SPC 3425- Evaluation

Welcome to Chapter 12 of In Mixed Company! This chapter discusses conflict management and negotiation. Learning how to manage conflict and negotiate in small groups is an invaluable skill, one you will most certainly use in the workplace in the future. We’ll talk about what conflict is, examine styles of conflict management, and cover the use of negotiation in small groups.

Before we discuss types of conflict management, we first need to define conflict. Conflict “is the expressed struggle of interconnected parties who perceive incompatible goals and interference from each other in attaining those goals.” Without each of these components, we don’t have conflict. Let’s break down the definition. A conflict must have an expressed struggle. If you feel tension with people but don’t express that, there is no conflict. Conflict, must also have interconnected parties, which means that parties’ actions affect others. These interconnected parties must also perceive incompatible goals (i.e. Party A wants one thing, Party B wants another). Last, conflict must include interference that prevents one or more parties from achieving their goals (Party A stops Party B from reaching their goals so A can reach its goals).

When we hear the word “conflict,” we might immediately think of it as a negative thing. However, conflict can be constructive. When there are small amounts of conflict within a group that is managed well, conflict can help the group grow stronger. On the other hand, when conflict isn’t managed and gets out of control, it can cause major problems for small groups. Destructive conflict includes the following: “dominating, escalating, retaliating, competing, acting defensively, and inflexibly” as opposed to constructive conflict, which includes the following: “We-oriented, de-escalating, cooperative, supportive, and flexible communication patterns,” according to your text.

When conflict is present, each person has a preferred style of dealing with it. There are five styles of conflict management, each of which has its pros and cons: collaborating, accommodating, compromising, avoiding, and competing. These styles have task and social dimensions, similar to other small group concepts we’ve covered this semester. Another way to think about conflict management styles is on a continuum of concern for self and concern for others. I’ve included a visual of the five styles below.

Let’s start by describing the collaborating style, which is a basic approach to problem solving. People try to address conflict by working together and trying to find a solution that pleases everyone involved. The collaborating style has high concern for task and social dimensions. It includes confrontation, integration, and smoothing behaviors. Confrontation occurs when group members directly address conflict. Integration occurs when people have to be creative and “think outside the box” when addressing conflict. Smoothing occurs when people are heated about conflict and it is an attempt to calm people down in order to successfully solve the problem. Collaborating has many positives but one of the negatives is that it is very time consuming and requires people that are competent communicators.

The second conflict management style is accommodating, or yielding, which occurs when someone involved in conflict allows the other party to “get their way.” This style favors personal relationships over tasks. Sometimes yielding takes place because people see that it is beneficial to the group process, whereas other times it occurs because people have given up or aren’t invested.

Next, we have compromising, which can be thought of as a “lose-lose” style of conflict management because both parties have to give up something they want in order to reach a solution. This means that neither party will be totally satisfied with the outcome. The compromising style is “middle of the road” for task and social dimensions.

The fourth style is avoiding, or withdrawing. Those who withdraw tend to hate conflict and the thought of confronting someone makes them very uncomfortable. Those who avoid might also be in low power positions. Avoiders have low concern for task and social dimensions. Avoiding can be productive when it’s not worth confrontation in a conflict situation but avoiding is not typically productive.

The last style is competing, which occurs when one party is aggressive and is determined to win over the other. This style has high concern for task and very low for social. Some of the concepts here might remind you of hypercompetitiveness that we discussed earlier this semester.

Although certain styles like collaborating, compromising, or accommodating might seem like the more desirable styles of conflict management in most situations, there is no one style that works for every conflict situation. Each has its benefits and challenges. Generally speaking, avoiding and competing are not productive, but in some cases, might be the best style to choose. There are several factors that can help us decide which conflict management style to use, such as whether the issue is complex or simple, how much parties have communicated on the conflict issue/s, how much time the parties have to work through the conflict, issue significance, the length and depth of relationships between the parties, and power differentials between the parties.

As you can see, context, or the conflict situation, heavily affects the type of style people might use. There are a few situational factors to keep in mind, including task, relational, and value. As we’ve discussed previously, the task factor has to do with completing work. However, when there is conflict, groups need to examine whether the task is a routine one (there is a clear set of steps followed that are unlikely to change) or a nonroutine task (there is some uncertainty about how to address it and requires problem solving). In terms of the social aspect of conflict, we determine which style to use based on our relationships with the group members. For example, if there is one group member who is egotistical, it might not even be worth confronting the person because they are not likely to change the way they behave. Or perhaps it’s necessary that you confront them because they are derailing the rest of the group. It’s important to note that sometimes conflict can be blurred across the task and relational dimensions. For example, a conflict can begin as one that is related to a task but can morph into a conflict about relationships. Value conflicts have to do with people’s moral compass. Our values are the foundational beliefs we hold on what is right and wrong. It is difficult to navigate value conflicts because it is unlikely we will change our values.

As we’ve noted in several chapters, culture also plays a role in how conflict is managed. Our culture prescribes certain acceptable behaviors for addressing conflict. For example, in some cultures, confrontation is not an acceptable form of conflict management and avoiding might be more acceptable.

Now that we’ve covered conflict management, let’s move to negotiation, which is how we make decisions when dealing with conflict. One negotiation strategy is positional bargaining, which occurs when people take certain positions on an issue and go back and forth on what they will and will not make concessions on until a solution is mutually reached by both parties. Hard bargainers are more likely to try to exert their dominance or power over others and want to win. Sometimes the hard bargaining approach can be detrimental to the negotiation process because people can be perceived as wanting to steamroll others. However, when a party is fair in their approach to hard bargaining, the outcome can be positive. Soft bargainers may make concessions on an issue even if they don’t want to because they want to preserve their social relationship with the other party.

Another approach to negotiation is principled negotiation, which has four major elements: “separate the people from the problem, focus on interests, not positions, generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do, and insist that the result be based on some objective standards,” according to your text. It takes competent communicators to address these elements properly. You may find that the other party in principled negotiation wants to be more of a hard bargainer so it’s important to remain constructive and keep both parties’ interests in mind. As a negotiator, you should also have a BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement), which is what you can do if the negotiation does not produce an agreement. You can think of this as your “bottom line” in a negotiation.

People can become heated during negotiations and you may find that you or another party has issues with anger. Anger can be constructive or destructive depending on intensity and duration. Anger that lasts a long time and is very intense can be destructive. You can manage your anger by talking yourself down, actively listening, and redirecting your anger temporarily (i.e. focus on something else and allow yourself to calm down). Managing others’ anger can be tricky but can be done by not responding in kind (i.e. when they get louder, we get softer), recognizing the other party’s feelings as valid, asking questions to fully understand the source and nature of the anger, and disengaging, among others.

That wraps up Chapter 12! Make sure to read the chapter and take notes on important information, review this week’s module, and complete the assignment/s. Thanks for reading!

Dr. Reed