MGMT 460 Chapter 7

What does much of the ambivalence toward conflict stem from?

A lack of understanding of the causes of conflict and the variety of modes for managing it effectively, and from a lack of confidence in one's personal skills for handling the tense, emotionally charged environment typical of most interpersonal confrontations.

What are the steps a Mediator should take in problem identification?

Acknowledge that a conflict exists and propose a problem-solving approach for resolving it; In seeking out the perspective of both parties, maintain a neutral posture regarding the disputants; Serve as a facilitator, not as a judge; Manage the discussion to ensure fairness--keep the discussion issue-oriented; Explore options by focusing on interests, not positions; Make sure all parties fully understand and support the solution agreed upon, and establish follow-up procedures.

What is the Collaborating Approach?

An attempt to address fully the concerns of both parties.

What do Negotiation Perspectives serve as?

An overarching value, or attitude, held by adversaries, that bound their set of acceptable approaches for resolving their differences and that give meaning to the outcomes of the conflict resolution process.

What is an example of the differences of ethnicity in conflict management styles?

Asian cultures tend to prefer the non confrontational styles of accommodating and avoiding whereas Americans and South Africans prefer the forcing approach.

On the two-dimensional model of conflict behavior, where does the forcing response stand?

Assertive and Uncooperative.

What occurs when establishing superordinate goals?

Both parties to a dispute need to focus on what they share in common, or at least a common ground. Keeping a positive relationship is a goal.

What do individuals with the Analytic-Autonomizing personality tend to be?

Cautious, Practical, Methodical, and Principled.

Which conflict management strategy uses a integrative negotiation strategy?

Collaborating.

What do the best solutions of the collaborating approach usually involve?

Collaboration and Compromise.

What is the most commonly preferred approach across all ethnic cultures?

Compromising because compromising may be viewed as the least costly alternative and the approach that most quickly reaches acceptable levels of fairness to both parties.

Which conflict management strategies are use a distributive negotiation strategy?

Compromising, Forcing, Accommodating, and Avoiding.

On the two dimensional model of conflict behavior, where does the collaborating approach stand?

Cooperative and Assertive.

On the two-dimensional model of conflict behavior, where does the accommodating approach stand?

Cooperative and Unassertive.

What are the two different types of the forcing response?

Direct (e.g., bosses order, bullying) and Indirect (e.g., manipulation, stage-setting).

What does People-Focused conflict tend to be?

Emotional, Destructive, and a waste of time in resolving the conflict.

What does the collaborating approach require?

Empathy and emotional intelligence and no assignment of blame.

What is the role of managers in managing conflict?

Encourage a healthy dose of disagreement; Channel it to improve performance; Prevent it from hurting the team.

What are the six steps in the general framework for collaborating problem solving?

Establish Superordinate Goals; Separate the People from the Problem; Focus on Interests, Not Positions; Invent Options for Mutual Gains; Use Objective Criteria for Evaluating Alternatives; and Define Success in Terms of Real Gains, Not Imaginary Losses.

What are the steps a Responder should take in problem identification?

Establish a climate for joint problem solving by showing genuine interest and concern; Seek additional, clarifying information about the problem by asking questions; Agree with some aspect of the complaint; Ask for suggestions of acceptable alternatives.

What are the three personal preferences for how we mange conflict that have been studied extensively?

Ethnic Culture, Gender, and Personality.

What is the outcome of the collaborating approach?

Expansion of the pie. It is a Win-Win situation.

What can the accommodating approach be due to?

Fear and weakness or generosity, forgiveness, and courage.

What is the forcing response sometimes due to?

Fearfulness, Intolerance, and Selfishness.

What happens when you invent options for mutual gains?

Focuses on generating unusual, creative solutions; By focusing on both parties' attention on brainstorming alternative, mutually agreeable solutions, the interpersonal dynamics naturally shift from competitive to collaborative; The more options and combinations there are to explore, the greater the probability of finding common ground.

What are the five different conflict management approaches?

Forcing, Accommodating, Avoiding, Compromising, and Collaborating.

What does the Altruistic-Nurturing Personality seek?

Gratification through promoting harmony with others and enhancing their welfare, with little concern for being rewarded in return?

What does the Assertive-Directing Personality seek?

Gratification through self-assertion and directing the activities of others with a clear sense of having earned rewards.

What does the Analytic-Autonomizing Personality seek?

Gratification through the achievement of self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and logical orderliness.

What does understanding the source of the conflict do?

Helps better understand how it got started (the igniting spark).

What does understanding the focus of the conflict do?

Helps gain an appreciation for the substance of the dispute (what is fueling the conflict).

What are the four important incident-specific circumstances that can be use to select the appropriate conflict management approach?

How important is the disputed issue?; How important is the relationship?; What is the relative level of power, or authority, between disputants?; and To what extent is time a significant constraint in resolving the dispute?

What are the two different roles in a confrontation?

Initiator and Responder.

What is the manager's position about usefulness of conflict?

Intellectually understand; Verbally admit; and Emotionally and behaviorally reject.

When the compromising response is used by managers what might this indicate?

Interest in keeping quiet rather than solving the issue.

What are four facts about conflict in the workplace?

Interpersonal conflict in organizations is inevitable; Conflicts over issues or facts enhance the practice of management; Despite the intellectual acceptance of the value of conflict, there is a widespread tendency to avoid it; and The key to increasing one's comfort level with conflict is to become proficient in managing all forms of interpersonal disputes.

What happens when you separate the people from the problem?

Interpersonal confrontations are more likely to result in mutual satisfaction if the parties depersonalize their disagreement by suppressing their personal desires for revenge or one-upmanship.

What is the Outcome of the avoiding response?

Issues are never resolved, Explosion, and a lose-lose situation.

What is the outcome of the compromising response?

It backfires when done blindly due to gamemanship and suboptimal resolutions. It is a Win-Lose situation.

What is the Compromising Response?

It is an attempt to obtain partial satisfaction for both parties without any logic.

What is the forcing response?

It is an attempt to satisfy one's own needs at the expense of the needs of the other individual. It is a Win-Lose situation.

What happens when you define success in terms of real gains, not imaginary losses?

It is important to recognize that our satisfaction with an outcome is affected by the standards we use to judge it; Recognizing this, the collaborative problem solver facilitates resolution by judging the value of proposed solutions against reasonable standards.

On the two-dimensional model of conflict behavior, where does the compromising response stand?

It is intermediate between assertiveness and cooperativeness.

What is the Avoiding Response?

It neglects the interests of both parties by sidestepping the conflict or postponing a solution

What is the Accommodating Approach?

It satisfies the other party's concerns while neglecting one's own. It is a Lose-Win situation.

What are the steps an Initiator should take in problem identification?

Maintain personal ownership of the problem; Succinctly describe your problem in terms of behaviors, consequences, and feelings; Avoid drawing evaluative conclusions and attributing motives to the respondent; Persist until understood; Encourage two-way discussion; Manage the agenda: approach multiple or complex problems incrementally; Focus on commonalities as the basis for requesting a change.

What are the different management styles preferred when it comes to gender?

Males are more likely to use the forcing response, whereas females tend to select the compromising approach.

What does Issue-Focused Conflicts tend to be?

More rational, More constructive, and is often worth the time.

What are two conclusions that can be drawn from the research on the use of different conflict management approaches?

No one approach is most effective for managing every type of conflict and Managers are more effective in dealing with conflicts if they feel comfortable using a variety of approaches.

What are the two different types of conflict focus?

People-Focused Conflict and Issue-Focused Conflict.

What are three selection factors when considering what the appropriate management strategy is?

Personal Preferences, The Advantage of Flexibility, and Situational Considerations.

What happens when you focus on interests, not positions?

Positions are demands or assertions; Interests constitute the reason behind the demands. This step involves redefining and broadening problems to make them more tractable.

What are the four phases of the problem solving process?

Problem Identification; Solution Generation; Action Plan Formulation and Agreement; Implementation and Follow-Up.

What happens when you use objective criteria for evaluating alternatives?

Rather than seizing on these as opportunities for testing wills, it is far more productive to determine what is fair; This requires both parties to examine how fairness should be judged.

What do individuals with an Assertive-Directing personality tend to be?

Self-Confident, Enterprising, and Persuasive.

What does the People-Focused conflict refer to?

The "in your face" kind of confrontations in which the affect level is high and the intense emotional heat is likely fueled by moral indignation.

What are the three distinct personality types that have been linked with conflict management style?

The Altruistic-Nurturing Personality; The Assertive-Directing Personality; and The Analytic-Autonomizing Personality.

What are the two critical identifying characteristics for diagnosing a type of conflict?

The focus of the conflict and the source of the conflict.

The avoiding response from managers is usually due to what?

The managers are emotionally ill-prepared to cope with the stress associated with confrontations, or it might reflect recognition that a relationship is not strong enough to absorb the fallout of an intense conflict.

What is the outcome of the forcing response?

The other person feels defeated and humiliated and it is harmful in the long-run.

What is the outcome of the accommodating approach?

The other person might take advantage of you (lose-win in the short run and lose-lose in the long run) or they might appreciate your generous soul (win-win in the long run). There is also a decreased or increased power and credibility.

What are the five conclusions of conflict styles and gender?

There is little evidence of gender differences in abilities and skills related to conflict management; Sex-role expectations appear to influence behavior and perceptions of behavior in particular conflict situation; Influences and norms other than sex-role expectations may affect and influence conflict; The experience and meaning of conflict may differ for women and men; and There is a persistence of beliefs in gender-linked behavior even when these behaviors are not found in research.

What are Negotiation Strategies?

They are commonly categorized according to two broad perspectives; Integrative: "expanding the pie" and Distributive: "dividing up a fixed pie."

What are Issue-Focused Conflicts?

They are more like rational negotiations, which can be thought of as "an interpersonal decision-making process by which two or more people agree how to allocate scarce resources."

What happens when the Analytic-Autonomoizing personality types encounter conflict?

They attempt to resolve the problem rationally. However, if the conflict intensifies, they will generally withdraw and break contract.

What are three essential skills effective conflict managers must be proficient in?

They must be able to accurately diagnose the types of conflict, including their causes; Having identified the sources of conflict and take into account the context and personal preferences, managers must be able to select an appropriate conflict management strategy; and Skillful managers must be able to settle interpersonal disputes effectively so that underlying problems are resolved and the relationship between disputants is not damaged.

What happens when the Assertive-Directing personality types encounter conflict?

They tend to challenge the opposition by using the forcing approach to conflict management.

What happens when Altruistic-Nurturing personality types encounter conflict?

They tend to press for harmony by accommodating the demands of the other party.

What is the Altruistic-Nurturing Personality type characterized by?

Trust, Optimism, Idealism, and Loyalty.

On the two-dimensional model of conflict behavior, where does the avoiding response stand?

Uncooperative and Unassertive

In what situational consideration is the forcing approach most appropriate?

When a conflict involves values or policies and one feels compelled to defend the "correct" position; When maintaining a close, supportive relationship is not critical; and When there is a sense of urgency.

In what situational consideration is the avoidance approach the most appropriate?

When one's stake in an issue is not high and there is not a strong interpersonal reason for getting involved; When there is a severe time constraint.

In what situational consideration is the accommodating approach most appropriate?

When the importance of maintaining a good working relationship outweighs all other consideration; When the issues are not vital to your interests and the problem must be resolved quickly.

In what situational consideration is the compromise approach most appropriate?

When the issues are complex and moderately important; When there are not simple solutions; When both parties have a strong interest in different facets of the problem; When parties with equal power are committed to maintaining a good long-term relationship.

In what situational consideration is the collaborating approach most appropriate?

When the issues are critical; When maintaining an ongoing supportive relationship between peers is important; When time constraints are not pressing.

What are the rules of effective conflict management in teams?

Work with more information; Focus on the facts; Develop multiple alternatives; Share agree-upon goals; Inject humor; Maintain a balanced power structure; and Resolve issues without forcing consensus.

What are the two key factors to take into consideration in selecting a conflict management approach strategy?

Your choice of alternative approaches will be influenced by your comfort level with the various possibilities (personal preferences); and Matching your choice of conflict management strategy with the salient situational considerations, including issue and relationship importance, relative power, and time constraints.