Stress and Conflict Management
Taking care of your stress is important right now. There are a lot of tried-and-true ways to deal with stress. A change in lifestyle is the most important or smart thing to do. These things help us stay calm and effective in high-stress situations and keep us from getting stressed out over time. The smartest thing to do is to change the way you live.
Many non-invasive ways to relax and relieve stress are known to work. These include deep breathing, meditation, exercise, listening to relaxing music, different natural and alternative methods, personal growth techniques, visualisation, and massage.
Mind-body techniques for relaxation are just as good at lowering stress as physical ones. In fact, the best way to relax is to use both mental and physical techniques at the same time. Physical relaxation techniques can help ease muscle tension and keep the body’s “fight or flight” response in check. Take part in things that don’t stress you out, like hobbies, sports, or social events.
Regularly work out, eat well-balanced meals, and get enough sleep.
Don’t stress about things you can’t change, like the weather. Instead, meditate and try to see change as a challenge, not a threat.
Talk to a trusted friend, family member, or counsellor about your problems with other people and use a mediator to settle your differences.
Most big businesses in the US give their employees some kind of training on how to deal with stress. Some have programmes called employee assistance programmes (EAPs) that help workers with both personal and professional issues.
Training in how to deal with stress is cheap, easy to do, and may quickly help reduce stress symptoms like anxiety and sleep problems. The good effects on stress symptoms, on the other hand, don’t last long. These kinds of programmes tend to miss important causes of stress because they only look at the worker and not the workplace.
Companies in all kinds of fields are getting ready to give their workers a healthy, stress-free place to work. Experts say that stress at work happens everywhere, but people who work in some fields are more likely to experience it than people who work in others.
Surveys done in the UK and the US in 2006 and 2007 found that workers in the IT (information technology) industry, which includes the ITeS outsourcing industry, were the most stressed. Because of this, these companies started using a wide range of unusual techniques to lower stress at work.
Even in India, businesses have become aware of this problem and are trying new things to deal with it, like teaching their workers how to dance and play music and go trekking. etc., to make work less stressful. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., for example, has started a number of clubs, such as the Theatre Club, the Book Lovers Club, the Adventure and Trekking Club, the Fitness Club, the Sanctuary Club, the Music Club, the Community Services Club, and more.
Through a series of workshops led by experts, Infosys Technologies Ltd. helps its employees become more self-aware and learn how to deal with stress. Organizations hold stress management workshops, as well as picnics, games, and competitions between departments that take place away from the office. Some companies encourage open communication to make it easier for people to get along with each other at work.
Dealing with Conflict
“Conflict management is the idea that not all disagreements can be solved, but learning how to handle disagreements can lower the chances of them getting worse in a way that isn’t helpful.” Conflict management includes learning how to solve conflicts, understanding your own conflict styles, how to communicate with others during conflicts, and setting up a structure for managing conflict in your environment. Everyone in an organisation needs to know how to keep conflicts to a minimum and solve problems that arise from conflicts before they get in the way of their work.
Conflict
There are bound to be disagreements in every part of life, at home and at work. In this way, conflict is always there and can be both charming and annoying. But disagreement is a deep and broad subject. There are many things that can cause conflict. People or groups get into conflict when they can’t get what they need or want and are only looking out for themselves.
The person may not be aware of the need and may act out without realising it. At other times, the person is very clear about what they want and is working hard to get it. It would be better to find and solve the problem of conflict early on.
There are different opinions on the idea of conflict. Different meanings have been given by psychologists and sociologists. Some people call it a process, others call it an obstructive behaviour, and still others call it goal incompatibility. This is one way to describe conflict:
Conflict happens when someone’s view, whether it’s true or not, gets in the way of a world that needs to be stable and harmonious.
Things that make up conflict
Conflict is a Way of Life
There are “layers” of conflict. The first layer is always not understanding. The other layers are differences in values, points of view, interests, and how people interact with each other. It is also called a process because one side thinks the other is working against them or against their own best interests, and it ends with them competing, working together, compromising, or avoiding.
There will be conflict.
There is conflict everywhere. People are not the same. Because of this, they may be different from each other. And the differences, which could be over values or something else, cause fights. Even though conflict is unavoidable, it can be avoided, redirected, or solved. There is conflict because we are dealing with people’s lives, jobs, kids, pride, ego, sense of mission, and self-concept. Problems will always happen, and sometimes they’re good. For example, good teams always go through a “form, storm, norm, and perform” period.
There will always be conflict in life.
People, groups, and organisations all have different values and needs, but they only have so many resources to use. And because of this, there will be disagreements. The conflict itself is not a problem, but it does become a problem if it is not handled well.
Perception
For something to exist, the people involved must be able to see it. When people talk to each other, how they see things is more important than what they really are. What we see and think shapes how we act, how we feel, and how we talk to each other.
Opposition
There must be something that one side of the conflict sees or does that the other side doesn’t want or like.
Dependence and Getting Along
It must be true or thought to be true that they are connected in some way. Without interdependence, people can’t talk to each other. There can only be conflict when two or more people interact.
Everyone has to deal with conflict.
There can be conflict within a person, between two or more people, between groups, or between businesses.
Conflict has more than one facet.
It shows up in various ways depending on how serious it is and how much it can handle. Sometimes, it can make even a bad situation better.
Stages of a fight
A manager needs to know how to deal with different stages of conflict. If a person knows what the real problem is and how the conflict started, it’s easy to solve the problem before it gets worse. In most cases, a conflict goes through these stages:
- a) People are aware of the lack of resources and the different languages and cultures that exist. Sensitivity could lead to disagreements.
(1) If there are big differences between two or more groups, the hidden conflict that exists in a competitive setting could become a real conflict.
- c) An event can turn a conflict that has been dormant into an open conflict
(“d”) Even after a problem has been solved, there is still a chance of conflict. In fact, the chance is higher than it was before if one side thinks that the resolution made everyone lose.
Different Kinds of War
Different kinds of conflicts can happen, as shown below:
Because they were involved
There are three types of conflicts: intrapersonal (with oneself), interpersonal (between two people), and organisational. Inter-organizational and intra-organizational conflict are the two types of organisational conflict, whether they are real or imagined. There is inter-organizational conflict when there are more than two groups.
Inter-organizational conflict can be seen when two or more businesses are in competition with each other. The conflict that happens inside an organisation is called intra-organizational conflict. It can be broken down by level (department, work team, individual), and it can be categorised as interpersonal, intragroup, or intergroup.
Again, interpersonal conflict, whether it’s about something real or something emotional, is disagreement between two or more people in the same or a different group, at the same or a different level, in an organisation. These people don’t have to be part of the same group.
Conflict between people can be broken down into two types: intergroup and intragroup. The first type, intragroup, is between people in the same group or between subgroups within the same group. The second type, intergroup, is between organisations or groups.
Based on the Scope
There can be both substantive and emotional conflicts. A substantive conflict is about the job itself, not about the people involved, while an affective conflict is about feelings. Important disagreements can be about the facts of a situation, the best way to solve a problem, ends or goals, or even values. In this way, it covers both task conflict and process conflict.
Procedure conflicts can happen when people don’t agree on things like meeting dates and times, giving people tasks, how to organise and lead a group, or how to settle disagreements. Unresolved disagreements about how to do things can stop people from working together on projects. Substantive conflict can help people work together to make decisions. You may also hear this term used to describe performance, task, issue, or active conflict.
A relational conflict, on the other hand, is the opposite of an agreeable conflict. It is about relationships or incompatibilities between people and is based on feelings and anger between them.
If emotional conflicts aren’t solved, they can be very bad for the organisation. There are different kinds of affective conflicts, such as relationship conflicts. A conflict of emotions almost always gets in the way of making decisions together. Members are negative, irritable, suspicious, and angry because of the conflict.
For instance, when people working together don’t agree on how to recognise and solve a problem because of strong personal prejudices, like prejudices based on strong social, political, economic, racial, religious, ethnic, philosophical, or interpersonal biases, they rarely be able to focus on the task at hand.
There is a link between the two ideas. It is possible to tell the difference between good and bad conflict. Substantive conflict is good, and affective conflict is bad. When people in a group disagree about the tasks being done or the performance itself, this is called substantive conflict.
Based on the Results
It’s possible for conflict to be constructive or destructive, helpful or harmful, and positive or negative. Groups can’t reach their goals when they have destructive conflicts, which are also called dysfunctional conflicts.
Conflict is bad when it takes people’s attention away from other important things, lowers morale or self-esteem, divides people and groups, makes it harder for them to work together, makes differences bigger or more obvious, and encourages harmful behaviour like fighting and calling people names.
Constructive conflicts, on the other hand, are also called functional conflicts because they help the group reach its goals and make things better. Conflict is constructive when it leads to a better understanding of important issues and problems, the finding of solutions to those problems, genuine communication, the release of emotions, anxiety, and stress, cooperation among people by learning more about each other and working together to solve the conflict, and personal growth through understanding and skill development.
In line with Sharing by Groups
Distributive and integrative conflicts are both possible. When you look at distributive conflict as a sharing of a set number of good outcomes or resources, you can see that one side will win and the other will lose, even if the other side gets some things they wanted.
Integrative: On the other hand, groups that use this model see conflict as a chance to bring together both groups’ needs and concerns in order to achieve the best result possible. When there is this kind of conflict, compromise is more important than when there is a distributive conflict. It has been shown that the distributive conflict never leads to better task-related results than the integrative conflict.
Based on the Strategy
There can be both competitive and cooperative conflicts. Competitive conflict builds on itself. The problem that started the fight is no longer important. The main issue isn’t really what’s causing the fight; it’s just a cover storey. People in competitive conflict want to win the argument or fight, even if it costs more and hurts more than not fighting at all.
In a competitive conflict, costs don’t matter, so irrationality is still what makes it stand out. When there is competitive conflict, there is a lot of fear, which is one of the main reasons why conflicts go crazy. Irrational conclusions can also be reached if someone has a personal or national stake in the outcome. This is especially true if self-esteem is at stake.
Ideological or moral disagreements can either lead to competitive conflict or make it more likely to happen. Even worse, irrationality sets in when the desire to win takes precedence over any specific reason for the conflict.
When powers are about equal, like they were in the alliances that started World War I, there is almost always conflict that turns competitive and irrational. The customers win in a competitive market, but the businesses may be at risk. But in sports, people are encouraged to compete.
People “sink or swim” together when they work together to reach a goal. But when people compete, if one person swims, the other person has to sink. Interest-based or integrative bargaining leads people to look for solutions where everyone wins. A cooperative approach fits in with these process. When people in a dispute work together to find a solution, they are more likely to build trust and find settlement options that are good for both sides.
Because of rights and interests
When people have different rights that are given to them by law, contract, agreement, or common practise, this is called a conflict of rights. It will cause trouble if this right is taken away. A court decision or arbitration, not negotiation, is the only way to settle this kind of disagreement.
On the other hand, there is a conflict of interests when someone or a group wants certain rights that are not protected by law or right. A disagreement like this can only be solved through talks or collective bargaining.