of justice.” As an example, viewing pornography at work is widely recognized as reason for termination, as there are a number of cases in different states on this issue. Sending sexually harassing e-mail messages is also reason for dismissal. On the other hand, the rights of workers to forward chain e-mails has been upheld; only when employees had been told prior to the offense that the practice was against company policy could they be fired. Hate language is also not permissible in most offices (Lichtash 2004).

The permanence of e-mail chains often wreak havoc on careers. Window into Practical Reality 5.5 illustrates a recent example of the dangers of e-mail.

Communications are considered as owned by the company when they are generated using the company’s computer and e-mail systems. Court cases have established that when a company has notified their employees that systems are being monitored and employees have given their consent, the company can legally use surveillance to monitor the use of such equipment. It is also acceptable for an employer to use a firewall to filter out websites that they deem unacceptable and to block sites that reduce productivity.

Negotiation

Negotiation is a process of give and take to resolve a conflict. Managers negotiate with upper management, subordinates, and other managers for sharing scarce resources, motivating workers to do more, getting more time to finish projects, and working out problems with other corporate departments. If a manager is not successful at negotiating, their department’s productivity can be compromised, as well as the organization’s overall. Failed negotiations can demoralize workers and create a hostile work situation. The ability to network is an essential skill, when a manager needs to negotiate a solution to a given situation. New managers can assist in developing networks through mentoring. A mentor helps the mentee learn the ropes of the business and become familiar with who has the power to help achieve goals. When you negotiate as a manager, you must balance what is good for the corporation with what is good for your workers and yourself. If management assigns you additional work, you as the manager may need to negotiate if your unit can do the work effectively or not, if it will require overtime, if you will need to add additional personnel, or if you need additional funds.

When managers do not choose to negotiate with others in the firm, they make a choice to avoid the situation, comply with the situation, or co-opt and try to control the situation. While avoiding a situation may work for little problems, it generally allows major situations to worsen. Complying with the situation implies that the manager feels that the situation is not major and not worth the effort involved in changing the mindset of others. Attempts to co-opt and control the situation result when the manager feels he or she knows the best solution and wants others to acquiesce.

When choosing to negotiate, the manager may merely communicate information, or attempt to engage the other side in a conversation. Once a manager decides what the outcomes should be, there is a tendency to communicate the information to the other party, rather than engaging people in a conversation and selling the idea. Smythe (2007) found that engaging employees increased company focus, performance, staff retention, morale, and profitability. Opening up decision making to include as many employees as is feasible in the process, as opposed to using a top–down model of decision making, can be very profitable for a firm. While the best negotiation model is a win–win strategy, sometimes that is not possible. Managers are continually negotiating salaries, budget increases or decreases, office space, technology usage, and various other operating funds. There may be limits to what they can offer or what they can pay for materials and maintain a positive bottom line. Window into Practical Reality 5.6 provides an example of negotiations at work.

Many negotiation errors are due to unthinking, rude, symbolic, and nonverbal cues associated with the behaviors of one or both of the parties involved in the negotiation. Table 5.1 illustrates commonly made errors during negotiation (Cellich 1997). These behaviors can have really costly consequences, as illustrated in Table 5.1.

Effective negotiators avoid these common mistakes, emphasize areas of agreement, and consider the long-term consequences of their decisions. Before going into a negotiation situation, it is important for managers to have a plan prepared from the facts as they know them, and then be willing to change their stance as new information surfaces. Conflict naturally includes a certain amount of ambiguity, adaptability, and apprehension. The ability to handle conflict successfully is the difference between a good leader and a placeholder.

Mediation

Mediators provide an unbiased and ethical point of view between two differing opinions. These individuals listen to both sides, while showing compassion, providing impartial leadership, and guiding the parties to a solution. They help develop a solution that everyone can agree upon. Unless they develop a solution viewed as successful by all parties, the problem will return. A mediator’s job is more than settling the case or problem; it is satisfying the parties that they have a fair decision. In successful mediation, both parties feel that the mediator is fair, respectful, and sensitive during the process.

Personality traits such as extraversion and agreeableness may be the bases of a mediator’s success. Extraversion means that the person is talkative, sociable, and enjoys people. Agreeableness is the mediator’s ability to be altruistic and cooperative. A mediator who is positive will find the participants to be more agreeable than one who is negative.

Teams within an organization base mediation on their identity within the organization and trust of their peers. When team members identify with the team, they are part of the “in-group” and view themselves positively. The team members will also be motivated to protect their group. If any members are not part of the in-group, then they are part of the “out-group,” which reduces the performance of the team (Han and Harms 2010).

Social conflict can be categorized as either relationship conflict or task conflict. Relationship conflict being the conflict among the individuals of the group and task conflict refers to the disagreement over the solution of an issue. While relationship conflict can reduce or negate a team’s ability to solve a task, a task conflict can actually lead to a better solution if properly mediated. The more transparent communication is, the less likelihood there will be for task or relationship conflict.

Han and Harms (2010) found that trust mediated the relationship between team identification and team conflict. When trust is broken, mediation is needed. While professional mediators can be called in, managers often act as mediators. In the mediating role, the manager listens to both parties’ stories, shows interest in all sides, provides leadership to the situation, immediately deescalates the conflict, assures everyone of a fair process, guides the parties as necessary, assists the parties with their decisions pertaining to the situation, acts as a clearing house for information, discusses offers and counteroffers with the parties, is a reality check for all involved, and helps to reestablish an equilibrium (Noll 2009). The role of a mediator is important because if either or both parties feel slighted in anyway, the matter could go to court. The manager acting as mediator cannot appear threatening to the parties in any way. Much of what a mediator does is to help the people involved to control their emotions, discuss what has happened, and determine what needs to happen to correct the situation. Communication skills are paramount in a mediation session, and addressing the situation as soon as possible is always important rather than thinking it will go away.

Mediators who are part of the firm must also live with the decisions reached. If the problem is not truly resolved, the manager will be mediating again on the same problem. After completing the mediation, the manager should follow-up to see that the parties are in fact satisfied with the decisions. The greater the trust and the higher the quality of information that is shared, the more likely the parties will have a lasting resolution to their problems.

Arbitration

Arbitration is done by an outside person who is hired to resolve the situation; the arbitrator’s decision is binding on both parties. The arbitrator decides how the conflict arbitration will proceed. An arbitrator will (1) issue a comprehensive scheduling order which will have all of the deadlines for both sides; (2) set down the claims, damages, counterclaims, and defenses; and (3) establish discovery time limits (Chambers 2009).

Arbitration is normally the last chance to find a solution to a problem without legal action. However, arbitration does not always prevent a matter from going to court. In general, an arbitration case is resolved in 8 months, while a court case may go on for 2 years. Employees generally fare better with arbitrators than with the courts in terms of settlements. Arbitration offers numerous advantages over litigation in court. With arbitration, the two sides have more control over the process than they do with litigation. Arbitration generally does not cost as much, is more flexible, gives the sides choices, provides a more level playing field for both sides, and allows each side some self-determination. The main difference between arbitration and litigation is who makes the decision. During litigation, trial attorneys decide where to file, and a judge is automatically assigned. During arbitration the sides decide on the number of arbitrators and their qualifications. Arbitrators follow the rules of the Federal Arbitration Act, and arbitration is more confidential than transactions in courts of law which tend to be public. While in court you can be held in contempt for failure to appear, that is not so in arbitration though you still must present your burden of proof just as in court. There is less paperwork involved with arbitration than with litigation.

Steps to Successful Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution involves a number of steps, as illustrated in Table 5.2.

The process of observing, analyzing, and evaluating must be completed for each step shown in Table 5.2. Following the steps will help you assure a win–win solution to the conflict. While resolving conflict requires a significant investment of time and energy, the resources are well spent when a satisfactory solution is reached.

Summary

Conflicts result when opposing options confront an individual. Conflict can occur on two levels: the psychological and the social. Psychological conflict occurs within the individual, and social conflict occurs between individuals or groups. Hysteria can occur when groupthink is unfettered, leading to an out-of-control organization and costly tort lawsuits against the organization. The two best methods to avoid groupthink are devil’s advocacy and dialectic inquiry. The three levels of MC required to resolve conflict are intrapersonal communication, interpersonal communication, and group communication.

Successful management of conflict within a firm is dependent upon the skills of its leaders. Conflict is not always negative, since creative ideas can emerge from it. When management uses richer channels of communication, employees are more likely to understand what they need to do. Responses to conflict can include things about conflict which can include avoidance, distributive, or integrative styles of communication, and the use of these styles tends to be related to the degree of formality of the organization.

Socialization creates automatic triggers for how we respond to others. These triggers are based on rules that govern our responses, including the reciprocity rule, the expensive equal good rule, and the commitment and consistency rule. Managing conflict is greatly influenced by cultural differences. Managing people with various cultural orientations requires a universalist view.

Managers are often called upon to act as mediators for internal problems. In arbitration, someone from outside of the firm conducts the process, and the arbitrator’s decision is binding on all the parties.

Laws, negotiation, mediation, and arbitration aid in providing a backdrop of trust necessary for solving conflicts in the workplace. Managers, as well as the parties involved, have to live with the decisions reached. If the problem is not truly resolved, the manager will continue to have to work on the problem in the future. Training managers in conflict resolution is a worthwhile investment for firms.