There are different sources of conflicts, which need a different approach to be solved. That is why at first we are going to discuss some of the conflict sources and after illustrate ways of solution. 1. Men and women are socialized differently and thus they have behavior in society, which differs. This can cause problems for both parts of communication and lead to wrong conclusions. Men tend to be more independent and want to indicate their status in the society. They more likely to interrupt the other party to say their opinion, but it is not because of disrespectful attitude to others but because of their need to show power, the confidence they have. In the other side, women listen to a speaker and wait their turn to speak. Also commonly use question sentences or tag questions in their speech, but not because they are not confident but because of their social type. Therefore, the other part should be more concentrated on a content that women say not how they say it to avoid the wrong conclusion.
2. Cognitive Conflict:
A conflict that results from differences in understanding content or task.
3. Affective conflict: A conflict that results from differences in personalities and relationships. If affective conflict remains unstated and unaddressed, they can lead to tension, stress, and decline of productivity in the workplace.
Types of Cognitive conflicts are:
Competing goals - People who collaborate may not always be motivated to achieve the same goal. In fact, it must work not against the business but for it. It is because there will be a competition between different goals and the one, which is better, will win in an idealistic sense. However, in reality, it is a major source of conflicts for different employees of the same business. In spite, the business goal is common for all of the employees they also have personal ones, which can contradict to each other.
Differences of opinion – Even if people can discuss and agree on a goal, they can have a different opinion about how to achieve that goal. Differences of opinion may be resolved by rational decision-making process, which can involve compromise.
Faulty assumptions – People often do not have all necessary information and jump to conclusions or making faulty assumptions. This conflict can be avoided if enough information is shared and communication system works as it supposed to.
Types of Affective conflicts:
Relational issues – Sometimes people do not get well and they do not work to overcome their differences. In work contest, people more prefer to work with those, whose style is very similar to theirs.
Ego issues - threaten to someone’s professional identity or self-image.
The ways to overcome these issues are:
Avoid confrontation- instead of addressing a conflict you may choose to avoid it, deny that problem exists, and change the topic.
Accommodate or give in- It is a good way to accept something, which in reality is not that important for you, but you can use it in the future to insist on a more important question.
You can also compete to win, make a compromise or collaborate to find a solution which will satisfy both parties.
References: Working With Others 2003.
