Conflict is part of human existence. The world is filled with conflicts in all realms of life. Evidence of unresolved conflicts in greater scale are the chaos around the world that we hear and see from the daily world news. Everyday we experience some sort of conflict that are either insignificant or relatively important whether we are at home, at school, at a coffee shop, or at work. The workplace usually has a diverse group of employees from all walks of life, culture, and family background. Any differences that arise from a diverse group could result to a conflict. Therefore, it is imperative to better understand the influences and styles of conflict and implement a conflict resolution process as part of organizations culture.
“Conflict is defined as a disagreement through which the parties involved perceive a threat to their needs, interests, or concerns” (online training solution). Organizations typically view conflict as normal part of organization life and a way of embracing numerous opportunities for growth by improved understanding. In addition, there is a tendency of viewing conflict as a negative and costly experience. Incidents of conflict are somewhat common to hear but the associated cost of conflict to the organization showed tremendous financial hurdle. “The total value of lost work time due to stress is estimated to be $1.7 billion” (www.conflictatwork.com). A recent conflict incident in San Diego involved a medical group paying $6 million to one of their doctors that was fired for whistle blowing, that turned around and sued the medical group for wrongful termination (10news.com). Conflicts are waste of resources, costly, and can inflict damage to the organization.
Perceptions play a great ...