Conflicts occur whenever disagreements exist in a social situation over issues of substance and/or emotional antagonisms.There are three management conflict styles that one can use in solving conflicts. These are the cooperative, assertive and a compromise between the two.
Under the cooperative style, the desire is to satisfy the other party’s needs and concerns. Assertiveness is the desire to satisfy one’s own needs and concerns.With my case, I compromise between the two optimal styles i.e. I strike a balance between the cooperative and the assertive styles. I achieve this through the following three examples/approaches.
- sacrifice: I sometimes sacrifice the need to satisfy part of my goals for another person. At the same time, I persuade the other party to abandon part of his/her goals in order to reach into a compromise situation.
- partial accommodating/smoothing and non-avoidance: Accomodating is being co-operative but unassertive, while avoidance is being uncooperative and unassertive. By using my compromising approach, I tend to strike a balance between the two. As much as I may want to create a good relationship with the other party through satisfying his/her concerns (smoothing), I do not neglect my interests in totality. At least he/she should also put into his/her contemplation, my own interests and/or goals. In the end, the situation shall be that one of Loose-Loose.2).
- Partial collaboration and competition (force): As much as I feel that there shall be a Win-win situation through collaboration (problem solving), I also feel that I should have a bigger share of the ‘winning cake/share’. I therefore incorporate some little force (or power, if I posses one) to force through my ideologies. As the problem is being resolved, taking care of the other party’s interests, I tend to ensure that my own goals predominate as the resolution process progresses.
REFERENCE
- James S O’Rourke, Management Communication, A case analysis approach
