I have better things to do with my time than to baby-sit with a bunch of feuding children,” complains one manager. “It seems that someone is always mad at someone else, feuding with someone else, or refusing to work with him or her. What is this all about anyway?”
It is all about conflict, a normal and natural part of our workplace and personal lives. Conflict can be helpful in making necessary changes within the home or work environment. However, unresolved conflict can result in feelings of dissatisfaction, unhappiness, hopelessness, depression, and other emotions. It can result in behaviors such as physical or emotional withdrawal, resignation from jobs, dissolution of personal relations, aggression, and even violence.
Communication is both the cause of and the remedy for conflict. Understanding how to effectively communicate, and how to satisfactorily resolve disputes, can lead to a happier, more productive life. Communication and conflict resolution skills must be learned. Most often, poor communication and conflict resolution styles must be corrected and replaced with approaches that are more conducive to creating peace in the workplace and at home.
The workplace setting is fertile breeding ground for conflicts because of the dynamics and interdependency of the employee-to-employee, customer-to-employee, and employee-to-outside vendor relationships. Recognizing and addressing the factors that give rise to the potential for conflict can have a positive impact on workplace and the productivity in the workplace.
It is all about conflict in the workplace. Is it avoidable? Is it preventable? Is it necessary? The answer to all of these questions is “yes.”
Most people fear conflict and see it as something to avoid. In fact, conflict is a normal and natural part of our lives, both professionally and personally. Conflict in the right setting, handled in the right way, can be beneficial. It is through conflict that an awareness of the need for some necessary changes can be made – at work and at home.