Chapter 13: Managing Conflict and Negotiating

Seminar 7
* Conflict
- One party perceives its interests being opposed or set back by
another party
-Natural occurrence in an organization whenever an action by one
party is perceived as preventing or interfering with the goals, needs,
or actions of another party.
- Conflict can be positive when it focuses on solving problems
constructively and results in increasing organizational productivity.
- Conflict as war: Try to win at all cost defensive and
combative(Donald trump)
+ Defensiveness will prevent you from communicating openly with
your opponents or practice active listen. Victories won in anger lead
to long term defeat(Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith)
- Conflict as opportunity & Journey: More positive, open minded and
constructive
+ Perceiving conflict as an opportunity helps to deepen your
capacity for empathy and intimacy and by resurrecting the human
side of theirs and your personality, it will lead to growth, increased
awareness and self improvement. Can be a way of learning what is
not working and discovering how to fix it (Cloke & Goldsmith)
- Conflict intensity & outcome (Brown, 1983)

- Functional Conflict
+ Commonly referred to as constructive or cooperative conflict that
aim to serve the organizations interest (SP Robbins, California
Management Review 1978)
+ Apply a win-win attitude to solve problems and find common
ground issue-focused stimulate creativity
+ be assertive but no aggressive --> marshal useful facts rather
than impression, offer alternatives along with objections, limit
comment to deed, not doer. (Kerry Sulkowicz, Business Week, 2008)
+ Eg Lots of Friendly Fighting at Google
- Dysfunctional Conflict

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Chapter 13: Managing Conflict and Negotiating

+ Conflict that threaten organizations interests as it is typically
person focused and hence breed hostility and stifles communication
between both party, thus leading to lower efficiency across the
organization.
+ Usually associated with negative outcome
- Conflict Model

- Types of Conflict
a) Personality Conflict
+ Defined as
+ Personality is ones stable package of traits and characteristics
that is unique
+ Interpersonal opposition based on personal dislike, disagreement,
or different styles. (EMC Tuccis relationship based vs Ruetthgers
cold stance, 2002)
+ Cause of personality conflict is workplace incivility, termed as
employees lack of regard for one another erode org balues and
deplete org resources job satisfaction and org loyalty also
diminished turnover (Pearson & Porath, 2005)
+ Can be mitigated by workplace etiquette training and day of
contemplation
+ How to deal with Personality Conflict?
Tips for Employees Tips for 3rd Party Tips for Managers
Observer
-All
employees -All employees need -All employees need
need to be familiar to be familiar with to be familiar with
with and follow and follow company and follow company
company
policies policies for diversity, policies for diversity,
for diversity, anti- anti-discrimination,
anti-discrimination,
discrimination,
and
sexual and
sexual
and
sexual harassment
harassment
harassment
-Do not take sides in -Investigate
and
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Chapter 13: Managing Conflict and Negotiating

-Communicate
directly with the
other person to
resolve
the
perceived conflict
-Avoid
dragging
co-workers
into
the conflict
If dysfunctional
conflict
persists,
seek
help
from
direct supervisors
or human resource
specialists

someone
elses
personality conflict
-Suggest the parties
work
things
out
themselves
in
a
constructive
and
positive way
-If
dysfunctional
conflict persists, refer
the
problem
to
parties
direct
supervisors

document conflict
-If appropriate, take
corrective action
-If
necessary,
attempt
informal
dispute resolution
-Refer
difficult
conflict to human
resource specialists
or hired counsellors
for formal resolution
attempts and other
intervention

b) Intergroup Conflict
+ Conflict among work groups, teams, and departments threat to
org competitiveness
+ E.g. How Michael Volkema, CEO of Herman Miller curb intergroup
conflict thru collaboration and redirecting employees focus to
external treats and customers
+ Cause of intergroup conflict is due to a excessive sense of
cohesiveness within the team that result in groupthink as they i) see
themselves as unique and stereotypes others as identical ii) See
themselves as moral and others as immoral iii) views outsiders as a
threat iv) exaggerate differences between their groups and other
groups (e.g. sports fans who dislike other clubs)
+ How to handle intergroup conflict?

c) Cross- Cultural Conflict

+ Conflicts resulting from differing assumptions about how to think
and act among people with different cultural background.

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Chapter 13: Managing Conflict and Negotiating

+E.g. Mexican want to downplay conflict vs US direct dealings with
conflict (Harvard Management Communication Letter, 1999)
+ E.g. Canon employing internal consultant from Glocom, which is
based in Dubai to see fit of Dubai and Dutch Culture
+ How to prevent cross-cultural conflict? Cultivate Cross Cultural
Relationship

- Desired Conflict Outcome when resolving conflict

1) Agreement: strive for equitable and fair agreements that
last conflicts typically come back as problems in future.
Therefore, it is best to handle conflicts positively so that a
mutually acceptable agreement can be made.
2) Stronger Relationships: build bridges of goodwill and trust
for the future more likely to lead to future interaction and
information sharing.
3) Learning: greater self-awareness and creative problem
solvinghelps shape our behavior and helps us grow as
individuals.
* Stimulating Functional Conflict (R A Cosier and C R Schwenk,
1990)
+ Get contributors to either defend or criticize ideas based on
relevant facts rather than on the basis of personal preference or
political interest can allow emergence of programmed conflict
conflict that raises different opinions regardless of personal feelings
of the manager
+ Two Programmed Conflict Techniques

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Chapter 13: Managing Conflict and Negotiating

Good to rotate job of devils advocate so no one person or

group develops a strictly negative reputation and as periodic
devils advocacy role-playing provides training to develop
analytical, communication skills and EQ
Drawback of dialectic method is that winning the debate may
overshadow issue at hand and also requires more training
Groups using devil advocacy produced more potential
solutions and made better recommendations for case than
groups using dialectic method
E.g. Toro use of contra team and due diligence group during M
&A
* Handling Dysfunctional Conflict
+ Afzalur Rahim Model of Five Different Conflict-Handling Style

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Chapter 13: Managing Conflict and Negotiating

- Compromising Style: characterized by using intermediate

assertiveness and cooperativeness and achieving a mutually
acceptable solution that partially satisfies both by splitting the
difference and exchanging concessions. This style is useful because
it can usually be accomplished quickly while maintaining
relationships. The down side is that the results may be sub-optimal
and can lead to playing games such as asking for twice as much
initially so that the compromise will be closer to what they wanted
to begin with.
+ Third Party Intervention (P Ruzich, HR magazine, 1999)
Detriangling: Less Political, Low Risk of Dysfunctional Third
party channelling disputants energy directly and positively
toward each other
1) Reroute complaints by coaching the sender to find ways to
constructively bring up the matter with the receiver. Do not carry
messages for the sender
2) Facilitate a meeting with the sender and receiver to coach
them to speak directly and constructively with each other
3) Transmit verbatim messages with the senders name included
and coach the receiver on constructive ways to discuss the
message with the sender
Triangling: Not recommended as more political and high risk of
dysfunctional conflict might lead to political and ethical
issues
4) Carry the message verbatim but protect the senders name
5) Soften the message to protect the sender
6) Add your spin to the message to protect the sender
7) Do nothing. The participants will triangle in someone else
8) Do nothing and spread the gossip. You will triangle in others
+ Alternative Dispute Resolution
> Constructive and cheaper approach compared to costly court
battle (300k if go to jury, BusinessWeek) thru mediation and
arbitration
> Techniques includes: a) Facilitation: urging disputing parties to
deal directly with each other) b) Conciliation: neutral third party for
communication conduit
* Negotiating
- Defined as give-and-take process between conflicting
interdependent parties

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Chapter 13: Managing Conflict and Negotiating

- Distributive Negotiation: Single issue; fixed-pie; win-lose. each
party do not actively look for beneficial trade off as blindsided due
to assumption that there interest directly conflict with those of other
party
- Integrative approach: More than one issue; broadening the pie;
win-win characterized by people not taking stands or positions but
instead focusing on their and the other partys underlying interests.
It requires that both parties keep an open mind about how to meet
each others interests rather than assuming that in order for my
interests to be met, then yours must not be.
-Teams trained in integrative approach achieved better outcome for
BOTH sides than did untrained teams (Lab study of joint venture by
LR Weingart, 1996)

- Must be aware of ethical pitfalls in negotiation such as telling lies,

hiding key facts, and engaging in other potentially unethical tactics
that will erode trust and goodwill vital ingredients in win-win
negotiation.
*Conclusion
- If signs of too little conflict such as apathy and lack of creativity
appear need to use techniques such as devils advocacy and
dialectic method to stimulate functional conflict.
- When there is too much conflict and becomes dysfunctional,
appropriate conflict-handling style needs to be used
-Furthermore, when both party are reluctant to take a proactive
approach to resolve conflict, third party need to be bought in and
they should employ detriangling method
- Lastly, the key is to get both party to abandon their fixed pie
thinking and instead adopt an integrative approach to their win-lose
expectations.

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