UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT

Understanding Conflict

Organizational Conflict

Organizational Conflict

Organizational conflict is a clash of opposing actions or ideas and notions among team members and colleagues who work together in an organization. This is caused by the divergence of interests, ethics and value orientations. Conflict arises due to mismatch of formal organizational principles and the actual behavior of team members (Schulz, 2001).

Conflict Origins

One of the basic functions of management is leading. A strong leader knows how to handle diverse members working in the organization. In fact, an exemplary leader would always prefer diversity rather than homogeneity and take the utmost advantage of the diverse work force. It can be said that diversity in an organization can be a reason for the conflicts. However, conflicts also arise when people belonging to different backgrounds, values, experiences, beliefs and perceptions come together at a work place. Conflicts occur on a daily basis when people work in the team on specific projects. Whatever the situation is, the conflict & team management can be considered as a factor that almost always prevalent in every organization (Peter, 2008).

Identification and analysis of a current area of organization

Conflict management has also become a specialized field, and various methods have been devised to deal with the issues. Similarly, the conflict management team of my organization has identified that the use of the diverse team members has increased considerably which in turn exposed the organization and team working on the certain project dangers of conflicts and issues (Herbert, 2005).

Tracing the origins of the conflict back to its inception

Different warning signs showed the management of the organization that the company is heading for trouble. Business started to under-perform, more often than not demonstrated by missing trading targets. This resulted because of internal conflicts and differences. First minor differences appeared among team member, but differences became conflicts when they linger on in a negative way and when they were not managed (Calvin, 1996).

The main parties involved in the conflict

All teams are groups but not all groups are teams. A group is the mere assembly of people brought together while team members come together for a common cause and mission. The key difference between a team and a group is performance. When employees work as a team or work group they are also responsible for the numbers they are contributing and the targets they are achieving. They become responsible for numbers because they monitor and follow output and try to find out ways to improve it. If they fail to achieve targets, work group members can work together to resolve the issues. On the other hand, conflicts and differences emerge if team members are not aware of the mission they are achieving and personal goals or egos take over the organizational goals and mission. This reveals that the main parties that were involved in the conflict were the team and group members (Miller, 1998).

Identification of the primary source of the argument

A poor team betrays hidden agendas with team goals subordinated to them thus breaching the trust which should serve ...