Term Paper on "Mediating / Negotiating Conflict Resolution: Moving"

Term Paper 3 pages (1100 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Mediating / Negotiating

Conflict Resolution: Moving Towards a Collaborative Style

What would it take to move someone else from their routine style of handling conflict, to a collaborative style of resolving conflict? What could you do to move a small group to a collaborative style?

Much of what we engage in on a daily basis is habit, from what we eat, to what we wear, and to also how we manage conflict. Like bad habits, ineffective strategies and personal styles of conflict management can be difficult to change. It is important to remember that workplace conflict may be inevitable, but it is not inevitable that the habit of conflict resolution that has evolved within a specific work team will be the most effective strategy to deal with conflict. Nor is it true that one's personal conflict management style is necessarily effective in all situations. A competitive style of management might be ideal when leading an army or a football team, but not when engaging in a debate with a spouse or child. An avoidant style might allow someone to feel better for a few minutes, but problems rarely go away, and constantly compromising may leave a person feeling cheated, rather than empowered.

One of the most effective strategies of conflict management, particularly for small groups is the collaborative process of conflict management, which tries to equitably meet the needs of all people involved yet reach a better solution that would not have been possible, had not the conflict taken place. In a collaborative style, people can be assertive but still cooperate effectively and acknowledge everyone else's point-of-view has some validity. "This style is useful when you need to bring together a variety of viewpoints to get the best solution; when there have been previous conflicts in the group; or when the situation is too important for a simple trade-off"("Conflict Resolution: Resolving conflict rationally and effectively," Mindtools.com, 2007).

To shift either an individual or a group to a collaborative style requires an analysis of how conflict is currently being managed. In other styles of conflict management, such as the competitive style of conflict management, often there is an organizational culture or an unchallenged but false personal conviction that there must be a clear winner and loser in a dispute. One party must dominate and the other accommodates or acquiesces. A competitor must be reminded that not every conflict is a zero-sum game, and that a more creative and innovative solution can be reached. Collaboration, it also must be stressed, is very different from compromise, a solution in which both parties concede something, and essentially emerge as equal or unequal losers -- collaboration is a form of innovation, a new solution that is unexpected, that might never have been generated had the healthy conflict never taken pace.

Often people do not really understand what real collaboration entails. Teaching good listening skills and establishing an informal procedure of facilitation during a meeting or in interpersonal conflicts can help bring a group to embrace the principles of collaboration, first in action, then in spirit, and teaching an individual such skills enables the person to approach conflict with a less fearful or hostile approach. Good, collaborative listening skills that can be applied by a group or by an individual can be as simple as asking… READ MORE

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