What is workplace conflict
What is workplace conflict? Why do workplace conflicts arise? Are conflicts at work common?
Workplace conflicts arise whenever there are differences in interests, goals, opinions, tastes, habits, and values underpinned by negative emotions, particularly anger, aversion, grudges, fear, pain, or anxiety. Moreover, people who fall out with each other believe they are right and feel fully entitled to blame the other person for the whole situation [1].
Workplace conflict is a form of open interaction that can be described as the observable efforts of a person or people aimed at preventing their partners from accessing certain resources.
Conflicting relationships at work
Conflict relationships are characterized by a negative evaluation and a hostile emotional attitude, connected to harm and devalue someone’s achievements or social position. In most cases, conflicts are initiated by so-called conflict situations involving differences of opinion, attitudes, or needs. On the one hand, there should be no conflicts in an enterprise, as each disagreement between employees slows down the pace of work and reduces its effectiveness, but on the other hand, in situations involving collaboration between people, there can always arise differences of opinion leading to conflicts, particularly when such differences intensify contradictions between personalities.
How do understand conflict at work?
We tend to think of the term ‘conflict’ negatively. Conflict is usually seen as the product of a ‘squeaky wheel’. Conflict causes anxiety in the short term, and people want to ‘resolve’ the conflict. In the business world, we unwittingly refer to it as an ill that makes jobs much more difficult, a force that diminishes productivity, and something that needs to be expunged before a company can achieve its goals – instead of conflict being seen as a natural business derivative.
Are workplace conflicts common?
Conflict has become more pervasive than ever as the 21st century’s second decade comes to a close, and it has never been more difficult to diffuse. This can largely be attributed to the speed-and-stealth model that competing in a global, lightning-fast business environment forces modern businesses to adopt. Multi-functional teams, diversified in skill sets and knowledge, composed of members picked from across the organization, are an important part of the new model. Team members often feel that they owe their allegiance first to the manager of their function and not to their team leader. This makes it hard for team leaders to correct unproductive behavior or enforce deadlines, as they only have an influence but no direct control. Teams working asynchronously, in shifts, tend to be rife with conflict, as workers can never see the person demanding that they produce results.
Conflicts are without doubt part of organizational life, as the aims of different stakeholders are often incompatible[2]. Conflicts usually arise when employees interact in groups and contend for limited resources. Employees in different organizations are sorted into groups to accomplish a common objective; therefore, the probability of conflict emerging is very high. These days, most serious organizational conflicts become front-page headline in the newspapers, which might influence the public image of the company.
Positive and negative aspects of conflicts
Conflicts have both negative and positive results for individual employees and the organization in general. There are many sources of conflict that occur in organizations at all levels of management[3]. Loomis and Loomis[4] argue that conflict is a continuous process in human relations. Conflict is unalterable in any organization as long as people are contending for jobs, resources, power, recognition, and security. Furthermore, dealing with conflicts is a great management challenge [5].
Workplace conflict
Conflicts in a work environment, which are psychological phenomena, can be described as a clash of contradictory interests given at least two non-contradictory needs that are impossible to satisfy, stimulating and hindering activities of individuals at the same time. With different personality traits, even in a small group of people, there can easily arise disagreements, which can lead to conflicts.
Each community establishes its social order, consisting of the previously discussed and accepted norms, institutions, values, and social roles. Such a system does not have to be equal to harmony, however, it provides a context for the existence and development of the community.
Organizational conflict
In an enterprise, conflict can mean a disagreement between two or more members or groups, resulting from the necessity to share limited resources or tasks, or the fact that they occupy different positions, and have different goals, values, or attitudes[6]. Reasons for conflicts in an organization frequently involve: hurt pride, despotism, idleness, arrogance, passivity, broken promises and arrangements, jealousy, giving private matters priority over the organization’s goals, suppressed criticism, and failure to fulfill one’s obligations. Because people differ in the extent to which they control their emotions, they get involved in different conflicts more quickly or more slowly.
Conflict resolution in the workplace
Conflict resolution is “a journey toward a land unfamiliar.”[7] Conflict is rarely comfortable. This has led to it being easily thought of as a destructive force, as people remember the bad experiences that occur during the conflict. Most people tend to avoid addressing conflict when they are faced with it; they do not see the merit in dealing with conflict and just keep hoping that it will go away. Linking strategic goals to conflict management is the most effective approach to getting value out of conflict in organizational contexts.
Division managers or leaders of a company usually focus on achieving the strategic goals that they have developed. They are aware that tmany challenges couldprevent the achievement of these goals, but they are rarely aware of one challenge in particular – ca onflict that is poorly managed.
This can polarize workers, destroy their morale and divert energy from meeting business goals. According to the University of Colorado’s staff and faculty assistance program anagers spend an estimated twenty-five percent of their time in workplace conflict resolution; this leads to a decrease in office performance.
A survey of 1,400 workers made by the University of North Carolina discovered that conflict with colleagues had caused more than half of them to lose time at work. The conflict had led to a decrease in commitment to employers in more than a third of the workers and conflict had led to a reduction in productivity in twenty-two percent of them[8].
Conflicts at work
Conflicts at work do not only come from relationships between employees but, in some cases, from clients too. However, conflict can still result in hugely positive outcomes, e.g., making better decisions by taking advantage of the wide range of information from different people sharing diverse opinions. Research has shown that teams, where the world is seen in the same way by everyone (lack of diversity), tend to make worse decisions even though they feel confident and quickly agree; psychologists call one aspect of this ‘groupthink’.
In every organization, backgrounds vary from one individual to another. Finding common ground is not a simple task. Developing the work culture of an organization is not just the work of the manager alone but of the entire team. Together, they shape the future development of the organization through their daily experiences. In the view of Smircich, such action leads to different metaphors acting all at the same time, each working against the other[9].
Smircich went further to describe such situations as "bridges of communication”[10]. When this happens, team members of an organization tend to have different perceptions, interpretations, and attitudes. In the end, there will be a poor understanding among members of an organization, leading to conflicts. In most cases, the conflict worsens due to what is known as social categorization. This is the likelihood of team players miscalculating their connections and differences. Marshak[11] believes that every manager has to be conscious of the image his actions are creating.
It is commonly known that conflicts in an enterprise cannot be eliminated. Not all employees share goals, and not all of them know their rights or fulfill their obligations properly[12].
The communication system is considered to be the basic and direct source of conflicts in an enterprise. Communication failures, such as improperly formulated messages, overgeneralizations, illogical messages, or misinterpretations of the partner’s intentions, lead to conflicts, and during a conflict, they escalate it[13].
Over the last few years, conflicts have been treated as justified and sometimes even desirable phenomena in organizations. They are justified because modern enterprises are designed as systems within which competition and cooperation intertwine. People have to cooperate because they have a common goal but they also fight and compete for their position in an organization, career development, all kinds of privileges, limited resources, etc.[14]
Those who are in favor of treating conflicts as desirable phenomena believe that a certain level of conflict, limited to a constructive dialogue, can have a positive influence on the search for new and better ways of acting and an increase in motivation, creativity, innovation, and initiative[15].
Furthermore, conflicts make it possible to identify differences between the parties, to name and openly present them, and they allow the weaker party to speak up, formulate their opinions, put forward arguments to support their position and defend it, and thus defuse the suppressed tension.
Stating the previously concealed differences in interests, opinions, attitudes, or value systems helps to identify and resolve employee-related or professional problems. Conflicts also contribute to the consolidation of the employee group or the whole staff of an organization when competing against a different group or a different organization[16].
For one’s social world to function, it is argued that one must share particular purposes and understandings with others[17]. Hardaway[18] expresses similar concerns.
Moreover, shattering the apparent calm, stagnation, and universally accepted intimacy, as well as breaking informal or even familial relationships, can be the driving force behind positive changes, the driving force behind progress, and a factor stimulating and integrating hostile parties.
Nowadays, a conflict can be described with the use of its characteristic features that define it as a phenomenon[19]:
a) Normal: it is not only a consequence of pathological conditions of the social structure within which they occur, but it also results from different contrasts that exist in nature and society;
b) Omnipresent and continuous—both of these features result from the same conditions that allow us o say that it is a normal phenomenon; so far, no one has identified social structures free of conflicts; moreover, no one has ever managed to handle conflicts in a way that eliminates them forever;
c) Useful: it exposes significant contrasts and deficiencies in a given social structure and serves as a spur for people to act and introduce innovations.
Authors Hocker and Wilmont maintain that “Conflict brings up such strong feelings that metaphoric analysis, of both the process of conflict and specific conflicts, aids in analysis, intervention, and lasting change.”[20]
Managing workplace conflict
Conflict has to be accepted by employees as inevitable in a work environment; therefore, the real concern for management should be how to deal with conflict, not how to avoid or mitigate it. If conflict is not properly managed, morale, business productivity, and operational effectiveness can all ‘take a major hit’.
When expertly managed, positive outcomes, such as improved solutions, major innovations, and a better understanding of others, can result from conflict. Conflict can lead to positive outcomes and results that, if the conflict had not been initiated, would not have been achieved.
Conflict that is poorly managed has various direct costs to an organization or business, such as the loss of good employees and customers. Another visible cost is the time lost to conflict resolution; time that could have been spent achieving work goals is used instead to smooth ruffled feathers and manage disagreements, although this might be seen as an investment where the outcome is positive. Metaphors can certainly add value to the process of conflict management.
Workplace conflict
[1] Chmielecki M., Techniki negocjacji i wywierania wpywu, 2020
[2] Jones G.R., Gorge J.M., and Hill C.W.L., Contemporary Management, McGraw-Hill, Boston 2000.
[3] Barker L.L., Kathy J.W., Watson K.W., and Kibler R.J., Groups in Process: An Introduction to Small Group Communication, 3rd Edn., Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1987.
[4] Loomis C.P., Loomis Z.K., Modern Social Theories, Van Nodtrand Company Inc., Princeton, 1965.
[5] Adomi E.E., Anie S.O., Conflict management in Nigerian University libraries, „J. Library Manage”, No. 27, 2005, pp. 520–530.
[6] Stoner J.A.F., Wankel Ch., Kierowanie, PWE, Warszawa 1997, p. 329.
[7] Lederach J.P., The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, Oxford University Press, New York, 2005, p. 42.
[8] Takeuchi C.L., "Never Mind Office Romance. Fear the Collenemy," http://time-blog.com/work_in_progress/2008/02/never_ mind_office_romance_fear.html.
[9] Smircich L., Morgan G., Leadership: The Management of Meaning, „The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science”, No. 18(3), 1982, pp. 257–273; Smircich L., Studying Organizations as Cultures, [In] Morgan G. (Ed.), Beyond Method: Strategies for Social Research, Sage, Beverly Hills, 1987, pp. 160–172.
[10] Smircich L., Studying Organizations as Cultures, [In] Morgan G. (Ed.), Beyond Method: Strategies for Social Research, Sage, Beverly Hills, 1987, pp. 160–172.
[11] Marshak R.J., Managing the Metaphors of Change, „Organizational Dynamics”, No. 22, 1993, pp. 44–56.
[12] Webber R.A., Zasady zarzdzania organizacjami, PWE, Warszawa 1996, p. 435.
[13] Chepa S., Witkowski T., Psychologia konfliktów. Praktyka radzenia sobie ze sporami, Wydawnictwo Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, Warszawa 1995, p. 35.
[14] Morgan G., Obrazy organizacji, PWN, Warszawa 1997, p. 179.
[15] Griffin R.W., Podstawy zarzdzania organizacjami, PWN, Warszawa 2013, p. 544.
[16] Hamer H., Wooszyn J., Wybrane zagadnienia z psychologii spoecznej, Warszawa 1997, p. 172.
[17] Geertz C., The interpretation of cultures, Basic Books, New York 1973; Shweder R.A., Divergent rationalities, [In] Fiske D.W., Shweder R.A. (Eds), Metatheory in social science: Pluralisms and subjectivities, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1986, pp. 163-196.
[18] Hardaway F., Foul Play: Sports Metaphors as Public Doublespeak, „College English”, No. 38(l), 1976.
[19] Sztumski J., Konflikt spoeczny, Uniwersytet lski, Katowice 1987, p. 11.
[20] Hocker J. L., Wilmot W.W., Interpersonal Conflict, 4th ed., Brown & Benchmark Publishers, Madison, 1993, p. 6.