4. What is Conflict?
S The interaction of interdependent people who
perceive incompatibility and the possible
interference from others as a result of that
incompatibility
S In other words, conflict is a real or perceived
disagreement that has the possibility of ending
in argument
5. Conflict: Good or Bad?
Encourages new thinking
Raises questions
Builds relationships
Opens minds
6. Conflict: Good or Bad?
Higher anxiety
Unhealthy competition
High employee turnover
Low morale
Increased worker complaints
Absenteeism
Low productivity
Sabotage
15. Dissent
How to Promote Articulated Dissent
Develop a culture of trust and respect
Strive to receive and use input wherever possible
Share in decision making
Encourage risk taking
Engage in conversations about needed change
Promote independent thinking
20. Explain what mediation is
Discuss ground rules (such as
no interrupting)
Set a positive tone
Ask all parties to tell their
perspective of the conflict
Ask non-judgmental questions
Take notes on the underlying
interests of both parties
Summarize interests
Reframe positional statements
Acknowledge feelings
Make a list of all underlying
interests (maybe write them
out on a white board)
Have parties agree on the
order of importance of issues
Find common interests
Clarify all of the issues
Reframe if necessary
Brainstorm solutions
• Are these ideas possible? (reality
testing)
Write down the agreement that
has been made
Read the agreement for all
parties to validate
Obtain all external approvals if
necessary
Have all parties sign the
agreement
Steps of Mediation
The Wilmington Hammerheads FC is a professional soccer club competing in the United Soccer League (USL). As a professional organization, high standards of practice are expected both on and off the field
This being said, conflict is bound to arise in any organization, professional or not. Due to the fact that conflict is unavoidable, it is of the utmost importance that all managers, and staff know how prevent, react, and transform in the face of conflict.
Sport organizations are very unique. They attract a myriad of individuals with different cultural backgrounds and levels of education spanning all ages.
While workdays may look similar to other businesses, there is one major difference: the countless hours spent with your co-workers outside of the office
. Sponsorship events, game days, watch parties, and player appearances are just a few of the places one will see colleagues outside of the office on a weekly basis. With this being the case, not only are problems more likely to occur, it is even more imperative to resolve them quickly. This conflict resolution manual is intended to help aid in both preventing and de-escalating conflict.
Most management with in the organization, have paid their dues, succeeded at their jobs, and have gained their titles through hard work and dedication. This being the case, most of them have never been formally trained as a manager, let alone in conflict resolution. This manual is aimed at these individuals and gives a rudimentary over view of conflict resolution.
Here I will give you a brief overview of the manual and how It is intended to work.
In fact, there are several positives to conflict in an organization:
Encourages new thinking
Raises questions
Builds relationships
and
Opens minds
Conflict itself isn’t always the problem. Often, it’s how people respond in the face of conflict. Usually it is when issues remain unresolved, that they can have a negative impact on the workplace
These unresolved issues can lead to a lot of negativity and downright ugly behavior, such as:
Higher anxiety
Unhealthy competition
High employee turnover
Low morale
Increased worker complaints
Absenteeism
Low productivity
Sabotage
With in the rest of this section of the manual, we go on to learn about what causes conflict, destructive patterns that aid in conflict escalation, and the 5 different conflict styles
We also take a look at difference between defensive and supportive communication, making sure to provide examples of each
At the end of each section the reader is presented with various role plays and questions intended to review the information as well as practice putting it to use.
Our next section dives into power and conflict. Here we discover distributive vs. integrative power orientations, as well as power currencies, and the concept of power over vs. power with.
In our next very important section we cover the 3 different types of organizational dissent and express the positive outcomes of articulated dissent.
After our questions on dissent we move our discussion to the topic of identity & face. Here we examine how to support face, what is face threat, interest based vs. identity based conflict, as well as the triadic theory of conflict transformation.
As I mentioned before, sports organizations attract a myriad of people spanning all ages and coming from many different backgrounds. For this reason a section on culture and conflict has been included in this manual. With in this section we explore several cultural dimensions and well as the different levels of intercultural orientation.
As we progress through the manual we look at several more topics including mediation
, emotion
, and managing conflict.
Our last informational section discusses implementing a dispute system design. A provisional system is included in the manual, but the importance of receiving employee input is highly stressed. For the reason we go into helpful tips for creating your own dispute system.
At the very end we have included a full length case study and questions in order to create a cumulative review for the reader.
We ultimately hope that this conflict resolution manual will help to educated the management within the Wilmington Hammerheads FC organization and will help them to prevent, react, and transform in the face of conflict.