Conflict is defined as interpersonal opposition based on individual dislike or disagreement.

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

Conflict 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.

One party perceives its interests are being opposed or set back by another party.

Sources of conflict and issues can be real or imagined.

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

Open-mindedness: When conflict is functional, people speak up, others listen, which in turn can increase engagement.
Increased understanding and strengthened relationships: Feeling understood, even when views differ, cultivates respect and empathy. These relationships of course facilitate productive problem solving.
Innovation: Working through conflicts in a positive manner pushes people to consider different views than they would otherwise, which often results in new and better processes and outcomes.
Accelerated growth: Functional conflict results in change—a break from the status quo—and improves performance across levels of OB.

Dysfunctional conflict, which threatens or diminishes an organization’s interests. A primary reason we study and manage conflict is because of its costs due to:
Absenteeism. Conflict is a major driver of people not showing up. More conflict generates more stress, more stress results in more time off.
Turnover. Bullying, lack of fairness, or other forms of disrespect and incivility cause people to quit altogether.
Unionization. Again, a lack of fairness can be costly and motivate employees to organize to combat poor treatment and practices.
Litigation. If conflict is not dealt with effectively internal to the organization, many employees will seek legal remedies which are often expensive not only in terms of money, but also time and reputation.

The involved parties also tend to take more extreme positions and become less flexible.

Avoiding conflict doesn’t make it go away; it is more likely that the conflict situation will continue or even escalate.

Instead of ignoring conflict, you may be well served to:
Stop ignoring a conflict by bringing both sides together to address the issues.
Act decisively to improve the outcome.
Make the path to resolution open and honest.
Use descriptive language instead of evaluative.
Make the process a team-building opportunity.
Keep the upside in mind.

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

Personality conflicts that are ignored or avoided often escalate.

Table 10.2 presents practical tips for individuals involved in or affected by personality conflicts.

Intergroup Conflict: Conflict among work groups, teams, and departments is a common threat to individual and organizational effectiveness.

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

Conflict processes: the means by which team members work through task and relationship disagreements.

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

Group cohesiveness can turn a “group” into a “team,” but excessive levels can impact the team’s ability to think critically.

Research has identified challenges associated with increased group cohesiveness.

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

The contact hypothesis, conflict reduction, and creating a psychologically safe climate have been recommended as ways to handle intergroup conflict.

The contact hypothesis 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.

Research indicates that contact matters, quality contact matters more, but both matter most from the in-group’s perspective.

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

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

Conflict resolution: work to eliminate specific negative interactions.

Conduct team building to reduce intragroup conflict, and prepare for cross-functional teamwork.

Encourage and facilitate friendships via social events (e.g., happy hours, sports leagues, and book clubs).

  Foster positive attitudes (e.g., empathy and compassion).

Avoid or neutralize negative gossip.

Practice the above—be a role model.

Psychologically safe climate: 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.

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

Recommendations for fostering a psychologically safe climate include:
Ensure leaders are inclusive and accessible.
Hire and develop employees who are comfortable expressing their own ideas and receptive and constructive to those expressed by others.
Celebrate and even reinforce the value of differences between group members and their ideas.

Work–Life conflict can take two distinct forms: work interference with family and family interference with work.

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

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.

Flexspace: when policies enable employees to do their work from different locations besides the office.

Flextime: flexible scheduling, either when work is expected to be completed (e.g., deadlines) or during particular hours of the day (e.g., 10–5, or anytime today).

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

Table 10.5 in the text describes some of employees’ common responses to incivility and their frequencies.

Both individuals and their employers can be the root cause of mistreatment at work.

Figure 10.3 in the text illustrates some common causes of various forms of incivility.

Bullying
Bullying is different from other forms of mistreatment or incivility in at least three ways: bullying is often evident to others; bullying affects even those who are NOT bullied; and bullying has group-level implications.
Table 10.5 presents best practices for addressing bullying.

Virtual bullying is more common than face-to-face bullying, although the two often co-occur.

Not only do face-to-face and cyber bullying directly harm the targeted person, but the fear of future mistreatment amplifies this effect.

Employers should create policies to prevent and address virtual incivility, and employees should follow best practices for appropriate e-mails and social media use.

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 personal preference or political interests.

Two programmed conflict techniques with proven track records are devil’s advocacy and the dialectic method.

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.

It is a good idea to rotate the job of devil’s advocate to promote skill development, and so that no one person or group develops a strictly negative reputation.

Dialectic method: fostering a structured debate of opposing viewpoints prior to making a decision.

This 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.

Drawbacks of the dialectic 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.

Figure 10-5 shows some of the common conflict styles, distinguished based on relative concern for others (x-axis) and concern for self (y-axis).
Integrating (problem solving): interested parties confront the issue and cooperatively identify the problem, generate and weigh alternatives, and select a solution.
Obliging (smoothing): people show low concern for themselves and a great concern for others.
Dominating: high concern for self and low concern for others, often characterized by “I win, you lose” tactics.
Avoiding: passive withdrawal from the problem and active suppression of the issue are common.
Compromising: give-and-take approach with a moderate concern for both self and others.

ADR methods vary with respect to difficulty and expense.

Conciliation: a neutral third party informally acts as a communication conduit between disputing parties.

Peer review: 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.

Ombudsman: 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.

Mediation: 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.

Arbitration: a third-party neutral makes final and binding decisions based on legal merits.

This position-based, “win–lose” approach of distributive negotiation is arguably the most common.

Integrative negotiation: A host of interests are considered, resulting in an agreement that is satisfactory for both parties.

This kind of interest-based negotiation is a more collaborative, problem-solving approach.

Table 10.8 in the text describes some of the key differences between conventional position-based negotiation and the more collaborative interest-based process.

Personality matters in the negotiation process, with people with high levels of agreeableness being best suited for integrative negotiations.

Skilled negotiators manage expectations in advance of actual negotiations.

It is important to consider the other person’s outcome and if that party is satisfied.

It is important to adhere to standards of justice.

You must remember your reputation and realize that winning at all costs often has significant costs.

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

The following tips can help you prepare emotionally for an impending negotiation:
Determine the ideal emotions that will best suit your objectives.
Manage your emotions and determine what you can do in advance to put yourself in the ideal emotional state.
Know what your hot buttons are and manage them appropriately.
Use appropriate tactics to keep your balance.
Set your emotional goals of how you want to feel when you are finished negotiating (e.g., relieved, satisfied, etc.).

Situation factors and ethical negotiations. Situation factors often influence person factors to produce outcomes different from what you might expect.