Types of Conflict

Conflict is an inseparable part of one’s conventional life. Everyone faces and experiences some form of conflict either external or internal. Internal conflict referred to emotional misbalances due to situations or misunderstanding among the surrounding people. Internal conflict is a situation that creates a sense of opposition of thought process between the internal and external environment. The conflicts are of several types such as social conflicts, racisms, and family conflicts. These conflicts arise from smaller situations but shape as bigger problems further. Moreover, with the increasing dynamic business environment, the method of solving the problems differ from the person to person. Every person has different perception and with the difference in the perception, they for a resolution strategy. The reflective essay holds the description of conflicts and their resolution in the below description. The first conflict named “X” is based on personal conflict with the husband. Interpersonal conflict is a fact of life and arises in the everyone`s sphere of life. The second personal conflict “Y” is based on conflict between the friends (Rainey, 2018).

Conflict with the parents at the young age causes a level of stress, which has negative impact and creates stress on each lives through many ways. Although, there can be several reasons of conflicts in parental relations such as lack of time to the parents, problem in decision making due to different perception and work. Most importantly, all the problems occur due to lack of understanding and existence of unrealistic expectation. My parents and I had a bad bonding and do not have a good sense of understanding because as they want and require time for care. A bad understanding was due to poor quality time spending with each other (Webb, Milon, & Higgins, 2017). This caused a situation of unclear communication among us. Moreover, I think after a certain age, parents expect their children to take their care but it is understood youth will go over their careers as their priority. Expecting unrealistic things from me, which is not possible to fulfil. Undoubtedly, neither I can ignore the responsibility to take care of them nor take my career as a joke. Some clashes lead to big issues as it brings more other complex situations of other previous problems. Being in a relationship of 20-21 years, it is expected that one will do work of each other, especially when one is not capable of executing any work but it had become more complex to convince the parents and take the task as his own rather than creating a conflicting situation (Fevre, & Robinson, 2015).

Approaches to Conflict Resolution

To manage the personal conflict between the relationships especially my parents and I. As one person cannot resolve the whole problem. Each person in the relationship should engage to solve and adopt the situation according the environment. Disagreements on each situation cannot lead to full proof solution to the problem as both belong to different backgrounds (Aliakbari, & Amiri, 2016). Either my parents or I had to compromise on any situation because if each of us will become rigid, it would become difficult to ride a relation. There are several strategies to deal with the conflict such as compete and fight, compromise or negotiate, denial or avoidance. There is a situation where a win/lose situation shows how strengths and power of one person overtakes and wins the conflict (ACAP Student Learning Support, 2015b).

Apart from the adjusting the situation, there are more methods of settling down the conflicting by negotiating and active listening. In case of compromise and negotiation, both the parties can result in a better win or lose case but it is difficult to focus only on win/win situation. By considering mutual understanding, both my parents and I started giving up something, which can be in favour of an agreed point solution. It can take less time than collaborating and creating a situation that is an ideal situation of win/win (Worthington, Berry, Hook, Davis, Scherer, Griffin, & Sharp, 2015). Collaboration needs an input of time from both the parties that are into relationships and find an agreed way to solve problem where both the parties agree to situations (Akgun, & Araz, 2014). Active listening is another communication technique that is used in counselling, conflict resolution, and training that requires a feedback what exactly they hear from the speaker. Active listening is not only limited to re-stating or paraphrasing the same words to confirm the words stated by the speaker. Moreover, it should confirm to the understanding to both the parties (ACAP Student Learning Support, 2015a).

The areas of improvement was on the both the sides, my side as well as my parents especially regarding active and listening empathically. To manage the less confronting approach, it is important to gather more information and check the accuracy according to it and to repeat and understand the facts and issues as per the interpretation of how the situation can be improved (Rainey, 2018).

The second personal conflicting situation refers to situation “Y” where I had a conflict with my teacher. Sometimes teacher becomes dominating thinking that they knows everything just because they teaches such a large number of people. Slowly and steadily, we have received our education from the schools and colleges. Although, at the college, teachers become flexible because they know at least students are acquaint with the discipline rules and mannerism. The problem occurred while organising an event, the teacher does not want us to focus more on live projects and public speaking. Moreover, on the other side, the teacher focused on such work, which can assist them to ease their work. My friend and I were thinking of investing the money of the event on practical implication of business plan, which can give a good sum of learning returns in form of education returns (Meadow, 2017). Teacher was not responding very well on this investment plan of the event rather than he enforced us not to waste money on live projects, which will also take more time. To overcome the ego problem of the teacher, I approached higher authority such as HOD (head of the department) not to complain of actions of the teacher but rather kept convincing the authority to organise the programs which can include live assignments. Finally, decided to invest in the business plan project which would demand more investment (Doyle, 2018).

Managing Conflict with Parents

The conflicting style was not limited to words but exceeded to stoppable growth of us against each other. Moreover, the restricted growth and problems were solved but in the longer term the conflict between the teacher and me had become severe. He started discriminating on the basis of irrelevant marks. After the time when the event of live projects and investment projects were over, I started convincing and addressing the issues and solving them accordingly. A building block with some basic rules of communication and conflict mediation can resolve the barriers occurred from the conflicts (Garaigordobil, & Valderrey, 2015). Let my teacher know that it is important to discuss about the political problems rather than continuing the grudges, which sometimes relate to assertiveness because one may not feel feasible to start the talk at first. There are generally two common reason when people turn into conflicts such as they do not communicate and listen clearly and they have different interests that do not exist without negotiating (Almost, Wolff, Pyne, McCormick, Strachan, & D’souza, 2016). To remain assertive is an important and core communication skill. Assertiveness exists where I can express myself so effectively that it can help to boost the self-esteem and earn others respect. Moreover, during solving the conflicts, one party has to maintain calm during negotiation and communication. Sometimes, there are healthy responses to the conflicts such as capacity to empathize the other`s point of view (Cole, 2018). Moreover, it brings a readiness to bring and forget the past conflicts without holding any anger and resentments on the part of people in the interpersonal relations and to find and adjust and avoid punishments.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that while discussing both the interpersonal conflicts of both the situations such as with the spouse and the friend. In both the situations, it was found that there was a lack of understanding among the people. Although undoubtedly, both a relation of parents and teacher are extremely close but there occur some consequences, which causes extreme situations and breaks the strong bond of the relationships. In the above interpersonal conflicts and problems, I have used proper negotiation, win/win approach, and active listening methods to solve the conflicts among the relationships. There always exist a sense of difference in thought process of the people even if they stay together for lifelong. Therefore, the decision-making process differs from person to person especially when the external environment is complex and fluctuating. I strongly believe that I have a strong strength regarding understanding people but on the other side, I am impatient too. Moreover, to overcome the problem of conflicts, several methods such as active listening, assertive communication, and win/win approach helped me to overcome the problems regarding conflicts.

References

ACAP Student Learning Support, (2015a) Conflict Resolution Assignment 1 Video Guide Part 1. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxGz244h1-A&feature=youtu.be

ACAP Student Learning Support, (2015b) Conflict Resolution Assignment 1 Video Guide Part 3. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UxBjK0jYJc&feature=youtu.be

Akgun, S., & Araz, A. (2014). The effects of conflict resolution education on conflict resolution skills, social competence, and aggression in Turkish elementary school students. Journal of Peace Education, 11(1), 30-45.

Aliakbari, M., & Amiri, M. (2016). Personality, face concern, and interpersonal conflict resolution styles: a case of Iranian college students. Personality and Individual Differences, 97, 266-271.

Almost, J., Wolff, A. C., Stewart?Pyne, A., McCormick, L. G., Strachan, D., & D’souza, C. (2016). Managing and mitigating conflict in healthcare teams: an integrative review. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(7), 1490-1505.

Cole, J. (2018). Structural, organizational, and interpersonal factors influencing interprofessional collaboration on sexual assault response teams. Journal of interpersonal violence, 33(17), 2682-2703.

Doyle, A. (2018) Examples of Conflict Resolution Skills. Retrieved from: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/conflict-resolutions-skills-2063739

Fevre, D. M., & Robinson, V. M. (2015). The interpersonal challenges of instructional leadership: Principals’ effectiveness in conversations about performance issues. Educational Administration Quarterly, 51(1), 58-95.  

Garaigordobil, M., & Valderrey, M. V. (2015). The effectiveness of Cyberprogram 2.0 on conflict resolution strategies and self-esteem. Journal of Adolescent Health, 57(2), 229-234.

Meadow, C. (2017). Dispute processing and conflict resolution: theory, practice and policy. US: Routledge

Rainey, D. (2018) 6 Steps for Resolving Conflict in Marriage. Retrieved from: https://www.familylife.com/articles/topics/marriage/staying-married/resolving-conflict/6-steps-for-resolving-conflict-in-marriage/

Webb, C. E., Milon, R. M., & Higgins, E. T. (2017). Stepping forward together: Could walking facilitate interpersonal conflict resolution?. American Psychologist, 72(4), 374.

Worthington Jr, E. L., Berry, J. W., Hook, J. N., Davis, D. E., Scherer, M., Griffin, B. J., … & Sharp, C. B. (2015). Forgiveness-reconciliation and communication-conflict-resolution interventions versus retested controls in early married couples. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 62(1), 14.