Conflict resolution practice has largely focused on conflict taking place in public, as if it was set on a theater stage with an audience watching the interactions unfold. In reality, conflict plays out behind the scenes, unobserved by the managers. Managers should bring to light the dynamics of informal conflict resolution. In this context, informal conflict resolution is defined as resolution facilitated by organizational members through other means than the formal processes of grievances, investigations and litigation.
Informal conflict resolution often takes a non-rational approach. Therefore, emotions are seen as a means of conflict management rather than a hindrance to conflict management. The formal methods of conflict resolution favor the rational over the emotional.
Retrieving the power and validity of emotion that was tossed along the wayside during the Age of Reason, is needed to gain a holistic picture of conflict dynamics. But it also needs a caveat; for intense emotion can cause reactivity that clouds the way to resolution. What matters is the level of intensity of emotion and the duration in which it occurs.
The intense emotion, otherwise called anxiety, calls attention to the need for resolving a conflict that may not be expressed publicly. Once the cause of the anxiety is identified and emotions expressed, people can think more clearly and be better equipped to solve the problem. The following workplace conflict for which I was a witness illustrates this continuum of emotion and its intersection with cognitive reasoning.
The Conflict - 1
Iam working for a large Aerospace company as a Manager, a young woman, Laura, was hired as a software engineer for one of the products produced by the company reporting to me. Seven other employees worke ...