Conflicts are part of the business world. Even though business organizations have a conflict management strategy, conflicts happen among employees or management. Conflicts may occur between anyone, such as between employees and management, employees and customers, management and shareholders for profit share, and others.
The persons or groups in conflicts are negotiators who use their negotiation skills to confront and win the conflict. Organizations use negotiation strategies and try to make a win-to-win settlement among the members to reduce conflicts. Commitments are made during the settlements, which require keen observation, otherwise, turns into a cautionary tale. This research paper explains how to manage conflicts, healthy confrontation tips, and strategies used for commitment in negotiation.
Table of Contents
1. What are Conflicts?
Conflicts are issues that occur between employees for many reasons. If they are not resolved by management at the right time, then it will hurt the projects and the reputation of the business. Conflicts may occur among the teams of employees, shareholders, management, and others.
1.1. Reasons for conflicts
- Conflicts between shareholders and management:
- Conflicts occur due to the share of profit they are getting. Every party will be trying to increase their share by negotiating with each other.
- Conflicts between management and employees:
- Conflicts occur because of many reasons, like low wages, less job satisfaction, no increments for a long time, lack of communication, and lack of management.
- Conflicts within teams:
- employees will get into conflicts because of competition among them.
- Due to the different working processes used by different employees,
- Not following the rules and practices of the team while doing work.
- When someone fails to complete the given work, other teams might get frustrated.
- When the goals of the projects and the roles and responsibilities of team members are not clear, conflicts may arise between the members of the team.
- Lack of coordination between the employees also raises conflicts.
- Different cultures and beliefs among employees also raise conflicts.
- Gossiping in the workplace will give rise to conflicts.
Addressing these conflicts requires structured conflict management strategies to prevent escalation and ensure a productive work environment
2. Conflict Management: A Strategic Approach
Conflicts are common in workplaces, and the negotiator uses conflict resolution strategies to resolve the issues and make a win-to-win negotiation. Conflict resolution strategies are used to avoid lawsuits and protect the relationship between the parties. Management must use conflict management to resolve the issues, protect their reputation, and maintain peace at the workplace. The managers must take steps to handle the conflicts before they become worse.
2.1. Ways to Handle Conflicts
- Managers need to monitor the employees and other stakeholders at the place of surveillance. They need to understand the behaviour of employees and listen to their views clearly so that the reason for the conflict.
- Try to find the solutions to resolve the conflicts.
- Triggers must be identified.
- Try to recognise the willingness of the parties if they want to make a compromise.
- Make agreements between the members to resolve the conflicts in front of higher authorities and management groups.
3. What Is Confrontation?
Confrontation is an act of facing someone or something either directly or proactively. Conflicts are issues between parties or members. Conflicts arise between the parties when their interests do not match. In the workplace, environmental conflicts are common among employees, groups, and management.
The manager has to identify and resolve conflicts in the workplace promptly to reduce losses. Conflicts affect the productivity and efficiency of business operations. Confrontation is very important in some situations to resolve conflicts. A conflict cannot be resolved without confrontation.
Confrontation helps organizations face challenges and issues and succeed. The parties have to be prepared to confront and negotiate. Confrontation helps to develop boundaries, innovate new things, face challenges confidently, and make effective decisions.
3.1. Tips To Make Healthy Confrontation
- Prepare: It is very important to identify the issue, understand each other perceptions, and research the conflict. Prepare mentally to confront the person and address the issue. Before that, gather information about the person and his issues.
- Place: Confrontation is not fighting; it is an act to start negotiation between the other parties. So, choose a safe and good environment to meet the party and confront the issues. Control emotions and communicate politely to resolve the conflict.
- Engage: When opening the conversation, start with facts and not emotions. Bring a person who can act like a neutral and supports the truth. Know the agenda of the confrontation and create alternative solutions to come to a good end.
- Communicate: Communicate politely and properly to convince the other party or resolve the conflict.
4. Commitment In Negotiation
Negotiation is a process of back-and-forth communication between the parties to reach an agreement point that benefits the two parties. Commitment in a negotiation is an important element through which agreements can be fulfilled by the parties. When the commitment is not fulfilled, the parties must face the consequences.
The commitment strategies must be used by the negotiators when they feel that something is not right in the negotiation process or when they feel uncomfortable with the agreement details. The commitment must be made by considering the possible situations that may arise in future
4.1. Cautionary Tale Explained With Examples
A cautionary tale is a story told to caution the person using some proverbs. When this cautionary tale is ignored, then the listener faces danger. It is just a type of warning to the people. Many business organizations face cautionary tale situations when they fail to fulfil commitments..
Example 1
Usually, startup companies face many problems due to patents and intellectual property. These companies invest in intellectual property rights and patents to save their business from competitors, but they face issues due to misunderstanding of the commitments they are making to investors.
Due to this, fraud occurs in the organization. Organizations need to have a thorough knowledge of every business detail to reduce such frauds and protect businesses from loss. A cautionary tale example can be taken from a startup company. An employee of a venture capital firm had invested in a startup company named Acme Group that would develop products using some technology A.
A patent is something that will protect the development product from other companies from copying it. The technology used by the company and the product it is developing will be filed in the name of a company so that no other company can use the same procedure or develop the same products. Patents provide competitive advantages.
So after the investment, an employee from venture capital looked at the Acme group’s patent portfolio in which details of only technology A were filed, which the company stopped using. They were using technology B and developing new products, but they did not file any patent for technology B.
The investors did not check their patents before investing in the Acme group, and the venture capital firm faced a cautionary tale because they did not gather information about the company before committing to invest. The Acme group lost their competitive advantage in the market, which brought huge damage to the organization. When organizations face losses, the investors also face losses in their investments.
From this story, investors can learn many lessons, like they need to ask every detail about the intellectual property of the organization before they make any investment, such as filling patents of organizations they need to check again to ensure correctness in the agreement.
The patent details must not be given in the form of a checklist because it does not provide all the details of what patents they have and their purpose so that others can understand them clearly. Many startup companies’ managers do not know about their patents, patent rights, how to use them, and other details.
They make mistakes while committing to investors and face consequences. The management of the organizations needs to use techniques to protect their patent from other competitors and update their knowledge about the patents. Investors also need to check the protection techniques used by firms.
Example 2
In the example of an author who wanted to purchase an MG car after he completed the paperwork, the salesman charged him an extra $350 for the electric drive facility in the car, which was not told to the buyer during the agreement and told the buyer the next day. The buyer agreed to pay because of the bargaining strategy of the salesman.
He was disappointed by the agreements, and during the repair of the car after the expired warranty, he went there to make repairs. The dealer told him to leave the car for six hours, but the author did not believe him and committed to standing near the mechanic until he repaired the car. In this author’s case, the salesman did not commit to his work, rather he insisted that the buyer pay extra for the car. If he was committed, he would have paid on his own.
5. Conclusion
Conflicts, confrontation, and commitment are interlinked elements of negotiation that significantly influence business dynamics. Proactively addressing conflicts through structured management strategies and healthy confrontation fosters a positive work environment. Commitment, when handled thoughtfully, ensures trust and long-term success. Organizations and negotiators must remain vigilant to avoid cautionary tales, ensuring that every agreement is a step toward growth and collaboration.