Through this course, I have learned that conflict resolution is key to bringing people together at international, corporate, group and personal levels. The mediation procedure is frequently used in the conflict resolution process to reconcile the interests of disputing parties.. Negotiators determine who is right and who is more powerful to bring fairness, peace, and legitimacy to conflict resolution. This is done by identifying the underlying problem, facts, and emotions in the mediation process, particularly hostility that may affect the outcomes of interest-based negotiations and mediation. However, some negotiations may not end with resolutions, and one party may decide to avoid and lump the conflict resolution process. The course reading highlights that the different conflict resolution approaches focus on interests, rights, and power (Lewicki et al., 2015). The categories of conflict resolution are compared based on the transaction cost involved, satisfaction with the outcomes, recurrence, and effect on the relationships.
I have learned the five negotiation strategies, which are accommodating, collaborative, avoiding, competitive, and compromise. Lewicki et al. (2015) insist that the relevance of the negotiation outcome to the parties’ past, present, and future relationship is the primary factor of consideration when choosing the strategy. I believe the collaboration strategy is the most popular in solving team and organization conflicts and is found in the “I win, you win” principle. Teamwork, cooperation, and assertiveness in collaborative strategy identify a solution that satisfies everyone’s concerns fully. Alternatively, with good preparation and advantage, the competition method can be used for negotiations by organizations (Lewicki et al., 2015). The concept of competitive strategy is “I win, you lose, and goals are extremely fundamental to both parties.
Course Evaluation
The teams should be prepared to lose a little to win something in a compromise strategy. Both sides are coerced to make concessions; hence, the outcome is not satisfying. The compromise strategy has faster issue resolution since it only identifies partially satisfactory solutions for both parties (Lewicki et al., 2015). Accommodation and avoidance strategies are not suitable since they lead to losses. The avoidance strategy has no winners or losers since the parties ignore or withdraw from the conflict. Accommodating strategy is based on the “I lose, you win” concept, and one party is compelled to give in to the wishes and demands of the others.
Preparation is a critical factor in negotiation, and the negotiators use a checklist to guide upcoming negotiations. The negotiation checklist encompasses the overall goal, the major issues, the significance of the issues, the components of the best alternative to a negotiated agreement BATNA, and the resistance point for both sides (Lewicki et al., 2015). Closing negotiations require special skills and techniques, including but not limited to alternative, assumption, concession, incremental, and linkage. The collaborative strategy is mainly used in organizations for strategic alliances. When approaching negotiations, the parties should be ready to overcome cultural filters.
Skillful communication, active listening, and displaying empathy are the key strategies for solving interpersonal conflicts. Understanding each other’s points of view through communication eliminates interpersonal anger, aggression, and bias. During interpersonal negotiations, listening to what others are saying without interrupting is important to understand the situation from their perspective before responding to it. Empathetic negotiations create a common ground by understanding the other person’s needs and motivation and using that information to appeal bargains (Lewicki et al., 2015). All the parties should be willing to participate in the process and motivated to discuss to find a solution.
Ethics and critical thinking oversee a smooth negotiation process. Rules and codes of behavior that are acceptable practices during conflict resolution form the ethics. Additionally, ethical standards include those that enjoin honesty, compassion, and loyalty virtues. Ethics in negotiations is correlated with critical thinking since it fosters the ability to observe and listen accurately.
Using critical thinking, the negotiators can incorporate and evaluate the information to achieve successful resolutions. Moreover, critical thinking assists the participants in being more flexible to changes by exclusive consideration of all possible options to reach a prospective solution. According to Lewicki et al. (2015), critical thinking in negotiation and power focuses on the problem rather than the people, clarifying the goals and eliminating emotional feelings of hostility. Critical thinking influences decision-making and enables one to overlook cultural norms and other decision-making factors.
Conflict is an essential, inseparable part of human beings, and conflict resolutions can be engineered to facilitate discussions, increase understanding, and control emotional responses in organizations. Positive conflict can stimulate innovation and change to improve individual and work-team effectiveness. Conflict induces employees’ creativity to promote unstructured thinking essential for dealing with uncertain conditions (Lewicki et al., 2015). Goal and cognitive conflicts are elemental to enhancing organizations’ outcomes and intellectual capital. Conflict eliminates group thinking that hinders organizational innovation and intelligence development.
Conflict to address emerging issues is a good indicator for businesses. Constructive conflict raises questions on both sides of the issue, leading to new ideas and breakthroughs. Agreeable parties close negotiations with mutual understanding and respect; hence, conflicts build relationships. Organizations that embrace conflict are progressive and beat stagnation by allowing challenges and competitors. As a result, rather than being a hindrance to organizational improvement, conflict should serve as a catalyst.
Processes of negotiation, dialogue, arbitration, mediation, and litigation are used to resolve conflict. In the dialogue method, participants are committed to listening, reflecting, and questioning out of curiosity (Lewicki, 2015). For example, employees in an organization can share knowledge and understanding through dialogue. In the broader process of peacebuilding and geopolitics, dialogue is perceived as the most civilized option for conflict resolution. Unlike dialogue based on knowledge exchange, negotiation is a process of finding common grounds by adequately addressing the problem. Negotiations are informal and occur when people are willing to talk to each other to tackle a challenge or conflict in the workplace.
Impartial teams are introduced in the mediation process to enable team members to resolve their disagreements. Leaders and managers in organizations can use mediation to ease workplace tensions before they escalate to catastrophic levels. Mediators do not decide disputes and ensure settlements are satisfactory for both parties. The arbitration process closely resembles mediation only in that the arbitrator act to decide disputes based on the evidence and the arbitration law. Liactstigation is the most advanced conflict resolution model decided by a judge or a jury in court, essential to organizations in solving major legal issues.
In conclusion, conflict is a vital part of human beings due to conflicting interests and power as they strive to meet their needs. The five common conflict resolution strategies are accommodating, avoiding, defeating, compromising, and collaborating. Active listening, displaying empathy, and speaking out are the components of interpersonal relationships. Collaboration is the most effective conflict resolution strategy for working teams and organizations since it creates room to vent knowledge and mutual benefits by ensuring all parties are involved. Positive conflict benefits organizations with breakthroughs, innovation, and accelerated growth. Conflict resolution can be implemented through dialogue, negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and litigation.
Reference
Lewicki, R.J., Barry, B. and Saunders, D. M. (2015). Negotiation, Readings, Exercises, and Cases.7th edition, McGraw Hill. ISBN: 978-0-07-786242-8. Web.