Strategies to Resolve Conflict Within Organizations

Week 3 Reflection

Team A: Victoria Butler, Shirley Torres, Tonya Uhlman, David Gardner & Shajuana Jones

MGT 311

February 9, 2015

Joseph Demark

Week 3 Reflection

Team A had the opportunity during week three to discuss strategies to resolve conflict within organizations as well as strategies to develop effective groups and teams.  These discussions allowed for the team to learn new ways to work through conflict and understand that conflict is not always negative.  Developing effective groups and teams opened up a new understanding of how to manage different personalities, demographical differences, and communication techniques.  

Strategies to Resolve Conflict within Organizations

Team members were comfortable with conflict resolution approaches; however, the team did learn new conflict-stimulation techniques. The concept was new to team members because conflict generally has had a negative connotation. The team members as managers will benefit from using both the conflict-resolution and conflict-stimulation techniques in their workplaces.

To help benefit her team Shirley said working through conflict and collaborating is something she feels comfortable with.  Understanding how and what technique is the right choice for the right situation is important just as much as understanding different types of personality. It is also an understanding that not all conflict is bad but it may be difficult at times.  Giving equal opportunity to each person allows their voice to be heard and a willingness to cooperate is more likely to happen.

Shajuana had a very astute take on conflict by speaking about functional and dysfunctional outcomes of conflict. Functional and dysfunctional conflict are two types of conflict that can bring about change, rather it be positive or negative.  It is important that one can decipher between the two and understand that when people hear the word “conflict” that it does not always mean a bad thing. Victoria had a similar thought on the meaning of conflict.  She goes on to say “This depends on the type of conflict involved. Conflict that seeks to overcome groupthink as well as “safe” solutions is a good thing. Conflict that brings about innovative ideas and processes is a good thing for business.”