Business Management Issues 2022

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Business Management
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Is Conflict a Necessary part of Management.
Introduction.
In dynamic teams, a conflict is regarded as a natural part of a team process since it’s a
natural consequence that arises majorly when two social entities working together towards a
common objective become incompatible or inconsistent. Besides, managing conflicts is
considered an existing reality and not a myth that prevails in about every organization
(Hiethfield, 2019). For instance, lack of communication and misunderstanding between
employees and top leaders in an organization can better portray the normalcy of conflict in an
organization.
In an organizational context, people tend to handle conflicts in various ways depending
on their desires to develop high-quality solutions, ensure proper management of teams as well as
maintain good relations. Most managers in an organization consider it more appropriate to talk
about conflict management rather than conflict resolution (Rahul, 2019). This is because
conflicts are normal and necessary in a team’s operation. In addition, conflicts are treated as an
integral part of a team process since it may become unhealthy when teams avoid them or view
conflicts as an opportunity to dominate over an opponent.
Nonetheless, teams may at times not handle their conflicts as well as they should. This is
because teams may prefer ignoring and avoiding the conflicts rather than managing them.
Individuals in a team may then prefer to remain quiet rather than contribute to a controversy or
conflict. This may lead to decision-making problems such as the Abilene paradox where team
members agree to what a leader says in order to prevent conflicts (Chartered Institute for

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Personnel and Development, 2015). This may result to more consequences in the near future due
to poor decision making.
In addition, people often view conflicts as an adverse event since at times, conflicts may
lead to negativity as well as issues that may not reach a conclusion. In addition, many people
prefer avoiding conflicts rather than resolving them since they are considered to add on tension
(Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, 2015). For instance, conflicts can interfere
with coordination and communication hence diverting attention from goals and tasks. In
addition, conflicts have the ability to destroy social relations and team cohesion hence creating
losers and winners who may continuously be a source of conflict in the future. Therefore, this
means that even though conflicts may be necessary, they both have advantages and
disadvantages.
Advantages of conflict in management.
Conflicts have major advantages when it comes to management most especially in
organizational contexts. To begin with, conflicts help in clarifying queries and doubts among
members. In an environment where opinions and ideas are not similar, the chances of conflicts
arising are increased (Lewis, 2019). This means disagreements may be bound to occur and
cannot be stopped. Therefore, it may be better to allow a conflict so as to clarify all doubts,
queries and the work environment. In addition, team members or employees may learn how to
respect each other hence being able to improve their work environment.
Secondly, conflicts increase productivity. Organizational conflicts are regarded as proper
means to double productivity. For instance, through conflict management, people in a specific
workgroup are able to naturally learn and be more productive rather than spend more time

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convincing themselves a problem does not exist (Reddy, 2019). This may be crucial in helping a
team or co-workers to become more productive, stay motivated and encouraged. As a result,
improvements can be noticed over a short period of time.
Thirdly, conflicts allow changes to occur much faster. An exciting benefit with an
organizational conflict is that it gives more room for changes to happen much easily. For
instance, if you ignore a problem as if it does not exist, things may not change since they may
remain the same. Therefore, stunted growth may be inevitable since there may be limited
chances of making improvements in the work environment (Ashe-Edmunds, and Thompson,
2019). In situations where workers begin demonstrating their differences, it may be better for
management to work through them. Once this occurs, it may then set a better stage for much
better changes to occur within a group.
Lastly, conflicts help bring issues to surface hence improving positive outcomes and
relationships among people. At times, when discussing difficult situations with colleagues and
clients, negative reactions are bound to occur which may lead to conflicts (Reddy, 2019). This
allows for difficult issues to surface so that they can be solved professionally. In addition, as a
top manager, one is able to understand how to handle strenuous or tough times so that better
outcomes can be expected at all times. According to a study conducted in America, about 81% of
individuals who participated in the study predicted positive results in situations where conflicts
had occurred. Besides, about half of the individuals who underwent the survey suggested that
they had clear comprehension of their employees (Reddy, 2019). Therefore, skills and working
relationships could be easily developed hence leading to better innovation and performance. In
addition, their understanding and respect for each other could improve significantly over time.
Disadvantages of conflict in management.

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On the other hand, conflicts have some disadvantages when it comes to management. To
begin with, conflicts may take an emotional toll. In an organization context, individuals with
high morale have a high likelihood of being more productive. However, when such individuals
are taken advantage of or bullied, they may begin performing poorly. This means conflicts
amongst departments can at times affect sales, production, and receivables hence resulting in loss
of customers or business (Lewis, 2019). For instance, when the sales department wants to offer
about sixty day terms to customers in order to maximize on sales, but the accounting department,
on the other hand requires receivables within thirty days so as to pay for ages or materials, a
conflict may arise between the two departments and the resulting situation may affect or damage
the organization.
Secondly, conflicts management consumes a lot of time. Conflicts may involve many
issues and therefore, by focusing more on resolving the issues, the ability to be productive in
other areas can be hindered. Besides, conflict management requires people to be proactive since
it involves both practicing and planning hence affecting other tasks in the workplace (Ashe-
Edmunds, and Thompson, 2019). For instance, developing a specific strategy to handle conflicts
in the workplace may take away the time needed to get other tasks done most especially if the
strategy being implemented expects all employees to learn.
Thirdly, conflicts may expose business weaknesses. Conflicts are considered to arise as a
result of a weakness in the business. The weakness could be as a result of poorly communicated
directions, character flaws of employees, poor management techniques, or lack of resources. This
may lead to a tension flareup hence affecting an entire team in one way or another. In addition,
teams can be divided hence building up the problem. On the other hand, teams can alienate

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themselves hence taking no part in resolving the conflict. Therefore, the problem may scale up
hence affecting the relationship between the teams as well as the productivity (Rahul, 2019).
Lastly, conflicts can result in stressful working relationships. Drawbacks that might be
experienced in organizations often stem out from the worker mentality or organizational culture
and therefore, they may prevent successful resolution. This may be problematic when employees
don’t like each other since heated conflicts may affect their working relationships. In addition,
personal conflicts affect communication hence increasing the stress that distracts each worker
from carrying out his responsibility effectively (Hiethfield, 2019). This may later result to high
turnover rates since conflicts may lead to more than a half of resignations in organizations. High
turnover is quite costly since organizations have to hire new staff. In other specified industries,
the cost associated with replacing a single worker can exceed the annual salary of the position in
question.
Conclusion.
The essay highlights both the advantages and disadvantages of conflicts in management.
According to the findings outlined in the essay, conflicts are regarded necessary and normal
since conflicts occur naturally even though at times, negative effects may be experienced. This is
because major weaknesses or problems between teams or the management can be identified
earlier and easily and therefore, when managed professionally and in time, productivity can be
boosted to high levels hence ensuring improvements. In addition, changes can occur much
quickly since by identifying the problems early; stunted growth is avoided since the top leaders
in an organization may devise new ways to manage conflicts rather than avoiding them. This is
important if any significant growth is to be experienced.

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Even though a lot of time may be consumed in handling conflicts, the resulting benefits
are much higher hence ensuring more long-term sustainability in an organization or team. This
means conflicts should be treated as a norm when it comes to management since people will
always have different opinions and ideas that may highly be contradicting. Nonetheless, do
organizations realize the benefits that conflicts offer or they see it as a destructive force?

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References
Ashe-Edmunds, S. and Thompson, J. (2019). Advantages & Disadvantages of Conflict in
Organizations. [online] Smallbusiness.chron.com. Available at:
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-amp-disadvantages-conflict-organizations-
40821.html [Accessed 1 Aug. 2019].
Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development. (2015). Getting under the skin of workplace
conflict: Tracing the experiences of employees. Available at:
http://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/getting-under-skin-workplace-conflict_2015-tracing-experiences-
employees.pdf [Accessed 1 Aug. 2019].
Hiethfield, S. (2019). Guess What? Some Workplace Conflict Is Good for Business. [online] The
Balance Careers. Available at: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/encourage-meaningful-
needed-conflict-1917870 [Accessed 1 Aug. 2019].
Lewis, J. (2019). Advantages & Disadvantages of Managing Conflict in Work & Life Strategy.
[online] Smallbusiness.chron.com. Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-
disadvantages-managing-conflict-work-life-strategy-36149.html [Accessed 1 Aug. 2019].
Rahul, R. (2019). Is organizational conflict a necessary evil? [online] Knowledge Tank.
Available at: https://www.projectguru.in/publications/is-organizational-conflict-a-necessary-evil/
[Accessed 1 Aug. 2019].
Reddy, K. (2019). Top 12 Benefits or Advantages of Conflicts in Work Place - WiseStep.
[online]. Available at: https://content.wisestep.com/advantages-of-conflicts/ [Accessed 29 Jul.
2019].