1. Chapter 17: Communication & Interpersonal Skills Conflict

2. Management Fundamentals - Chapter 17 2 Conflict  Conflict.  A disagreement between people on:  Substantive issues regarding goals and tasks, allocation of resources, distribution of rewards, policies and procedures, and job assignments.  Emotional issues arising from feelings of anger, distrust, dislike, fear, and resentment, as well as personality clashes.  Conflict that is well managed can help promote creativity and high performance.

3. Management Fundamentals - Chapter 17 3 Conflict  Functional conflict.  Moderately intense conflict.  Constructive and stimulates people toward greater work efforts, cooperation, and creativity.  Dysfunctional conflict.  Low-intensity and very high-intensity conflict.  Destructive and hurts task performance.

4. Management Fundamentals - Chapter 17 4 Figure 17.4 The relationship between conflict and performance.

5. Management Fundamentals - Chapter 17 5 Conflict  Causes of conflict:  Role ambiguities (unclear expectations)  Resource scarcities (sharing/competing for resources)  Task interdependencies (dependency on the performance of others)  Competing objectives (individuals/groups working against one another)  Structural differentiation (individual characteristics could lead to incompatible approaches)  Unresolved prior conflicts (unsettled disputes)

6. Management Fundamentals - Chapter 17 6 Conflict  Structural approaches for resolving conflicts:  Appealing to superordinate goals (focus attention on one mutually desirable goal).  Making more resources available.  Changing the people (replace/transfer one or more of individuals involved in conflict).  Altering the physical environment (rearrange work space to minimize contact between conflicting individuals).

7. Management Fundamentals - Chapter 17 7 Conflict  Integrative devices for resolving conflicts:  Using liaison personnel, special task forces  Changing reward systems.  Changing policies and procedures.  Training in interpersonal skills.

8. Management Fundamentals - Chapter 17 8 Conflict  People’s conflict management styles reflect different combinations of cooperative and assertive behavior.  Cooperativeness is the desire to satisfy the other party’s needs and concerns.  Assertiveness is the desire to satisfy one’s own needs and concerns.

9. Management Fundamentals - Chapter 17 9 Conflict  Conflict management styles:  Avoidance (withdrawal).  Uncooperative and unassertive.  Accommodation (smoothing).  Cooperative and assertive.  Competition (authoritative command).  Uncooperative and assertive.  Compromise.  Moderately cooperative and assertive.  Collaboration (problem solving).  Cooperative and assertive.

10. Management Fundamentals - Chapter 17 10 Figure 17.5 Alternative conflict management styles.

11. Management Fundamentals - Chapter 17 11 Conflict  Conflict management styles:  Lose-lose conflict – avoidance or accommodation.  No one achieves true desires, underlying issue remains  Pretending conflict doesn’t exist (avoidance) or only focusing on areas of agreement (accommodation).  Win-lose conflict – competing or compromising.  One party wins through domination (competing) or each party makes trade-offs (compromising).  Win-win conflict - collaborating.  Issues resolved with solutions that are of mutual benefit.