Dealing With Conflict

Humans generally like to stick with what they know. Whether it is because they are scared of the unknown or like the way things are at the time, humans are generally resist to messing up the flow. This results in people trying to resist the natural progression of conflict. They don’t want to embrace conflict because they don’t like when things become unpredictable, as they often do when conflict arises.

People also avoid conflict because they want to be liked by the people surrounding them and don’t want to appear to have too many bad qualities. But as Margaret Heffernan debated in the Ted Talk, conflict is not a bad thing. Inviting conflict encourages group/team members to express what they think and opens the door to debate.This debate has the possibility to point out any flaws in the plan and smooth these flaws out.

While groups should always encourage conflict, they must also be prepared to handle the conflict once it is started. Each of the 5 conflict-handling styles discussed in class have benefits and disadvantages in my opinion. The avoiding style is by far the easiest way to handle conflict. Many times I have chosen to ignore conflict in a group simply because I didn’t care enough to confront it. While easy, the avoiding style can lead to the conflict progressively growing, until it gets to the point of not being able to be ignore. At that point it is a lot more difficult to handle the situation.

The dominating style is good because the person is able to get what they want out of the situation, but it could be at the cost of someone else in the group. This may lead to conflict in itself.

In comparison, the obliging handling style, or complying with others wishes but not one’s own, will mostly successfully avoid conflict. Although while it may avoid conflict, ignoring one’s own wishes comes with price, often times leading to feelings of resentment towards the group.

Integrating is said to be the best handling style. While there is no denying that it is theoretically the best style to use, it by no means is an easy style to achieve. In the real world, finding a solution that makes everybody happy is next to impossible. Everybody has different opinions and values and trying to find a solution that accounts for everyone’s view is almost not worth the effort.

Personally I find the compromising handling style to be the most effective way to handle conflict. It allows for both sides to keep what is most important to them, and while they may need to give up something else,  in the long run it turns out to be for the best.