Organizational Conflicts In The Currents Times, How Can We Face It?

Effective communication is a cornerstone of successful company administration and plays a pivotal role in fostering strong business relationships. As social beings, humans rely on communication to connect with others and construct their subjectivity. Communication processes, which vary in type, level, and depth, are fundamental in developing and maintaining these connections. Understanding the elements of these processes is crucial for promoting healthier and more enriching interactions within any organization. Given the complexity of communication, it is essential to recognize the various factors that influence it, enabling better management and facilitating smoother interpersonal and group interactions in the workplace.

Communication involves the exchange of thoughts, feelings, and emotions, forming the basis of human interrelation within a social system. It is a process characterized by stages, occurring in specific times and spaces, and is not a static state but a continuum influenced by diverse factors and conditions. The notion of exchange is central to communication, implying inter-influence where each message and response has consequences. Effective communication necessitates coherence between verbal and non-verbal messages, ensuring clarity and directness in interactions.

Verbal and non-verbal communication

Effective communication relies on the coherence between verbal and non-verbal cues. Non-verbal communication includes:

• External Appearance: Initial judgments based on appearance, influencing perceptions about sex, age, profession, and culture.

• Body Movement: Movements convey meanings and can lead to misunderstandings if misinterpreted.

• Eye Contact: A powerful non-verbal cue conveying different meanings.

• Physical Contact: Indicates dominance and relationship dynamics.

• Use of Personal Space: Cultural and personal space preferences affect communication dynamics.

Communication barriers

Several barriers can hinder effective communication, including:

• Criticism: Focuses on negatives, inducing guilt and lowering self-esteem.

• Manipulative Praise: Uses praise to control or manipulate, causing defensiveness.

• Diagnosis: Probing for hidden motivations can generate anger and mistrust.

• Nicknames and Sarcasm: Denigrates individuals, causing resentment.

• Authoritarian Orders: Lowers self-esteem and discourages constructive dialogue.

• Threats: Emphasizes punishment, creating fear.

• Moralizing: Imposes social or moral authority, limiting open communication.

• Irrelevant Questions: Impersonal and incomplete questions provoke defensiveness.

• Deviation: Shifts focus away from the main issue, showing disrespect.

• Unsolicited Advice: Undermines confidence, fostering dependency.

• Logical Arguments: Ignoring emotions and focusing solely on facts irritates stressed individuals.

• Reassurance: Lacks empathy, appearing falsely optimistic.

• Not Listening: The most significant barrier, undermining the foundation of communication.

Other barriers include power dynamics, prejudgment, negative attitudes, superficiality, routine, deception, language differences, and fear. Personal barriers like poor listening habits, physical barriers like noise, semantic barriers involving multiple meanings, and defense mechanisms also obstruct effective communication.

Techniques and strategies for evaluating the communicative plane of conflicts

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) techniques like conciliation, negotiation, arbitration, and mediation are crucial for evaluating and managing conflicts. These methods promote non-adversarial conflict resolution, emphasizing the recognition and constructive handling of conflicts. The process involves:

1. Overcoming Conflict: Acknowledging and willing to address the conflict.

2. Utilizing Conflict: Recognizing and leveraging the conflict for growth.

3. Denying Conflict: Avoiding acknowledgment of the conflict.

4. Evading Conflict: Recognizing but not confronting the conflict.

5. Accommodating Conflict: Recognizing but choosing not to respond.

6. Aggressing Conflict: Responding with hostility.

The chosen response impacts the conflict's progression and resolution. ADR methods aim to transform conflicts constructively, moving beyond traditional adversarial approaches.

In this sense, alternative procedures for dispute resolution or ADR (alternative dispute resolution) are registered, which constitute methods that allow the management and transformation of the conflict based on a non-adversarial conception of it. They are based on what would be the overcoming of the conflict as an attitude. There is an acknowledgment of the presence of the conflict and an attempt is made to initiate its management and solution process. Likewise, at the base of these methods is the idea that conflicts can be faced from a constructive perspective and that the traditional adjudicator model for dispute resolution is not always the best approach.

With this change, it is emphasized that we are no longer facing an alternative or minor movement in conflict resolution, but that the ADR movement, by differing significantly in its formality and location from the decision-making procedures from power, represents an added value to the issue of conflicts and the process of their resolution.

Alternative dispute resolution procedures are methods of conflict resolution that start from a non-adversarial conception of the conflict. They are based on the principle that conflicts can be faced from a constructive perspective and that the traditional adjudicatory model for the resolution of disputes is not always the best answer.   

Conclusions

Effective communication management is crucial in company administration, impacting all aspects of business operations and relationships. Addressing communication barriers prevents misunderstandings and conflicts, fostering a positive work environment. By promoting clear, direct, and empathetic communication, businesses enhance collaboration and problem-solving capabilities, building stronger and more resilient teams. Embracing ADR techniques enables organizations to manage and resolve conflicts constructively, maintaining harmony and productivity.

More curiosity / less judgments: Avoid judging the parties in conflict, or wanting to judge the other.

More facilitation / less owning the problem: Empower the person and become someone capable of solving their problems; help you discover what you really want, offer options on how to proceed.

More listening / less talking: Sometimes one can find a way out of the problem simply by speaking out loud about it.

More asking questions / less giving advice: Just asking questions helps the person see problems differently and can help them move in positive directions.

More focus on the person you are talking to / less on the other disputant: Why focus on the disputant who is not present? There is no way to help that person resolve their conflicts if they are not present.

References

Picard, C. (2014) “Mediación en conflictos interpersonales y de pequeños grupos”. La Habana: Publicaciones Acuario.