Conflict Management

Explore the fundamentals of conflict management, including what conflict is, functional and dysfunctional conflict, levels and types, the conflict management model, and strategies for resolving workplace conflict.

Explain what conflict is as an expressed disagreement between interdependent individuals with differing views or goals. Recognize that conflict can drive growth and requires management.

Explain what conflict management is as the practice of preventing non-productive escalation and strengthening relationships through conflict resolution skills, self-awareness, and structured management.

Explain functional conflict, also known as constructive conflict, and dysfunctional conflict, including high and low levels, their impact on information, innovation, and progress toward goals.

Explore the levels and types of conflict across intra- and inter-organizational, group, and individual contexts, including latent, perceived, felt, and manifest phases and key sources of latent conflict.

Apply the conflict management model to maintain functional conflict levels, considering organizational culture, environment, perceived conflict requirements, and manager tolerance, and navigate its five stages from opposition to outcomes.

Identify five strategies for managing dysfunctional conflict: mediation, arbitration, control, acceptance, elimination; each aims to protect project objectives and foster productive resolution.

Explore the five conflict management styles—avoiding, accommodating, compromising, competing, and collaborating—identified by Thomas and Kilman, and how to assess and improve your dominant approach for effective resolution.

Explore five conflict styles—withdrawal, forcing, smoothing, compromising, and confronting—and the turtle, shark, teddy bear, fox, and owl patterns across a spectrum from no conflict to aggression.

Identify the factors that affect conflict modes, including gender, self-concept, expectations, situation, and power dynamics, and learn to use the five modes through practice and communication.

Explore Blake and Mouton's conflict grid, detailing avoidance, accommodation, compromise, competing, and collaboration, and show how negotiation and game theory relate to conflict management.

Explore third-party conflict resolution, including mediation, arbitration, and inquisition, and identify the mediator, arbitrator, conciliator, and consultant roles, plus win-win problem solving and organizational culture's impact on communication.

Explore practical tips for managing workplace conflict, including building relationships, timely problem-solving, and respecting differences, and learn control, acceptance, elimination, mediation, arbitration, and Thomas Kilman styles.