Conflict Resolution and Negotiation: A Reflective Essay

This essay delves into the realm of conflict resolution through a reflective analysis of the author's personal experiences. The essay begins with an introduction defining conflict and its various forms, including internal and external conflicts, and emphasizing the dynamic nature of conflict resolution in the modern business environment. The core of the essay focuses on two distinct personal conflicts: one with the author's parents and another with a teacher. Each conflict is meticulously described, highlighting the underlying issues and the author's initial responses. The essay then explores the strategies employed to manage these conflicts, drawing upon conflict resolution theories such as negotiation, active listening, and win-win approaches. It evaluates the effectiveness of these techniques, providing verbatim examples and discussing areas for improvement. The conclusion summarizes the key learnings from both conflicts, underscoring the importance of understanding, communication, and the adoption of various methods to resolve disputes effectively, thereby strengthening interpersonal relationships.

NEGOTIATION AND CONFLICT
RESOLUTION

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Conflict-1...................................................................................................................................2
Managing the personal conflicts-1.............................................................................................2
Conflict-2...................................................................................................................................3
Managing the conflict-2.............................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
Conflict is an inseparable part of one’s conventional life. Everyone faces and
experiences some form of conflict either external or internal. Internal conflict referred to
emotional misbalances due to situations or misunderstanding among the surrounding people.
Internal conflict is a situation that creates a sense of opposition of thought process between
the internal and external environment. The conflicts are of several types such as social
conflicts, racisms, and family conflicts. These conflicts arise from smaller situations but
shape as bigger problems further. Moreover, with the increasing dynamic business
environment, the method of solving the problems differ from the person to person. Every
person has different perception and with the difference in the perception, they for a resolution
strategy. The reflective essay holds the description of conflicts and their resolution in the
below description. The first conflict named “X” is based on personal conflict with the
husband. Interpersonal conflict is a fact of life and arises in the everyone`s sphere of life. The
second personal conflict “Y” is based on conflict between the friends (Rainey, 2018).
Conflict-1
Conflict with the parents at the young age causes a level of stress, which has negative
impact and creates stress on each lives through many ways. Although, there can be several
reasons of conflicts in parental relations such as lack of time to the parents, problem in
decision making due to different perception and work. Most importantly, all the problems
occur due to lack of understanding and existence of unrealistic expectation. My parents and I
had a bad bonding and do not have a good sense of understanding because as they want and
require time for care. A bad understanding was due to poor quality time spending with each
other (Webb, Milon, & Higgins, 2017). This caused a situation of unclear communication
among us. Moreover, I think after a certain age, parents expect their children to take their

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care but it is understood youth will go over their careers as their priority. Expecting
unrealistic things from me, which is not possible to fulfil. Undoubtedly, neither I can ignore
the responsibility to take care of them nor take my career as a joke. Some clashes lead to big
issues as it brings more other complex situations of other previous problems. Being in a
relationship of 20-21 years, it is expected that one will do work of each other, especially
when one is not capable of executing any work but it had become more complex to convince
the parents and take the task as his own rather than creating a conflicting situation (Fevre, &
Robinson, 2015).
Managing the personal conflicts-1
To manage the personal conflict between the relationships especially my parents and
I. As one person cannot resolve the whole problem. Each person in the relationship should
engage to solve and adopt the situation according the environment. Disagreements on each
situation cannot lead to full proof solution to the problem as both belong to different
backgrounds (Aliakbari, & Amiri, 2016). Either my parents or I had to compromise on any
situation because if each of us will become rigid, it would become difficult to ride a relation.
There are several strategies to deal with the conflict such as compete and fight, compromise
or negotiate, denial or avoidance. There is a situation where a win/lose situation shows how
strengths and power of one person overtakes and wins the conflict (ACAP Student Learning
Support, 2015b).
Apart from the adjusting the situation, there are more methods of settling down the
conflicting by negotiating and active listening. In case of compromise and negotiation, both
the parties can result in a better win or lose case but it is difficult to focus only on win/win
situation. By considering mutual understanding, both my parents and I started giving up
something, which can be in favour of an agreed point solution. It can take less time than
collaborating and creating a situation that is an ideal situation of win/win (Worthington,

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Berry, Hook, Davis, Scherer, Griffin, & Sharp, 2015). Collaboration needs an input of time
from both the parties that are into relationships and find an agreed way to solve problem
where both the parties agree to situations (Akgun, & Araz, 2014). Active listening is another
communication technique that is used in counselling, conflict resolution, and training that
requires a feedback what exactly they hear from the speaker. Active listening is not only
limited to re-stating or paraphrasing the same words to confirm the words stated by the
speaker. Moreover, it should confirm to the understanding to both the parties (ACAP Student
Learning Support, 2015a).
The areas of improvement was on the both the sides, my side as well as my parents especially
regarding active and listening empathically. To manage the less confronting approach, it is
important to gather more information and check the accuracy according to it and to repeat
and understand the facts and issues as per the interpretation of how the situation can be
improved (Rainey, 2018).
Conflict-2
The second personal conflicting situation refers to situation “Y” where I had a conflict
with my teacher. Sometimes teacher becomes dominating thinking that they knows
everything just because they teaches such a large number of people. Slowly and steadily, we
have received our education from the schools and colleges. Although, at the college, teachers
become flexible because they know at least students are acquaint with the discipline rules and
mannerism. The problem occurred while organising an event, the teacher does not want us to
focus more on live projects and public speaking. Moreover, on the other side, the teacher
focused on such work, which can assist them to ease their work. My friend and I were
thinking of investing the money of the event on practical implication of business plan, which
can give a good sum of learning returns in form of education returns (Meadow, 2017).
Teacher was not responding very well on this investment plan of the event rather than he

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enforced us not to waste money on live projects, which will also take more time. To
overcome the ego problem of the teacher, I approached higher authority such as HOD (head
of the department) not to complain of actions of the teacher but rather kept convincing the
authority to organise the programs which can include live assignments. Finally, decided to
invest in the business plan project which would demand more investment (Doyle, 2018).
Managing the conflict-2
The conflicting style was not limited to words but exceeded to stoppable growth of us
against each other. Moreover, the restricted growth and problems were solved but in the
longer term the conflict between the teacher and me had become severe. He started
discriminating on the basis of irrelevant marks. After the time when the event of live projects
and investment projects were over, I started convincing and addressing the issues and solving
them accordingly. A building block with some basic rules of communication and conflict
mediation can resolve the barriers occurred from the conflicts (Garaigordobil, & Valderrey,
2015). Let my teacher know that it is important to discuss about the political problems rather
than continuing the grudges, which sometimes relate to assertiveness because one may not
feel feasible to start the talk at first. There are generally two common reason when people
turn into conflicts such as they do not communicate and listen clearly and they have different
interests that do not exist without negotiating (Almost, Wolff, Pyne, McCormick, Strachan, &
D'souza, 2016). To remain assertive is an important and core communication skill.
Assertiveness exists where I can express myself so effectively that it can help to boost the
self-esteem and earn others respect. Moreover, during solving the conflicts, one party has to
maintain calm during negotiation and communication. Sometimes, there are healthy
responses to the conflicts such as capacity to empathize the other`s point of view (Cole,
2018). Moreover, it brings a readiness to bring and forget the past conflicts without holding

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any anger and resentments on the part of people in the interpersonal relations and to find and
adjust and avoid punishments.

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Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that while discussing both the
interpersonal conflicts of both the situations such as with the spouse and the friend. In both
the situations, it was found that there was a lack of understanding among the people.
Although undoubtedly, both a relation of parents and teacher are extremely close but there
occur some consequences, which causes extreme situations and breaks the strong bond of the
relationships. In the above interpersonal conflicts and problems, I have used proper
negotiation, win/win approach, and active listening methods to solve the conflicts among the
relationships. There always exist a sense of difference in thought process of the people even
if they stay together for lifelong. Therefore, the decision-making process differs from person
to person especially when the external environment is complex and fluctuating. I strongly
believe that I have a strong strength regarding understanding people but on the other side, I
am impatient too. Moreover, to overcome the problem of conflicts, several methods such as
active listening, assertive communication, and win/win approach helped me to overcome the
problems regarding conflicts.

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References
ACAP Student Learning Support, (2015a) Conflict Resolution Assignment 1 Video Guide
Part 1. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxGz244h1-
A&feature=youtu.be
ACAP Student Learning Support, (2015b) Conflict Resolution Assignment 1 Video Guide
Part 3. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=9UxBjK0jYJc&feature=youtu.be
Akgun, S., & Araz, A. (2014). The effects of conflict resolution education on conflict
resolution skills, social competence, and aggression in Turkish elementary school
students. Journal of Peace Education, 11(1), 30-45.
Aliakbari, M., & Amiri, M. (2016). Personality, face concern, and interpersonal conflict
resolution styles: a case of Iranian college students. Personality and Individual
Differences, 97, 266-271.
Almost, J., Wolff, A. C., Stewart‐Pyne, A., McCormick, L. G., Strachan, D., & D'souza, C.
(2016). Managing and mitigating conflict in healthcare teams: an integrative
review. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(7), 1490-1505.
Cole, J. (2018). Structural, organizational, and interpersonal factors influencing
interprofessional collaboration on sexual assault response teams. Journal of
interpersonal violence, 33(17), 2682-2703.
Doyle, A. (2018) Examples of Conflict Resolution Skills. Retrieved from:
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/conflict-resolutions-skills-2063739

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Fevre, D. M., & Robinson, V. M. (2015). The interpersonal challenges of instructional
leadership: Principals’ effectiveness in conversations about performance
issues. Educational Administration Quarterly, 51(1), 58-95.
Garaigordobil, M., & Valderrey, M. V. (2015). The effectiveness of Cyberprogram 2.0 on
conflict resolution strategies and self-esteem. Journal of Adolescent Health, 57(2),
229-234.
Meadow, C. (2017). Dispute processing and conflict resolution: theory, practice and policy.
US: Routledge
Rainey, D. (2018) 6 Steps for Resolving Conflict in Marriage. Retrieved from:
https://www.familylife.com/articles/topics/marriage/staying-married/resolving-
conflict/6-steps-for-resolving-conflict-in-marriage/
Webb, C. E., Milon, R. M., & Higgins, E. T. (2017). Stepping forward together: Could
walking facilitate interpersonal conflict resolution?. American Psychologist, 72(4),
374.
Worthington Jr, E. L., Berry, J. W., Hook, J. N., Davis, D. E., Scherer, M., Griffin, B. J., ... &
Sharp, C. B. (2015). Forgiveness-reconciliation and communication-conflict-
resolution interventions versus retested controls in early married couples. Journal of
Counseling Psychology, 62(1), 14.