Conflict Resolution CONFLICT

Conflicts in the workplace are a common phenomenon and people are usually anything but shocked to find themselves or their colleagues in such conflicts. But the ubiquity of such conflicts doesn't follow we are equally ready to tackle them properly. In fact on the contrary, most people have absolutely no idea what needs to be done when conflict arises. Conflict resolution and management are certainly the key words these days because of intensely competitive and diverse workforce of today yet it appears that most companies hardly pay any attention to conflict resolution training and thus are not properly prepared to handle such situations.

In my workplace, I have noticed that despite diversity training and supposedly polite and healthy working environment, conflicts are almost a norm and most of them are grounded in interpersonal problems. Personality clashes are common and on numerous occasions, we find employees complaining about their colleagues or teammates thus resulting in tremendous loss of productivity and efficiency. No one pays any attention to the cost of such conflicts and thus they largely go either unnoticed or unreported. Employees are expected to resolve problems on their own and management intervenes only in exceptional cases of conflict.

Last month, we saw how a small interpersonal conflict turned into a gigantic issue resulting in severe productivity loss and humiliation. Debra and Joshua, two of our most valued employees were part of a bigger team that was working on a new...

Debra is the design coordinator and her work is basically collection and sorting of new designs while Joshua is research assistant who focuses on latest trends and brings in useful information to help Debra select most appropriate designs. The two, we thought, enjoyed exceptional rapport but last month we learnt the truth.
Debra complained that while she gathers designs, selects the 'good' ones and makes changes or give suggestions on the same, it is Joshua who is always given the credit for all the work. She felt that Joshua was responsible for this since he is always trying to remain in the limelight and undermines the significance of Debra's work. Joshua had no such complaints but he was rather surprised by Debra's sudden outburst. Things got worse when Debra decided to take the matter to the higher-ups namely our supervisor Mr. Matthews.

Earlier Joshua had tried to approach Debra to talk about this issue but it appeared that Debra had been amassing a lot of resentment and bitterness about Joshua and thus simply refused to discuss things with him. Some colleagues tried to intervene but quickly withdrew unsuccessfully since Debra was simply unwilling to pay not prepared to listen to anyone and requested immediate removal of her name from the project. Since the project deadline was only two weeks away, the supervisor couldn't possibly comply with her request. The management then intervened and sought a rapid solution of the problem from other employees since the conflict had already cost the firm a lot…