Conflict Resolution

1. Introduction

Organisations have various stakeholders who have a vested interest in the success of the organization. Employees (including senior managers) form part of the internal stakeholders and, to a large extent are tasked with delivering the needs of other stakeholders. Conflict amongst employees can impact negatively on the achievement of organizational objectives. It is therefore imperative that conflict is managed and resolved in a manner in which impacton business objectives are minimized and to ensure that the working environment going forward, is not prone to conflict.

This report details a recent conflict situation experience between the two team members within the Decorative team at Plascon Paints Development laboratory. The writer is employed in the capacity of Decorative Lab Manager. The role of the writer in the process of resolving the conflict is to bring about a solution that is beneficial to all stakeholders. The report aims to asses the process followed against the various theories on conflict with a view of reflecting on ways of improving the way conflict was managed and to suggest interventions to ensure that the working environment is free on conflict.

2. The conflict in context

The technical laboratory is structured as follows:

Figure 1: Technical Lab Structure

Conflicting parties highlighted in red.

Broadly, the organization has a strong functional structure with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Each function is further broken up into various teams. The culture of teamwork and collaboration is deeply embedded in the organisation as it is critical to the successful delivery of business objectives.

3. The conflict defined

The manager and the technician have been working together for the last two years – reporting lines indicated in figure 1. Conflict has built up over this period, but has never been discussed up until now. The situation was brought to the writers’ attention by the technician. The...