CHAPTER What Is Conflict Resolution?

WHAT IS CONFLICT RESOLUTION? ➜
thought-provoking ideas, voice concern, or break with “common
wisdom,” you, your department, and your company will
continue to dwell in the “same old, same old.” Problems may be
ignored until they blow up with a big bang. Often it is too late
by then.
Issues of Power
Managing conflict is difficult. When you add in important
aspects of diversity, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, age,
and culture, it can get even more complicated.
When two people have many similarities, even if the confl ict
is strong, there is a good possibility of resolving the confl ict successfully.
The more diff erences there are between the two parties,
the more complicated resolution gets.
Amounts of organizational power are based on the groups
people belong to. A simple example is level in the hierarchy. You
have likely been supervised by someone and know how careful
you need to be when diff erences of opinions or strong feelings
occur. You might even have had the experience of not raising an
important issue due to a concern that your manager wouldn’t
understand you or would even punish you in some way for raising
the issue. This is because your boss has more power than
you.
This may also be the case if you are from a diff erent culture or
ethnic group or even sexual orientation than most people in the
organization. When engaging the confl ict, you might not want
to “rock the boat,” especially if you are trying to fi t in to a group
while being the only person like yourself.
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