conflict management

Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975) was a Russian philosopher, critic and scholar who wrote many influential works of literary theory and criticism. His works, dealing with a variety of subjects, have inspired groups of thinkers who have incorporated Bakhtinian ideas into theories of their own. These thoughts on language use are particularly interesting in Change Management and Conflict Management and include:

In terms of aggressive behaviours, one could imagine a continuum between Active Aggression (which includes violence & brutality) and Passive Aggression. Passive-aggressive behaviour refers to passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to authoritative instructions in interpersonal or occupational situations. Sometimes a method of dealing with stress or frustration, it results in the person attacking other people in subtle, indirect, and seemingly passive ways. It can manifest itself as resentment, stubbornness, procrastination, sullenness, or intentional failure at doing requested tasks. For example, someone who is passive-aggressive might take so long to get ready for a party they do not wish to attend, that the party is nearly over by the time they arrive.

When most of us were at school failure was seen as something that was negative, should be avoided and often worth punishment. And yet most learning theorists agree that it is only through failure that we really learn – as opposed to just memorising. Failure is useful when it helps us critically appraise our own performance. This is evaluation is an example of feedback. A simple way to think of feedback is experiencing the output of your own performance as a new input.

Students of psychology and education are becoming increasingly aware of the vital role that feedback plays in how we learn. All complex systems (like your body, your organisation, your family, your community) change their behaviour or learn through feedback - even if this means weaving in and out of the best path (like Wiener’s boat example) rather than sticking to the best path in any strict way.

While we all know something about power, working in conflict or change management requires a clear understanding of power and how to decode and understand it. So what is power really and how is it constructed? Our world identifies certain individuals as 'having power' and then proceeds to make them more powerful by talking about them in the media. Politicians, high profile business leaders, characters from the entertainment industry and those frequently in the public eye are often said to examples of ‘powerful people’.

A useful way of decoding any phenomenon is to go beyond the 'what is it?' question and rather look at 'what does it do?'. In organisations, power can do many things. It can speed things up, slow things down, alter trajectory, transform our understanding of ‘what is going on’ and divert attention to something altogether different. We each have some measure of power and your position of power could be defined by:

Open Space Technology (sometimes called Open Space) is a self-organizing practice that allows diverse people in any kind of organization to create meetings and events with a difference. It is known to stimulate positive energies and achieve useful, well-documented results. Participants of an open space event create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance. By inviting people to take ownership and responsibility for what they care about it stimulates the emergence of the inherent creativity and leadership in people, establishes an ideas marketplace of reflection and learning. The technique can be used to work with groups - some say between 5 to 800 people, for events of two hours to several days. It works best when work to be done is complex, the people and ideas involved are diverse, the passion for resolution (and potential for conflict) are high, and time is very limited.

The following factors may be causes or complicating factors of conflict:

• Time

• Structural design
  • task interdependence , power distributions , resource scarcity, goal incompatibility , uncertainty
• Personal Differences
  • Faith , Ego , Experience , Personality , Prejudice , Poor training , Oversensitivity , Values , Aims , Substance use (Caffeine & other stimulants / narcotics may amplify and distort the emotional impact of conflict situations)
• Communication - miscommunication (semantics and cultural differences) & Signal to Noise (S/N ratio) of communications & poor listening skills

Behaviors that may cause/complicate conflict

• Intellectual

• Emotional
• Interpersonal
• Managerial / Leadership
• Communication - miscommunication (semantics and cultural differences) & Signal to Noise (S/N ratio) of communications & poor listening & storytelling skills
  

The way in which we define something has a tremendous impact in our approach to that subject - this is as true for the term KM as it is for conflict. Here we present some ideas for facilitators that may stimulate a different and more creative experience of conflict:

Defining conflict

• “An expressed struggle between at least 2 interdependent parties, who perceive incompatible goals, scarce rewards, and interference from the other party in achieving their goals.”

• "a disagreement through which the parties involved perceive a threat to their needs, interests or concerns"
  "state of open, often prolonged fighting; a battle or war."

• "A state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or interests; a clash.
• "A psychic struggle, often unconscious, resulting from the opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires, or tendencies." (Psychology)
  

The vision of the AU is based on a united and strong Africa and on the need to build a partnership between governments and all segments of civil society in order to strengthen solidarity and cohesion among the peoples of Africa. As a continental organisation, it focuses on the promotion of peace, security and stability on the continent as a prerequisite for the implementation of the development and integration agenda. African leaders should therefore be held accountable by the people of Africa to deal vigorously and effectively with conflict resolution and the implementation of good governance principles. (Venter 2005, 139).