Conflict

Conflict is the struggle emanating from disagreement, opposing or incompatible needs, interests, concerns, drives, or internal or external demands. In such scenarios, individuals may perceive a threat to their problems, interests, or needs, resulting in disagreement or conflict (Yarbrough, Martin, Alfred, & McNeill, 2017). Conflict can happen between groups or two individuals when there is a disagreement in their values, attitudes, expectations, or needs, lack of information, or miscommunication (Malone, 2017). Examples of conflicts in nursing can range from task-based to value-based (Yarbrough et al. 2017).

An example of task-based conflict is where two or more healthcare professionals, nurses, or physicians disagree on technical procedures. Such may include a new nurse using a different technique than the one used by the hospital to insert intravenous therapy. Task-based conflict can be easier to solve because there may be one precise answer to the issue. In such a case, one can quickly consult with the nurse manager to get the preferred technique and adjust accordingly (Lahana et al. 2019). Value-based conflict can occur where healthcare professionals hold diverging personal values. For instance, a nurse or a physician may express their personal beliefs, which conflict with their colleagues, creating tension. In such a case, an employee may cause constant negativity to the job because they feel their values are not respected, which can even cause customer loss (Lahana et al. 2019). For instance, Jane has been a nurse manager of HealthyYou nursing care for three years. Jane has dealt with various kinds of employee issues, both simple and complex. However, recently there has been a severe issue causing her distress. One of the organization’s most veteran nurses is sabotaging the organization’s reputation. Nurse Jenifer brings relentless negativity to the workplace and has made some customers leave HealthyYou.

The conflict process model can solve both types of value-based or task-based conflicts within the organization and can be applied in the case of HealthyYou. Jane has a serious conflict on her desk and will decide how effectively she can use the conflict process to address the issue with Jenifer. The conflict process involves five steps to solve friction, problems, or disagreement. The five steps of the process include incompatibility of potential opposition, cognition, personalization, intentions, behavior, and outcomes (Abiodun, 2014). The first phase of the conflict process is the incompatibility of potential opposition. In this state, Jane must identify the presence of conditions that create prospects for conflicts to emerge. Such may include communication, personal variables, and structure. Jane must go down and establish whether it is the communication problems, differences in personal values, or leadership structure causing Jenifer to be defiant (Kodikal, Rahiman, & Pakeerrappa, 2014).

The second state is cognition and personalization. If any of the factors in the potential opposition stage is established as the cause of the conflict, stage two happens in line with understanding and personalization. At this level, awareness of conflict emerges between the concerned parties (Abiodun, 2014).  For instance, Jane may acknowledge that Jenifer’s negativity has caused a loss of customers and decreased revenue by 10%. She is conscious that Jenifer’s action is responsible for that, and her issue must be fixed. Personalization only occurs when the parties concerned acknowledge that there is conflict through frustration, anger, and stress, causing emotional frictions. Once the conflict emerges, the concerned parties must decide how to manage the situation (Abiodun, 2014).

The third phase is the intentions. This involves the decision to take action in a particular manner to solve the conflict. Jane has many options on managing the conflict, including adopting a compromising or collaboration style, involving Jenifer to establish if they can mutually come to an agreement, which is the best option in this scenario (Abiodun, 2014).

The fourth phase is the behavior where conflict is visible/evident through the parties’ statements, reactions, and actions, making demands or arguing back. Jane should be careful to avoid miscalculations at this stage as it may escalate the situation. The last phase is the outcome, action-reaction interchange between the incompatible parties resulting in consequences. Jane should strive for functional and not dysfunctional outcomes. The conflict resolution outcomes should be constructive and improve Jenifer and the entire group’s performance (Abiodun, 2014).

References

Abiodun, A. R. (2014). Organizational conflicts: Causes, effects and remedies. International Journal of Academic Research in Economics and Management Sciences, 3(6), 118.

Kodikal, R., Rahiman, H. U., & Pakeerrappa, P. (2014). Conflict Management Strategies–A Comparative Analysis of the Employees Working For Service Sectors. International Research Journal for Business and management, 8(7), 1-20.

Lahana, E., Tsaras, K., Kalaitzidou, A., Galanis, P., Kaitelidou, D., & Sarafis, P. (2019). Conflicts management in public sector nursing. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 12(1), 33-39.

Malone, L. (2017). Dealing with Conflict. Clinical Leadership in Nursing and Healthcare: Values into Action, 215-233.

 Yarbrough, S., Martin, P., Alfred, D., & McNeill, C. (2017). Professional values, job satisfaction, career development, and intent to stay. Nursing Ethics, 24(6), 675-685.