Perspectives on Conflict

Overview/Description
 What is meant by the term "conflict," and what are the general attitudes towards it in the workplace? In this course, three prevailing attitudes towards conflict are compared. These are that: --Conflict is always a bad thing --Conflict is always a good thing --A certain level of conflict is productive, but too much is undesirable. This last view informs the rest of the course, which goes on to describe how a healthy and productive level of conflict can be encouraged in an organization, promoting a win-win philosophy that improves performance. Of course, conflict cannot always be contained at this productive level, and often spills over into becoming destructive. Therefore, learners will also discover how to recognize the signs and symptoms of destructive conflict, so that they can deal with it in the workplace.

Target Audience
 Anyone who faces, or has to deal with, conflict in the workplace

Expected Duration
5.5 hours

Lesson Objectives:

Views of Conflict

  • recognize the benefits that come from constructive conflict in the workplace.
  • characterize the negative view of conflict.
  • identify the aspects of a positive view of workplace conflict.
  • characterize the interactionist perspective of conflict.

    • Encouraging Healthy Differences

  • recognize the benefits of encouraging healthy differences in the workplace.
  • apply strategies to stimulate healthy competition in a given situation.
  • create a rational, impersonal, purposeful argument in a given situation, to foster healthy differences.
  • determine how to promote a win-win solution in a given scenario.

    • Recognizing Conflict

  • recognize the benefits of identifying the signs of destructive conflict in the workplace.
  • characterize the signs of friction which indicate conflict in the workplace.
  • diagnose the signs of friction from given symptoms of conflict in a work situation.
  • analyze a given situation to identify the types of proliferating rules which are operating there as a sign of conflict.
  • analyze a given situation to identify the reasons for the escalation of arbitration.

    • Course Number: COMM0341