BMGT 2200 - Ch 10

Conflict escalation often exhibits changes in tactics from light to heavy tactics. Give an example:

(i.e., from persuasive arguments, promises, and efforts to please the other side to threats, power plays, and violence).

List 3 desirable outcomes that can emerge by managing conflict:

1. Agreement 2. Stronger relationships 3. Learning

Bullying is different from other forms of mistreatment or incivility in at least the following three ways:

1. Bullying is often evident to others 2. Bullying affects even those who are NOT bullied 3. Bullying has group-level implications.

List 3 ways to handle intergroup conflict:

1. Contact hypothesis 2. Conflict reduction 3. Creating a psychologically safe climate

List 3/5 tips to help prepare you emotionally for an impending negotiation:

1. Determine the ideal emotions that will best suit your objectives. 2. Manage your emotions and determine what you can do in advance to put yourself in the ideal emotional state. 3. Know what your hot buttons are and manage them appropriately. 4. Use appropriate tactics to keep your balance. 5. Set your emotional goals of how you want to feel when you are finished negotiating (e.g., relieved, satisfied, etc.).

List 3/10 anti-bullying strategies:

1. Develop a workplace bullying policy. 2. Encourage open and respectful communication. 3. Develop clear procedures. 4. Identify and model appropriate behaviors. 5. System for reporting bullying. 6. Identify and resolve conflicts quickly and fairly—avoid escalation. 7. Determine the situations, policies, and behaviors likely to cause or allow bullying to occur. 8. Provide training to employees regarding how to manage conflict. 9. Establish clear consequences for engaging in bullying. 10. Monitor and review employee relationships with particular attention to fairness.

Recommendations for fostering a psychologically safe climate include (list 3):

1. Ensure leaders are inclusive and accessible. 2. Hire and develop employees who are comfortable expressing their own ideas and receptive and constructive to those expressed by others. 3. Celebrate and even reinforce the value of differences between group members and their ideas.

List 3 reasons why people avoid conflict:

1. Fear of rejection or harm 2. Fear of damage or loss of relationships 3. Desire to avoid saying the wrong thing

List 3/6 reasons why conflict may arise:

1. Interdependencies 2. Incompatibilities 3. Overlapping or unclear boundaries 4. Competition over limited resources 5. Unreasonable or unclear organizational polices 6. Organizational complexity

List 3/5 consideration when choosing a negotiation approach:

1. Know who you are (personality matters) 2. Manage outcome expectations. 3. Consider the other person's outcome. 4. Adhere to standards of justice. 5. Remember your reputation.

List 4 negative consequences when work interferes with family:

1. Loss of job satisfaction 2. Intentions to quit 3. Absenteeism 4. Loss in Performance

List 4 negative potential outcomes of work-family conflict:

1. Loss of life satisfaction 2. Increased health problems 3. Increase in likelihood of depression 4. Increase substance use or abuse

List 4 negative consequences when family interferes with work:

1. Loss of marital satisfaction 2. Loss of family satisfaction 3. Family-related strains 4. Loss of family-related performances

List 4 benefits of ADR:

1. Speed 2. Lower cost 3. Confidentiality 4. Potential for win-win resolution

Instead of ignoring conflict, you may be well served to (list 3/6):

1. Stop ignoring a conflict by bringing both sides together to address the issues. 2. Act decisively to improve the outcome. 3. Make the path to resolution open and honest. 4. Use descriptive language instead of evaluative. 5. Make the process a team-building opportunity. 6. Keep the upside in mind.

Escalation of conflict arises when (list 5 reasons):

1. Tactics change 2. Number of issues grows 3. Issues move from specific to general 4. Number of parties grow 5. Goals change

Work-family conflict can take the following two distinct forms:

1. Work interference with family 2. Family interference with work

List 3/6 ways to resolve conflict:

1. Work to eliminate specific negative interactions. 2. Conduct team building. 3. Encourage and facilitate friendships via social events. 4. Foster positive attitudes (e.g. empathy and compassion). 5. Avoid or neutralize negative gossip resolution. 6. Be a role model.

_____ uses faster, more user-friendly methods of dispute resolution instead of traditional, adversarial approaches such as unilateral decision making or litigation.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR)

In this conflict style, there is a passive withdrawal from the problem and active suppression of the issue are common.

Avoiding

In this conflict style, there is a give-and-take approach with a moderate concern for both self and others.

Compromising

_____ has both positive and negative consequences, and thus it is important to avoid the negative side of conflict while also gaining from its positive outcomes.

Conflict

_____ may be either functional or dysfunctional.

Conflict

_____ occurs when one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party.

Conflict

_____ produces undesirable consequences such as absences, avoiding work-related events, quitting, terminations, and project failures.

Conflict

_____ _____ and how teams manage their differences matter, and processes are at least as important as the source of the conflict.

Conflict processes

_____ hypothesis suggests that the more members of different groups interact, the less intergroup conflict they will experience.

Contact

_____ negotiation usually involves a single issue—a "fixed pie"—in which one person gains at the expense of another (win-lose).

Distributive

In this conflict style, there is a high concern for self and low concern for others, often characterized by "I win, you lose" tactics.

Dominating

T or F: Work-family balance begins in the office.

False, it begins at home

T or F: Emotions are not contagious

False: They are, and if you want the other party to be calm, creative, or energetic, then consider showing these emotions yourself.

In this conflict style, interested parties confront the issue and cooperatively identify the problem, generate and weigh alternatives, and select a solution.

Integrating (problem solving)

In this conflict style, people show low concern for themselves and a great concern for others.

Obliging (smoothing)

A panel of trustworthy co-workers hears both sides of a dispute in an informal and confidential meeting and may make binding decisions depending on the company is known as _____.

Peer review

Conflict that raises different opinions regardless of the personal feelings of the managers is known as:

Programmed conflict

Define conflict states

Shared perceptions among team members about the target (i.e., tasks or relationships) and intensity of the conflict.

T or F: An employer's family-supportive philosophy is more important than specific programs.

True

T or F: Avoiding conflict doesn't make it go away; more likely the conflict situation will continue or even escalate.

True

T or F: Balance requires flexibility, which is a key aspect of many efforts to eliminate or reduce conflicts.

True

T or F: Both individuals and their employers can be the root cause of mistreatment at work.

True

T or F: Conflict escalation often exhibits goals changing from "doing well" or resolution to winning and even hurting the other party.

True

T or F: Devil's advocacy alters the usual decision-making process by assigning an individual or group to criticize the proposal and having the critique presented to key decision makers.

True

T or F: Group cohesiveness can turn a "group" into a "team," but excessive levels can impact the team's ability to think critically.

True

T or F: Hostilities in one life domain can manifest in other domains as a result of the spillover effect.

True

T or F: Negotiation experts and researchers acknowledge that emotions are an integral part of the human experience, and they provide guidance on how to use emotions to your advantage.

True

T or F: Personality conflicts are common and can be troublesome since personality traits are stable and resistant to change.

True

T or F: Research indicates that contact matters, quality contact matters more, but both matter most from the in-group's perspective.

True

T or F: Since it may not be possible to avoid or remove conflicts completely, people need to manage or balance demands between the different domains of their lives.

True

T or F: Telling lies, hiding key facts, and engaging in other potentially unethical tactics erodes trust and good will, both vital in successful negotiations.

True

T or F: The success of negotiations is often influenced to a large extent by the quality of information exchanged.

True

T or F: The top priority for managers faced with intergroup conflict is to identify and root out specific negative linkages between or among groups.

True

T or F: When employees feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to speak up and present their ideas and less likely to take disagreements personally.

True

_____ conflict occurs when the demands or pressures from work and family domains are mutually incompatible.

Work-family

A third-party neutral makes final and binding decisions based on legal merits is known as _____.

arbitration

A neutral third party informally acts as a communication conduit between disputing parties is known as ______.

conciliation

Managing _____ effectively is essential for individual, departmental, and organizational effectiveness.

conflict

The means by which team members work through task and relationship disagreements are known as _____ _____.

conflict processes

The _____ _____ has been recommended as a way to reduce intergroup conflict, but just increasing the amount of interaction across groups may be a naive and limited approach for overcoming stereotyping and in-group thinking.

contact hypothesis

ADR has enjoyed enthusiastic growth in recent years due to lower _____ and _____.

costs and speed

Two programmed conflict techniques with proven track records are _____ and the _____.

devil's advocacy and the dialectic method

Assigning someone the role of critic is known as the _______ ______.

devil's advocate

It is a good idea to rotate the job of _____ _____ so no one person or group develops a strictly negative reputation and to promote skill development.

devil's advocate

Drawbacks of the _____ method technique are that winning the debate may overshadow the issue at hand, and this method requires more skill training than does devil's advocacy.

dialectic

The ______ method alters the usual decision-making process by generating a counterproposal based on different assumptions and having the advocates of each position present and debate the merits of their proposals before key decision makers.

dialectic

Fostering a structured debate of opposing viewpoints prior to making a decision is known as _____.

dialectic method

ADR methods vary with respect to _____ and _____.

difficulty and expense

Define climate:

employees' shared perceptions of policies, practices, and procedures.

Personality conflicts that are ignored or avoided often _____.

escalate

A third party informally urges disputing parties to deal directly with each other in a positive and constructive manner is known as _____.

facilitation

A lack of _____, perceived or real, is a major source of conflict at work.

fairness

When policies enable employees to do their work from different locations besides the office it is known as ______.

flexspace

Flexible scheduling, either when work is expected to be completed (e.g., deadlines) or during which particular hours of the day (e.g., 10-5, or anytime today) is known as ______.

flextime

Negotiation may be thought of as a _____ decision-making process involving two or more parties with different preferences

give-and-take

Managers cannot eliminate _____ thinking, but they certainly should not ignore it when handling intergroup conflicts.

in-group

Any form of socially harmful behavior, such as aggression, interpersonal deviance, social undermining, interactional injustice, harassment, abusive supervision, and bullying is known as _____.

incivility

A host of interests are considered, resulting in an agreement that is satisfactory for both parties is known as _____ negotiation (win-win).

integrative

Conflict among work groups, teams, and departments that is a common threat to individual and organizational effectiveness is known as _____ conflict.

intergroup

Intergroup friendships are desirable, but they are readily overpowered by negative _____ _____.

intergroup interactions

Conflict escalation often exhibits increases in the number of _____.

issues

A trained, third-party neutral actively guides the disputing parties in exploring innovative solutions to the conflict to help the disputants to reach a mutually acceptable decision is known as _____.

mediation

Someone who works for the organization and is widely respected and trusted by his or her co-workers hears grievances on a confidential basis and attempts to arrange a solution is known as _____.

ombudsman

The challenge with programmed conflict is to get contributors to either defend or criticize ideas based on relevant facts rather than on the basis of _____ or _____.

personal preference or political interests

Interpersonal or relational opposition based on personal dislike or disagreement are known as _____ conflicts.

personality

A shared belief among team members that it is safe to engage in risky behaviors, such as questioning current practices without retribution or negative consequences is known as:

psychological safe climate

The value of most any type of flexible work arrangement can be undermined if the employee's immediate supervisor isn't _____.

supportive