Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2008 in the subject
Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade:
1,3, University of Applied Sciences Berlin, course: Soft Skills &
Leadership Qualities, language: English, abstract: The American William
Ellery Channing once said that "difficulties are meant to rouse, not
discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict." Life is
full of conflicts. Wherever choices exist there is potential for
disagreement. Such differences, when handled properly, can result in
richer, more effective, creative solutions and interaction. But it is
difficult to consistently turn differences into opportunities. Poorly
managed disagreements could lead to a psychological distance between
people based on negative feelings like competition and disregard.
Conflict is inevitable in business relationships, as it is in social
relationships. Without conflict, growth is limited. Unresolved conflict
can be poisonous to the productivity of a company. Conflicts that are
not handled or that are handled in an inappropriate way could become
expensive for a company. Thus, managers spend a lot of time dealing with
conflicts or its aftermath. This indicates how much resources are wasted
by wrong conflict management; a huge amount of a company's workforce is
kept away from daily business and productive work. The challenge is to
identify conflict situations in their beginning stage and to manage them
constructively to discover new opportunities and to transform conflict
into a productive learning experience. Whereas chapter 1.2 describes
some important conflict types and the reasons for their arising, chapter
2.1 describes the first signs of conflict arising to sensitise to the
roots of conflicts. By focussing on the business environment, chapter
2.2 and 2.3 show ways to minimise unnecessary conflicts and to manage
unavoidable conflicts. Chapter 2.4 states important soft skills managers
must develop to resolve conflicts
