Chapter 9: Conflict Management Processes

Narrating the skit.

Manager (myself in red) playing various roles to resolve conflict

My tutorial group mates and I created short skit to creatively illustrate the various roles of a leader in Managerial Third Party Conflict Resolution. Third Party in this case, could also refer to a mediator or an individual outside the organisation.

A manager can switch roles in order to solve a conflict such as ‘the motivator’ who rewards or reprimands to resolve a conflict or ‘the investigator’ who digs for facts of the argument and hands it over to a relevant authority (which could be someone of higher position in the company or a lawyer)

People from outside the organisation such as mediators may be called upon as a third party to resolve the conflict. This person will advise and counsel the parties involved while ‘maintaining control over the process and outcome’ Miller (2008, p.169) of the situation.

From my additional reading, I discovered that Outside Third Party resolution method may not necessarily be ideal as it is likely for mediators or arbitrators to be biased or have hidden agendas. (Fisher, 2001) explains that conflict management may not be effective with biased third party individuals with ‘political agendas and tangible interests in the dispute’. Hence, this resolution method may need to be studied further to measure its effectiveness.

References:

Fisher, RJ 2001, ‘Methods of Third Party Intervention’, Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, Berlin, Germany

Miller, K 2008, Organizational Communication: approaches and processes, 5th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston, MA