Negotiation and Conflict Management - Case Study Example

Name: Professor: Institution: Course: Date: Executive summary Conflict can be defined as a disagreement between two or more individuals or groups, with each individual or group trying to gain acceptance of its views or objective over others. The conflict situation between the chef and the Assistant Chef falls under personal conflict. Personal conflict is divided into two parts, namely; intra-personal and inter-personal conflicts. In this case, inter-personal was applied since the conflicts were between parties. The factors responsible for this interpersonal conflict are competition, stereotype, different values and exploitive nature of human beings. For the boss of the local restaurant to manage these conflicts effectively the following strategies were recommended; avoiding, accommodating, competing, compromising and collaborating conflicts. Table of Content 1.0 Introduction 4 2.0 Conflict situation 5 3.0 Types of conflicts 6 4.0 Recommended strategies to resolve the conflict 9 4.1 Avoiding 9 4.2 Accommodating 9 4.3 Competing 10 4.4 Compromising 10 4.5 Collaborating 10 5.0 Ways of implementing the strategies 11 5.1 Establishing common goal 11 5.2 Reducing interdependence 11 5.3 Exchange of personnel 11 6.0 Conclusion 12 1.0 Introduction Conflict is an unavoidable aspect of everyday life. It can be defined in many ways and can be considered as an expression of hostility, antagonism, rivalry, negative attitudes and misunderstanding. It is also associated with situations that involve contradictory or irreconcilable interest between two opposing groups. Singh (2008) define conflict as, “the struggle between incompatible or struggling needs, wishes, ideas, interests or people. Conflict arises when individuals or groups encounter goals that both parties cannot obtain satisfactorily.” According to Jeanty (2011), it can be defined as a disagreement between two or more individuals or groups, with each individual or group trying to gain acceptance of its views or objective over others. Conflicts arise from many sources that can be classified in many ways. For example, personal and organizational role or source, resource, goal and structural are sources of conflict. Alper (2000) has proposed seven main sources of inter-personal and inter-group conflict, namely; concern for self, different goals, resource issues, power issues, different ideologies, varied norms and relationship. Conflict may emerge between two or more individuals who disagree on a matter that threatens their respective needs, values or goals. How the parties in a disagreement view this threat determines to a great extend how heated the conflict can become. With only so many opportunities and resources available within any social setting, it’s not uncommon for conflicts to arise. In contrast, when handled effectively, conflict may result to personal growth and create the change needed to improve interpersonal relations overall (Borisoff & Victor, 1999). The main source of conflict is when an individual perceive someone or something as a threat to some area of his well being. These threats trigger psychological or emotional responses and when this happens, his ability to view and approach the situation in an objective manner is hampered which makes it seem like there is a limited number of solutions to a particular problem (Bhatti, 2014). This essay will focus on the type of conflict, the players in the conflict and their role, the major issues in the conflict, strategies that will be most appropriate for the effective management of this conflict and how these strategies will be implemented 2.0 Conflict situation The conflict situation that is being analyzed is between an assistant chef and a chef in an Australian local hotel. The head chef is a 70 year old Greek lady and a 25 year-old lady who is the assistant chef. There are several conflicts between the one and the major one being the age difference and the cultural difference. The assistant chef feels that the chef is old fashioned and is not willing to change to easier and better ways of cooking that have been invented and which she has learnt in the college recently. She sometimes leaves things half done and expects that her assistant will do things exactly the way she would have done them allowing no room for innovation. There is also conflict between the two due to cultural difference between the two. The chef is Greek and the assistant chef is French. The differences in culture always bring conflict between the two as each culture has different ways of doing things. As a result of culture difference, there is also conflict due to the language barrier since the assistant chef is not very good in English which leads to communication problems between the two. This conflict has resulted in strained relationship between the two and sometimes the conflict goes physical when the chef physically assault and insult the assistant chef in front of the other workers in the kitchen. This has led to conflicts even with the other employees. 3.0 Types of conflict Consador (2014), argue that manager spend at least twenty percent of their time in dealing with conflict issues. Therefore, it is very important for managers to understand the types of conflict they dealing with so that they can know the techniques to deal with the conflict in each type of category. Since our main purpose is to understand and manage conflict in companies, we will limit the level of conflict to personal level, group level and organization level (Consador, 2014). Therefore, conflicts can be classified as: The conflict situation in this case falls under personal conflict. Personal conflict can be divided into two parts, namely; intra-personal and inter-personal conflicts. According to (Consador, 2014), intra-personal conflict occurs within an individual. It can develop out of his own ideas, thoughts, values, predispositions and emotions. This conflict occurs when an individual argue with himself about something. The management should keep in mind that all employees have conflict within themselves. This conflict arise within an employee whenever his/her motives and drives are blocked or when he/she is confronted with competing goals and roles and he is unable to take decision. Conflicts in individuals are basically caused by unacceptability, incomparability and uncertainty. Normally, individual has a number of competing roles and goals. Therefore, an individual experiences three types of conflict within himself, which include; frustration, goal conflict and role conflict and may result to aggression, withdrawal, fixation and compromise. The assistant chef is experiencing intrapersonal conflict whereby she has her own goals that she would like to achieve by doing things her own way but she also have to do the chef’s way even though she know that there is a better way. She feels frustrated and unaccepted due to goal conflict and role conflict. This has left her feeling withdrawn, unaccepted and fixed between what her boss want even though she feels there is a better way and expressing what she wants. This has left her feeling withdrawn, fixed between what the Chef want even though she feels there is a better way and expressing what she wants. Inter-personal conflict occurs when an individual is in conflict with other individuals. This is viewed as a major level of conflict and can occur between siblings, spouses, co-workers, neighbors and roommates (Consador, 2014). This type of conflict is characterized by people not liking one another or not agreeing with one another, pointing out the weakness of other person, expression of hostility towards one other and criticism. In the conflict situation above, there is an interpersonal conflict between the chef and the assistant chef. The assistant chef does not agree with how the chef does her work. She feels she is old fashioned and is not ready to embrace change and adopt easier and better ways of doing the same tasks. The chef on the other hand feels she has been in business for a relatively long time and therefore she knows better than anybody else. She feels the assistant chef should just watch and follow all the instructions to the letter. The chef feels the assistant chef does not respect her and she is hard headed and does not like to follow instructions. Factors which are responsible for inter-personal conflict could be differing culture, exploitive nature of human beings, competition and stereotype behaviour (Lewicki et al, 2007). A competing environment occurs in a company where competence is rewarded and workers who are able to show results are given more attention and in such environment, every time an individual gets rewarded it creates dissatisfaction among others. Other experiences a feeling of dissatisfaction because their self respect is challenged (Lewicki et al, 2007). From the conflict situation above, there is a great likelihood that the Chef could be feeling threatened by the assistant chef’s qualification and skills. She is a young graduate fresh from college with new skills and better ways of doing task. It is probably the reason she does not want her to try out better ways of carrying out tasks since if they are proved to be better and more efficient, they boss may recommend that they are adopted and the assistant chef will take credit for that, get rewarded and probably be promoted to a Chief chef. Individuals working in a company may have different values, preferences, cultural background and beliefs (Lewicki et al, 2007). In the conflict situation between the Chef and the Assistant Chef, the two are from two different cultural backgrounds. The Chef is a Greek lady while the Assistant Chef is a French lady. The two have diverse cultural backgrounds which have resulted to inter-cultural conflict which is experienced as a result of emotional frustration arising from perceived incompatibilities over values, norms and other behaviours (Bulow&Kumar,2011), Sharp judgment and stereotyping lead people to evaluate others first and form opinions of them through hurried judgments. These types of perception distortions lead people to behave in biased ways towards each other resulting in conflicts (Lewicki et al, 2007). The Chef has a stereotype that young people cannot teach old people how to do things. She therefore does not give any space for the assistant chef to try and do things her own way or teach her easier ways of carrying out the same tasks. The assistant chef on the other hand has already formed some opinions about the Chef based on her age. She thinks she is old fashioned and too old to still be working as a chef. She feels she has better ways of doing the tasks and the old Chef should just listen to her. Both of them have formed opinions about each other and not taken time to understand each other. 4.0 Recommended Strategies appropriate for the effective management of this conflict Based Ruble & Thomas, (1996) there are five conflict management styles which can be used strategies for managing inter-personal conflicts. They include 4.1 Avoiding Avoiding is a style low on both cooperativeness and assertiveness. It is an intentional decision to take no action on a conflict or decide to stay out of it. When one party to the conflict has no interest in their own goals or in maintaining a good relationship with the other party to the conflict, he or she may decide to withdraw and not deal with the conflict. In some situation, it may be necessary to avoid the conflict (Ruble & Thomas, 1996). For instance, the parties to the conflict in the case of the Chef and Assistant Chef are angry and require sometime to cool down it may be necessary to use avoidance style for some time. 4.2 Accommodating It’s a conflict management style where the party in conflict is concerned about the goal of the party been met but are relatively not concerned with getting their own way (Ruble & Thomas, 1996). Here, the party in conflict is more interested in keeping a good relation and therefore puts the interest of the other party over and above of that of his own and therefore sacrifices his interest so as to resolve the conflict. Some of the situation where this style can be used is when one party finds out is wrong or when one party have way as a way to remind the other party that they also owe them a similar treatment later on (Van de Vliert et al, 1990). In the conflict situation above, the Assistant Chef may decide to accommodate the Chef and do everything as she wants and sacrifice her own. This will ensure a good working relation between them. 4.3 Competing This is an uncooperative but assertive style where the party in conflict wants to satisfy their own interest at the other party expense. This is appropriate when knows he is right (Ruble & Thomas, 1996). This strategy is not recommendable in the conflict situation as this may lead to more strained working relationship 4.4 Compromising It’s a conflict management style where all parties to the conflict are willing to listen to each other and sacrifices their initial expectation for the sake of resolving the conflict (Ruble & Thomas, 1996). It’s an intermediate style, in that there is both assertiveness and cooperativeness since all parties give up something to resolve the conflict. 4.5 Collaborating This is a win-win situation which is high on cooperativeness and assertiveness where the parties are interested in continued and long term relationship and that the concern of all parties is satisfied to the maximum (Thomas, 1996). Collaborative involver a thorough and open discussion of the conflict and coming up with a solution than is satisfactory to all parties. This style is suitable when both are committed to a final solution or there is need to have different perspective to resolve a conflict. This is the most recommendable strategy as it involves negotiation with the two aggrieved party and both of the parties are willing to resolve. The boss can negotiate with the two and come to a middle ground where both of the parties are happy. 5.0 Ways of implementing the above strategies For the boss of the local restaurant to resolve the conflict between the chef and the assistant Chef, he or she will need to implement the above recommended strategies in following ways; 5.1 Establishing common goal One of the main sources of conflict is incompatible goals. To reduce this, the management should come up with common which can be agreed upon by the individual, the group and the organization at large. Both the chef and her assistant must have a common goal and agree on a way to achieve these goals in the best available way for the good of the business. 5.2 Reducing interdependence Another source of conflict is interdependence between line and staff managers and for this reason the less the interdependence among the employees the better. Both the Chef and assistant chef should have distinct duties so that every party decides on how to accomplish their own duties and avoid the situation of the Chef leaving work half done for the assistant to finish. 5.3 Exchange of personnel Another method of reducing confliction is exchange of personnel of the conflicting parties for a specified period of time. This is very similar to role reversal and is aimed at bring more understanding between the parties (Rahim, 2002) Conclusion From above analysis, it is clear that conflicts are inevitable and part of our life. However, all conflicts can be resolved and for us it’s to know how to manage them effectively since unresolved conflicts are a source of trouble. It is therefore important that the chef and the Assistant chef resolve their differences early enough for the good of the business. It’s recommended that they use the above named strategies to resolve the conflict. 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