Conflicts and Conflict Resolution
Conflicts can have devastating effects on the unity of a group or community and on the achievement of the aims of the group or community. As such, effective management of conflicts is important. In fact, Shirley (2011) asserts that even though conflicts can be devastating, managing them properly can lead to the realization of massive benefits. This paper is a review of a conflict I was involved in and how we solved it. Our group is Scrollsaw Woodworkers’ Club; it is based in Greensboro, North Carolina. As the chair to the group, I had a direct responsibility to solve the conflict and any other conflicts arising in the group. As Behfar et al., (2008) assert, conflict resolution is central to the unity of a group and thus the leaders should be committed towards the satisfactory resolution of all emerging conflicts.
In our group, we had resolved in previous meetings that we would give back 10% of our annual benefits to the community. Determination the action representing giving back to the community would be dependent on how much the 10% was. For this financial year, our earnings were quite high and the 10% to give back to society was thus quite high. It amounted to more than $3000.
In the meeting to decide the action to be taken as giving back to society, several suggestions arose. Since the majority the members of the group were sports lovers, in the previous years, we had supported a local youth soccer team in Greensboro with a big part of our returns. A few members suggested that we should increase our support for the team; this would include buying training kits, training equipment. and a set of playing uniforms for them. However, another set of members trashed this move saying that because the benefits were high for this year, we should first give back to ourselves. In fact, they wanted us to stop sponsoring the youth soccer team and instead give the 10% to the members as low-interest loans. This sparked a big argument as the rest of the group could not allow this; it would be a breach of the group’s constitution and norms.
To solve this, I called for calmness and sobriety. As Shirley (2011) directs, I requested the conflicting groups to allow us to discuss non-contentious issues before we finally revisit the contentious issue. In the discussion of this, we looked towards getting a compromise which would be a win-win situation for each side. First, I allowed each faced to express their point ant to table why they thought they were right. It emerged that even though the facet against sponsorship of a youth soccer team was selfish, they also had a point – we needed to grow ourselves first. On the other side, they also agreed that breaching the constitution of the group grossly was never their intention and is something that none of us should tolerate. We thus reached a compromise that of the 10% for the year; we would offer normal sponsorship to the youth soccer team regardless of the increase in earnings for the year. We would then offer the remainder as low-interest loans to members who were interested in them. As such, we had reached a compromise which left all facets satisfied and without having to overlook the statutes and the norms of the group just as Ramsbotham et al., (2011) advise.
Conflicts can occur in meetings from time to time. A conflict arose among the members of Scrollsaw Woodworkers’ Club over the use of the 10% of benefits which were to be given back to society according to the statutes of the group. To solve this, we looked to arrive at a compromise which would see a win-win end result for all parties.
References
Behfar, K. J., Peterson, R. S., Mannix, E. A., & Trochim, W. M. (2008). The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: a close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies, and team outcomes. Journal of applied psychology, 93(1), 170.
Ramsbotham, O., Woodhouse, T., & Miall, H. (2011). Contemporary conflict resolution: The prevention, management and transformation of deadly conflicts. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Shirley, D. (2011). Project management for healthcare. (11th Ed.) New York: Taylor and Francis Group.
