A conflict is defined as an opposition or clash you face when you are deprived of achieving something that you aspire for. For example if your sister wants the same toy to play, you will have to face conflict with your sister to decide who ultimately gets the toy to play with.
“Conflict” is derived from the Latin words meaning striking, but it does not only denote physical violence. Conflicts arise when someone has an opposing or contradicting opinion about anything. For example if you want an empty space in front of your house to park a car and your wife wants to grow a garden there, you would face conflicts then. If you are put up in a situation where you have to choose between the two desires, you are in a conflicted stage. Conflict can arise in any situation and in any scenario. No matter if you are at your home, your workplace, on a vacation or any other place. Conflict can hamper you anywhere.
In particular, there are three types of conflict are common in an industry setting:
- Task Conflict
- Relationship Conflict, and
- Value Conflict.
Table of Contents
Task Conflict
Task conflict often involves specific issues relevant to the employers job roles and can compromise discrepancies about how to divide the work to the departments, differences in the ideas, planning on policies, managing the role expectation from the organization, and interrogation and judgement of facts. Task conflicts are the easiest conflict to deal with. However task conflicts often turn out to have deeper origins and more complex than it appears at the first instance. For example, employers who are fighting about who should present the presentation among the team members, they may develop a deeper conflict between themselves based on a sense of enmity. Or to decide on which LMS platforms to be used in order to make the best monitorization, and transmission of employers possible
Relationship Conflict
Relationship conflict originates from variation in personality type, perception style, type of taste, and even conflict management styles. In an organization, people who don’t work closely are put up in the same place and asked to coordinate and get along with each other. So, it’s very obvious to have conflict when two unknown people are working together to work things out, there are high chances of clashes between opinions.
For example you have a tension and grudges with your colleague over distribution of responsibilities, approach followed to do the work or any other issue. So, you may invite the colleague to go for dinner in order to understand them personally. Discover things which you have in common with each other, whether from the same school or college, have same preferences for cuisines, are of the same age range, or have common concerns about issues existing in the company or anything else- it may help you to dissolve the conflicts and come together to a conclusion. If you get comfortable, bring the origin of tension and prioritize on hearing to the person’s approach to the situation. If the conflict still exists, seek help from the leader or manager to resolve your issues. Relationship conflicts are very common and arise in any situation when you interact with people, working on a group project, forming a video API or managing with your partner or family member. Relationship conflicts are very common and can lead to aversive consequences if not handled rightly with patience and poise.
Value Conflict
The last of our three types of conflict, value conflict can originate from basic differences in the personalities, values and persona of an individual. It can include individual differences regarding religion, norms, ethical conduct, political behaviour and other deeply held opinions. Though the discussions regarding political behaviour invites a lot of tension, fights and disagreements, this is where value conflict arises the most, as it basically tells us how different people, origin of different values and disrespect the values of others. Value simply connates strongly held beliefs regarding the functioning of something or one’s life. Values also consist of universal beliefs or truths. Value conflict arises when an individual gets in a situation where they are committed to do something which is against their values, but how to do it anyhow as it would lead to aversive consequences.