Conflict has been an issue for man since the dawn of civilization. In today’s fast paced world conflict, especially in the workplace, is a frequent occurrence. When that workplace is a health care environment where lives are at stake, emotions run high and collaboration with many different disciplines is required conflict often becomes a prevalent part of everyday life. Conflicts in the workplace can lead to reduced morale, lowered productivity resulting in decreased patient care and can cause large scale confrontations (Whitworth 2008). In the field of nursing whether a conflict is with a peer, supervisor, physician, or a patient and their family, conflict management is a necessary skill. It has been estimated in a study by the …show more content…
To assure quality and to promote a culture of safety, health care organizations must address the problem of behaviors that threaten the performance of the health care team. Analysis What is conflict? Even something as basic as a universal definition for the word conflict seems to vary from source to source. A literature review focusing on conflict defined it as “the interaction of interdependent people who perceive incompatibility and the possibility of interference from others as a result of this incompatibility” (Brinkert 2010). Often times the disagreement results not from a concrete difference, but rather a difference in perception (Ellis & Abbott 2012). One of the most important factors effecting conflict management is the resolution style used. The most often used tool for classifying how conflict is managed is the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (Iglesias & Vallejo 2012). The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) was originally developed by Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann in 1974 (Kilmann, 2013). The TKI assesses a person’s behavior when they are confronted with a conflict situation. For their work Thomas & Kilmann define conflict as any situation when the concerns of two people appear to be incompatible (Thomas & Kilmann, 1974). According to the TKI when a person is in a conflict situation their behavior will go along two dimensions. The first dimension, on the y axis, is assertiveness, a person’s attempt to
Obvious communication, listening, and understanding the focus of the dispute are the factors for being effective. Nursing managers may often be involved in a conflict as an individual, an administrator, or a unit representative. A manager is expected to confront staff when a discord develops (Sullivan, 2018). It is also imperative a nurse manager abides by her professional responsibilities and executes practical conflict resolution techniques to diminish low morale and stress among her staff (McKibben, 2017). She must modify her conflict management skills to a likely situation (Saeed et al., 2014). In order for the nurse manager to handle the conflict, it is helpful to understand the people involved. Positive management promotes mutual respect, refines working relationship, and restores staff retention (McKibben,
Everyone has to deal with conflict: both in the workplace and personal lives. Fresh nurses too have to witness this at their new work setting.
Conflict results from real or perceived opposition to one’s values, actions, desires or general interests. Conflicts may occur internally or externally between individuals or groups; conflict within a team environment can cause frustration, and occasionally anger. However, conflict resolution can also often generate positive results for the team. Conflict management skills remain in demand; conflict may be managed successfully by reaching an agreement that satisfies the needs of both the individual(s) and the team as a whole
The healthcare setting should be a safe environment. By employing the four characteristics of a culture of safety an employer can maintain high employee satisfaction thereby improving retention. People are held responsible for their behavior in this culture but "a distinction is made between errors that result from poor decision making and those that result from system flaws." ("What are the," 2011) The four characteristics are psychological safety, active leadership, transparency and fairness.
In team settings, individual team members generally handle conflict in five key ways as identified in an adaptation of the Thomas-Kilman Conflict Inventory (1976): Avoidance, Accommodation, Competition, Compromise, and Collaboration. All five conflict styles can be both beneficial and/or costly to individual and team success. It can also be argued that all five conflict styles may be useful to resolve conflicts under certain circumstances. Please review the five conflict styles listed below:
Conflict is generally defined by four criteria: expressed tension, interdependence, perceived incompatible goals, and the need for resolution (Wood,
Nurses require effective interpersonal skills to enable them to manage conflict, which can be an inevitable component of busy workplaces with high service demands. Work environments often have a diverse range of staff and patients with potentially conflicting
I was particularly impressed by way this meeting dissected critical issues. The participants of this gathering welcomed openness and honesty from all. This meeting investigated ethical issues regarding patient care, and scenarios in which one’s discretion licensed him/her to question a patient’s judgments. This gathering also addressed the issue of productivity, in terms of sustaining it and enhancing it amid a taxing and demanding environment. The participants then proceeded to address common relational issues, which involved disagreements among nurses, and conflict mitigation. After witnessing the dynamics of this meeting, it became readily apparent that conflict
According to Ballangrud (2017), Teamwork is described in terms of behavior, cognitions and attitudes that make interdependent performance possible and is defined as the interaction or relationship of two or more health professionals who work interdependently to provide care for patients. The critical components essential to patient safety are effective teamwork and sufficient communication. When we see the absence of these two components within a unit or facility it often leads to an increase in adverse events for patients. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between 3 and 16% of all patients treated in hospitals are affected by adverse events. The absence of a collaborative unit is an independent cause of multiple failures
Conflict naturally occurs in the health care environment. Conflict, in the right quality and quantity, can produce growth. Conflict in large amounts, or if managed poorly can negatively impact motivation and productivity (Marquis and Huston, 2015). Conflict resolution is critical to a healthy work environment, because a breakdown in communication and collaborations can lead to patient care errors (Johansen, 2012).
Kale and McCullough (2003) in conferring the five conflict levels make note that conflict is defined as “power struggles over differences”. The authors note the following “based on our definition, then, we will discuss five levels. The first two are really pre-conflict levels followed by three levels of actual conflict. Our levels are as follows: Awareness of Differences, Confronting the Differences, Power Struggles, Fight or Flight and Intractable”.
Conflict is inevitable in life and in the workplace, but conflict can be positive or negative. Disputes can arise due to personality conflicts, misunderstandings, difference in opinions, lifestyles, values, and beliefs. Having any understanding that conflicts do arise and how to approach such issues is vital to the success of any team and organization. Thomas and Kilmann have identified five conflict handling modes within a two-dimensional taxonomy (Borkowski, 2016). According to Borkowski (2016), the two dimensions of the taxonomy are assertiveness and cooperativeness, and the five conflict handling modes include (1) competition, (2) avoidance, (3) compromise, (4) accommodation, and (5) collaboration (p. 315).
The confrontation style of conflict management can be seen in higher-performing organizations, but can be found in all situations, professional or personal (Goncalves, et al., 2016). Confrontation is defined as the volatile face to face interaction regarding a particular conflict, usually regarded as aggressive or argumentative. Cahn and Abigail (2014) offer six steps to confrontation that can aid a manager in transitioning through a conflict. These steps include “Preparation: identify your problems/needs/issues, arrange for a time and place to meet and talk, interpersonal confrontation: talk to the other person about your problem, consider your partner’s point of view: listen, empathize, and respond with
The text book describes conflict as “a process that begins when one party perceives another party has or is about to negatively affect something the first party cares about.” There are different views on dealing with conflict. There is the traditional view that seeks to eliminate any conflict and the interaction group that seek to use conflict as a stepping stone to greater things. Conflict can arise in any situation and, following the managed conflict view, it is not necessarily something to be push under the table but something to
Conflict is a word with no shortage of definitions but common to most of those definitions is the idea that conflict is a perception (Robbins and Judge 2015, p.400). Conflict is most generally a process that begins when one party perceives that another party has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affect, something the first party cares about (Robbins and Judge 2015, p.401). The conflicts people experience in organizations are numerous with examples of such conflicts