5. Conflict Management

Conflict itself is neither harmful nor beneficial. The focus should be on managing the conflict, as this determines the outcomes. The most important elements are mutual interest, effort, and the willingness to resolve the disagreement. There are 3 stages in conflict management: identifying the conflict, analyzing the conflict, and resolving the conflict. There are five common conflict resolution methods: competition, accommodation, avoidance, collaboration, and compromise. None of them is better than the others – the choice of solution depends on the specific conflict situation.

  1. Competition. This involves striving to fulfill one’s needs and desires at the expense of others (win/lose situation). The competition style is usually chosen by individuals who are the most stubborn and least inclined to cooperate (“I must win no matter what!”).
  2. Accommodation. In contrast to the competition strategy, accommodation involves sacrificing one’s own needs for the benefit of the other party’s interests (lose/win situation) (“Never mind, I don’t care”).
  3. Avoidance. By choosing the avoidance style, individuals do not address the conflict and are indifferent to each other’s needs (lose/lose situation). Avoidance, as a long-term strategy, is chosen when the likelihood of satisfying one’s needs is low (“I won’t gain anything anyway”).
  4. Collaboration. In this strategy, the conflicting parties aim to meet the needs of both sides (win/win situation). The collaboration style requires the most commitment, time, and energy. The parties involved in collaboration are particularly interested in resolving the conflict, as it brings mutually beneficial outcomes (“We’ll gain more together!”).
  5. Compromise. Compromise involves partially satisfying the needs of all conflict participants (and thus partial loss for everyone). This conflict resolution strategy is suitable when the needs of the parties involved are not so important that it would be worth spending time collaborating (“Let’s make a deal”).

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https://www.museums.lt/Ateitis/images/Kurkime_ateities_muz_leidinys/leidinys_28_31.pdf