answer the questions please

 

1. From your own experience, describe a situation you were involved in where the conflict was dysfunctional.

2. Describe another example, from your experience, where the conflict was functional.

3. Would the other parties in the conflicts agree with your assessment of what is functional or dysfunctional? 

Forum 10: Understanding Conflicts

University Canada West

ORGB 601: Human Interfaces

Madhulika Sridhar (2010647)

Dr. Sydney Scott

1.From your own experience, describe a situation you were involved in where the conflict was dysfunctional.

Conflicts that affect group performance is a dysfunctional conflict. In an organization, it isn’t easy to handle these situations. Dysfunctional conflicts lead to the wastage of resources and productivity.

When I had joined an organization, our team was small of 10 members. My boss was very rude and lacked management skills. Our projects for our clients are a minimum of 3 months. Since our boss was disrespectful, some of the members left the job, and we used to hire new ones. Getting new members on the team was difficult, as we had to rope them in the project without training, and their results were minimal. The outcome was slow, and due to disorientation of work, the segregation of work was dependent on a few skilled employees only. It led to work pressure conflicts; dependency grew a lot, efficiency was not right, and overall productivity was affected.

We were not receiving any assistance from the management, and we had to deal with it ourselves. Nobody was interested in taking charge or there to help handle the situation. Due to many dysfunctional conflicts, the project was a failure with many pending re-work to complete the task.

2. Describe another example, from your experience, where the conflict was functional.

Functional conflicts help in improving performance and is a constructive form of conflict. It handles the organization’s interests and disputes cooperatively.

The situation occurred in my personal life. I was planning to do an MBA from a leading University in Australia, as a foreign degree has excellent value in India. However, my family members were not confident about my decision to go to Australia. They persuaded me to consider other options, such as universities in the UK, USA, and Canada ranked much better than universities in Australia. I did not want to contemplate universities in the USA and the UK because they had stringent admission requirements than colleges in Australia and Canada.

However, this dispute turned out to be functional and valuable for me because it led me to assess more options in the USA, UK, and Canada, which turned into a good exercise. After all, I found the benefits of education in other countries. Finally, I chose to go for education in Canada.

It helped in inculcating collective decisions with my family and helped in asserting my concerns as well. It was a beneficial functional conflict leading me to find a better opportunity for myself.

3. Would the other parties in the conflicts agree with your assessment of what is functional or dysfunctional?

I think they can either agree or disagree with me or get a fresh perspective on this situation. It is best to get a third person’s view to understand the conflicts, and somebody experienced enough to handle it. People may be concerned about similar problems but might not know your struggles. For example, if you are used to ideas one way, and a group member handles them differently, you may experience pressure and disappointment. Bottling up your disappointments only harms you and can cause your associations within the group to suffer. Tackling or clearing can better assess the current situation with the existing patterns and variables.

Contributing parties should have face-to-face to discuss their essential areas of conflict. The goal is that through open conversation and negotiation, to work out problems. It helps bring in outside advisors for third-party consultation who understand human behavior and can facilitate a resolution. A third-party consultant serves as a go-between and can speak more directly to the issues because she is not a group member.

Q&A: How do you handle conflicts within your team?

References:

·

https://www.tablegroup.com/books/dysfunctions

· Langton, N., Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2019). Organizational behavior: Concepts, controversies, applications. Chapter 9: Conflict and Negotiation, p – 312.

·

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/functionalanddysfunctionalconflicts-111023131537-phpapp02/95/functional-and-dysfunctional-conflicts-13-728 ?cb=1319375802

· Thomas, K., & Pondy, L. (1967). Toward an intent model of conflict management among principal parties. Human Relations, 30, 1089–1102.