Conflict Management in Cameroon
Conflict management is the handling of difference and divergence in a positive and constructive manner according to Bloomfield and Reilly, 1998. Conflict management entails a pragmatic approach to conflict by construing agreements and practices that allow people to effectively cooperate despite their differences.
The goal of conflict management is the strategies to be used to mitigate the negative effects of a conflict as opposed to spending much time figuring out how a specific conflict can be resolved. These strategies may come at the interpersonal, intergroup, or systemic levels of intervention.
The goal of conflict management is to mitigate conflict’s destructive potential and not to resolve conflicts as conflicts management has been proven to be utilized in conflicts that have a history and exist due to fundamental values between those involved.
This being said, conflict management should be applied to workplace conflicts when the possibility of resolution has little to no likelihood. Some examples of workplace conflicts that need conflict management strategies are as follows:
- Conflicts based on a difference of values/opinions between co-workers or associates.
- Conflicts involving difficult clients, customers, or constituents, with whom an organization must OR chooses to serve despite their difficulties
- Conflicts based on communication or personality style differences between co-executives or business partners who aim to continue working together despite the challenges in their relationship.
Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution works towards “achieving an agreement and solution to the presenting problem creating the crisis” by using tools, such as the presence of a third party, to end the conflict. Conflict resolution is typically more short-term focused, content-centered, and is based on solving issues in a relationship where conflict appears. Hence it is aimed at meeting human psychological needs.
Conflict resolution is often utilized to create positive constructive outcomes from a conflict that is initially zero-sum. The creative potential of conflict is considered when deciding what conflicts should be solved using conflict resolution. Rather than thinking of conflict as purely negative, it is more accurate to describe conflict as a neutral force with constructive and destructive potential.
When engaging in conflict resolution, we attempt to spur the constructive potential in conflict instead of accommodating its destructive side. Due to the massive creative potential of conflict resolution, this strategy can solve a variety of conflicts in the workplace, including:
- Task-related conflicts
- Conflicts involving role and job clarity
- Employee interpersonal conflicts based on acute or minimal issues
- Conflicts resulting from miscommunications, misinterpretations, or misperceptions
Conflict Transformation
With a focus on transforming conflict through addressing larger structures, “the goal of conflict transformation is peace; the capacity to handle conflict creatively and non-violently” according to Galtung, 2000.
Conflict transformation is focused on the psychological aspect as it aims at resolving conflicts caused by cultures, systems and structures.
Actively engaging in conflict transformation is “to envision and respond to the ebb and flow of social conflict as life-giving opportunities for creating constructive change processes that reduce violence, increase justice in direct interaction and social structures, and respond to real-life problems in human relationships” (Lederach, 2003, p. 22).
Instead of merely arriving at a proposed solution, conflict transformation empowers individuals to creatively and non-violently handle conflicts on their own while addressing changes in the surrounding system that may promote sustained peace.
Changing the systems that allow conflict to continuously thrive is very fundamental. This must be the objective irrespective of the fact that transforming conflict in the workplace involves the management, prevention and resolving of the conflict in question. Some specific examples of conflicts that can be impacted by conflict transformation are as follows:
- Management-employee conflicts rooted out of organizational systems
- Conflicts related to unhealthy organizational culture
- Conflicts rising out of claims of a toxic employee, manager, and/or work environment
- ‘Invisible conflict’ showing itself through unproductivity, high turnover, and decreased job satisfaction
Long-standing, abstract interpersonal co-worker conflicts that have been allowed to continue for
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