Healthy Conflict Resolution in Healthcare Organizations

This article discusses conflict resolution strategies and competencies required from organizational leaders in healthcare organizations. It takes the help of a case study to emphasize the importance of conflict resolution in healthcare organizations and the need for the right strategies and competencies to be able to successfully overcome the conflict and restore harmony.

Running head: HEALTHY CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Healthy Conflict Resolution
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction: 2
Case description: 3
Nature and origin of the conflict: 4
Conflict resolution 5
Conclusion: 8
References: 9

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Introduction:
Organizations are the very foundation of the industrial growth of any nation. And every
organization regardless of the domain it belongs to, function on the foundation of harmony. This
harmony comes from the collaborative co-operation from the external and internal stakeholders
associated with the organization. However, it has to be mentioned that organizations can be of
various different types, it can be commercial and it can be public service oriented. Although, in
both of the cases, with collaboration among the different stakeholders, the productive success
cannot be attained by the organizations. Health care can be considered an organizational domain
where the cooperation and collaborative expertise from professionals belonging to
multidisciplinary domains are united to provide assistance and care to the sick and ailing
(Barbour et al., 2011).
Now it has to be mentioned that in organizational scenario, regardless of it being commercial
or public services, the equilibrium of collaboration and cooperation can be disrupted by any
external factors, and one significant type is conflict. And in case of a healthcare organization, the
interpersonal conflict can lead to severe consequences for the patients. That is where the concept
of managerial or organization leadership comes to save the day (Brinkert, 2010). It has to be
understood that organizational leaders of managers serve the purpose of ensuring smooth
performance and steady productivity, and in order to do so, conflict resolution is a very
important step to be performed. The importance of conflict resolution is optimal in health care
scenario, and there is need for the right strategies and competencies to be able to successfully
overcome the conflict and restore harmony (Brown et al., 2011). This assignment will attempt to

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explore and evaluate the conflict resolution strategies and competencies required from
organizational leaders in the health care scenario taking the help of a case study.
Case description:
It has been mentioned that conflict is an inevitable part of everyday life. It has to be
understood that no two people will have similar understanding and perception, and hence
disagreement is inevitable. However, in certain cases, where the disagreement or conflict leads to
harming any stakeholder associated with the organization required steps need to be taken to both
resolve the conflict and ensure that the best interest of all the stakeholders associated with the
scenario are protected. This case study represents a situation where an administrative staff has a
conflict or disagreement with a medical practitioner and as a result the best interest of the
patients associated with the healthcare facility is getting hampered. On a more elaborative note, it
can be mentioned that the doctor in this case study has been a senior physician, who had been
associated with the facility for a long time and have been a respected and important part of the
facility. However despite his experience and expertise, he has been neglecting his responsibility
to the clinic and has been rescheduling and postponing his patient visits for the rest of the day. It
has to be mentioned in this context that the case study represents the doctor had already
cancelled clinic visits twice in a month and the third cancellation might affect the patients who
have been waiting to be seen by him for more than 3 months. Despite being notified by the
administrative staff Cindy, the doctor neglected his responsibility of visiting his patients and
went off after rescheduling again.
Here, the administrative staff is faced with a professional dilemma where have work
ethics restricted her from abiding to the desires of the doctor and made her confront the managers
about the situation. It needs to be addressed here that the physician had been neglecting his

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responsibilities towards the clinic and to his patients for a long time now and being a ethical
professional, Cyndi had been in dilemma because the patients had to suffer for the lack of
professional integrity of the said doctor. However as soon as confrontation with the manager
about the lack of professional integrity of the doctor and his recent slacking behavior happened,
the confrontation with the doctor had been delayed by involving many other stakeholders
associated with the healthcare facility like the medical officer, executive director, human
resources director, and union representative. Along with that it also has to be mentioned that
despite informing the higher authority about the professional discrepancies of the doctor, the
doctor was never mentioned about the confrontation and when the final meeting happened the
doctor was caught off-guard and had not been prepared at all (Deutsch, Coleman & Marcus,
2011). Hence, he was enraged and the healthy professional conduct between Dr Jones and Cyndi
was destroyed by the lack of any conflict resolution tendencies in both of them. As a result the
doctor had been labeled as a disruptive and irresponsible professional, which angered him and
made him feel betrayed and unappreciated whereas, in case of Cindy, she had to eventually
resign due to the fear in all the different department physicians of being targeted. This case
represents a scenario where the lack of conflict resolution and middle management led to
irreparable circumstances and as an end result both parties were affected (Ezziane et al., 2012).
Nature and origin of the conflict:
According to the Finkelman (2015), professional conflict can be defined as the friction
originated from any real or perceived incompatibility among two or more workers that affects the
operational performance and hampers the best interest of the all the stakeholders associated with
the organizational scenario. From the analysis of the case study described above, it has to be
mentioned in this context that the conflict is between the senior physician, Dr Jones and the

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administrative staff Cindy had many misunderstandings and negative perceptions regarding one
another and due to the lack of communication and comfort between both of them, they were not
able to resolve the issues that was rising in between them. It has to be mentioned that the first
rule of conflict resolution is effective and participative communication, in this case Cindy could
not communicate with Dr Johns regarding perception and understanding of the frequent
cancellations and early leaving by the doctor. As a result, she could never explore the point of
view of the doctor, and the misunderstanding grew into a conflict, endangering the professional
competence of the both of them (Fisher, 2012).
Hence, it can be mentioned that the interpersonal relationship conflict that both parties of
the case study experience and pain due to behavioral misconduct misinterpretation,
misunderstanding, lack of communicational comfort, and collaborative Cooperation. For the
conflict that has been presented in the case study, intervention from the management team to
resolve the conflict had been necessary (Marcus, Dorn & McNulty, 2011). Although, the
interventions planned and executed by the management has also had negative outcome and the
conflict resolution approach taken by the management has also been useless. If I had been given
the responsibility of conflict resolution in this case, I would have implemented a combination of
different strategic conflict resolution steps and communication strategies in order to achieve a
more fruitful effect which would have safe guarded the best interest of both parties involved.
Conflict resolution
First and foremost, it has to be mentioned that the conflict resolution interventions must
begin with face to face communication. The management entasked with resolving the conflict
must begin with arranging a face to face communication session for both Cindy and Dr Jones so
that with the mediation of a managerial leader for smoothing the communication process. It has

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to be understood that the basis behind the step taken by Cindy had been a perception that the
Doctor has been disrupting and slacking off on his professional responsibilities. However, in this
case the doctor might also have had any personal health issues or any personal problem that has
been overwhelming his working hours and his commitment to the profession. The face to face
communication between them can help them both to present their perceptions and reasons and
the organizational leader will get to know both sides of the story (Mayer, 2010).
Along with that, it has to be mentioned that for this case study, along with cost that the both
Cindy and Dr Jones had to pay for the communication misconduct had a detrimental impact on
the rest of the staff as well. The labeling of Dr Jones affected his professional expertise and
competence, the health care facility had to sustain a loss of an able and expert senior physician.
And along with that, a loyal staff with high professional ethics and integrity had to resign which
put forth a representation of fear regarding acting on professional ethics in the rest of the staff. It
has to be mentioned that the staff must always be encouraged to follow professional ethics and
loyalty, hence the resignation by Cindy has the risk of spreading a negative; professional culture
in the organization (Pavlakis et al., 2011). As a manager, my conflict resolution strategy will also
include one to one counseling and interaction session where both the parties involved will attend
individually a counseling session from wither me or a professional counselor. In case of Cindy,
the counseling strategy will focus on motivating and congratulating her for the work ethics and
fearless commitment that she had exhibited even with the risk of her being convicted for the act.
Along with that she will be given the loyalty recognition for her courage and fearlessness so that
she is motivated to continue with the health care facility (Ramsbotham, Miall & Woodhouse,
2011).

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A very similar counseling approach will be taken for the doctor as well, however he will be
encouraged to share his concerns with the management and according to the issues that he had
been facing he would be given solutions to help him regain control of the workload that he is
dealing with. Along with that he would be encouraged and motivated to recover from this minor
setback and revert back to his former professional routine without any regret or shame.
The third issue that the conflict of this case scenario had been the discrimination among
the rest of staff and the labeling of both Cindy and Dr Jones is a contributing factor behind the
isolation and betrayal they had been feeling. In order to cope with this issue, the labeling and
discrimination will also need to death with. A public survey or poll will be held to discover all
the employees, both physician and administrative, who take too much early leaves and cancel
patient visits to understand the severity of the issue and how many staff are engaging in it. This
will help in identifying all the employees who are in need for administrative attention to solve
the issues and along with that the discrimination in labeling will stop as almost all employees
will be held accountable for the number of leaves and cancellations they have been taking.
Lastly, I would also like to mention that communication, or the lack thereof, is the main issue
behind a wide variety of interpersonal conflicts that arise in healthcare scenarios (Saundry,
McArdle & Thomas, 2013). There is a need for a weekly communication session involving all
the staff so that they can sort out any interpersonal communication issues and there are no
communication caps leading to severe conflicts. As a part of the management committee with
the responsibility of conflict resolution, I will also ensure to take a long term strategy to
incorporate a communication session between the staff where they can interact with each other
and build a professional rapport that will not only help them resolve any conflicts in between

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themselves in the near future but will also help them build cooperative and mutually respectful
professional relationship (Robbins & Judge, 2012).
Conclusion:
On a concluding note it can be mentioned that the conflict and interpersonal issues are very
common in any organization, especially with communication. Hence it is acutely important for
the managerial staff to have competencies and skills in understanding the conflict situation and
acting upon it quickly to ensure minimal disruption to the work processes. Taking into
consideration the case study, a rising conflict among the employees of a health care facility can
have a detrimental impact on the patients and the care they are getting. Hence, there is need for a
active communication between the staff at all times and the organizational management must
also plan and execute sessions to encourage better interaction and professional relationship
among the staff.

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References:
Barbour, Virginia, Clark, Jocalyn, Jones, Susan, Norton, Melissa, & Veitch, Emma. (2011).
Health care systems and conflict: A fragile state of affairs.(Editorial). PLoS
Medicine, 8(7), E1001065.
Brinkert, R. (2010). A literature review of conflict communication causes, costs, benefits and
interventions in nursing. Journal of nursing management, 18(2), 145-156.
Brown, J., Lewis, L., Ellis, K., Stewart, M., Freeman, T., & Kasperski, M. (2011). Conflict on
interprofessional primary health care teams – can it be resolved? Journal of
Interprofessional Care, 25(1), 4-10.
Deutsch, M., Coleman, P. T., & Marcus, E. C. (Eds.). (2011). The handbook of conflict
resolution: Theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons.
Ezziane, Z., Maruthappu, M., Gawn, L., Thompson, E. A., Athanasiou, T., & Warren, O. J.
(2012). Building effective clinical teams in healthcare. Journal of health organization
and management, 26(4), 428-436.
Finkelman, A. (2015). Leadership and management for nurses: Core competencies for quality
care. Pearson.
Fisher, R. J. (2012). The social psychology of intergroup and international conflict resolution.
Springer Science & Business Media.
Marcus, L. J., Dorn, B. C., & McNulty, E. J. (2011). Renegotiating health care: resolving
conflict to build collaboration. John Wiley & Sons.

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Mayer, B. (2010). The dynamics of conflict resolution: A practitioner's guide. John Wiley &
Sons.
Pavlakis, A., Kaitelidou, D., Theodorou, M., Galanis, P., Sourtzi, P., & Siskou, O. (2011).
Conflict management in public hospitals: the Cyprus case. International nursing
review, 58(2), 242-248.
Ramsbotham, O., Miall, H., & Woodhouse, T. (2011). Contemporary conflict resolution. Polity.
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2012). Essentials of organizational behavior.
Saundry, R., McArdle, L., & Thomas, P. (2013). Reframing workplace relations? Conflict
resolution and mediation in a primary care trust. Work, Employment & Society, 27(2),
213-231.
Thistlethwaite, J. (2013). Communication learning needs of health professionals: Conflict
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Wallensteen, P. (2015). Understanding conflict resolution. Sage.