Conflict Identification and Resolution

Conflict Identification and Resolution

Sandee Jones

Ashford University

Organizational Behavior

BUS 610

Pamela Gordon

February 04, 2013

Conflict Identification and Resolution

Our company is a “slip seat” freight company, by this I mean that at all times there is more than one driver for each truck. A group of drivers come in to work very early in the morning, and when they are finished delivering their loads, they report back to the terminal where another driver takes the truck and goes on his run for the evening. One of the challenges of slip seating is that drivers must treat the equipment with respect, because they’re basically treating the next driver of the equipment with the same respect — not leaving the truck dirty, creating an environment in which the next driver feels at home.

Since “slip seating,” is the norm, there are always drivers in conflict with one another over cleanliness of the truck.

The morning driver is a clean and tidy person who carries a trash bag in the truck, so that all of his unwanted or not needed items go into the bag for disposal, at his final stop. The evening driver is a disaster case. His gum and candy wrappers are all over the floor, there’s mud in the bunk, where he left his shoes on to sleep, and in every cubby hole in the truck is a plastic bottle that has been urinated in, and put back in the truck. Not only is this unsanitary, it is also very disrespectful of the other driver.

Slip seating allows a fleet to be more customer-service sensitive in the sense that instead of having routes and equipment that are necessarily assigned, the first available unit goes out on the most urgent, most pressing customer service need. It allows a company to optimize their customer service stance.

This type of conflict is known as “interpersonal conflict.” . There are four levels of conflict; intrapersonal conflict which deals with an individual’s thought values, and emotions conflicting one another. Interpersonal...