Aaron Murdock

COMM 3420

Conflict Self-Analysis

I work as a technical support agent in a call center. There was a recent conflict between

myself and a coworker, someone who is there to help me when I request it, and who is absolutely

genius, but who can come across as abrupt. We have butted heads a couple of times via the

intra-company chat system when I have requested help. Finally, we recently had a good, albeit

brief, talk about it and he explained where he is coming from when he responds to my messages.

This talk has helped me understand how I can better interact with him and what to expect in our

conversations, and it has changed what I choose to say and how I say it. For the purposes of this

paper I will refer to him as Mike. [BA1] Below I will examine how our interactions have played

out and how the ​stages of conflict​, ​power​, ​conflict styles​, and ​conflict management​ were involved

(Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2013).

First, I will look at the beginning of the conflict and how the stages of conflict as outlined

by Folger et al. (2013) applied to the first situation with Mike. This model helps make sense of

how to manage a conflict and break dangerous cycles. Rummel’s Five-Stage Model goes through

latency​,​ ​a ​triggering event,​ then into ​open conflict​, a ​balance of power​, and finally end with a

disruption stage ​(Folger et al., 2013, p. 76). At the onset of the conflict, I was just out of training

at the job and made a decision without understanding fully the consequences of it. Mike

informed me of those consequences, and how it made more work for others to have to fix my

poor decision. In that first interaction, he had higher expectations of my performance than I did,
so while I felt ​justified ​(Folger et al., 2013, p. 196[BA2] ) in my decision because I was a newer

employee, he was looking at it from the broader perspective of experience and how it would

affect others and the company. At this point the conflict would be considered ​latent​ (Folger et

al., 2013) because, although we held differing views, they were not clashing yet. The ​triggering

event​ (Folger et al., 2013) was when, shortly into the conversation, I expressed my thoughts on

something that, in retrospect, should have been more tactfully said. It is not that what I said was

intentionally rude, but that it came across as rude. ​Open conflict​ (Folger et al., 2013) began at

that point when Mike said that I had done something wrong and lasted until it was addressed a

few days later through my supervisor and his. That is when the ​power balance ​(Folger et al.,

2013) was restored and I better understood both own and Mike’s roles. However, there was still

the potential for ​disruption​ later because Mike and I had not spoken to each other about [BA3] it.

Power is, according to Hannah Arendt, dependent on the group staying together, and it

only exists while the group does (Arendt, 1969). Folger explains that power comes from people

staying together, and that it not from any one individual. That power is claimed resources like

knowledge, allies, structure, or possessions, and parties use these resources in a conflict to exert

power over the other party (Folger et al., 2013). The initial conflict explained above was

addressed in a coaching I had with [BA4] my supervisor about the conflict. He had “power

endorsed by the disputing parties” (Folger et al., 2013, p. 255), who were me and Mike, and that

power came because of his formal position. This dependency on my supervisor as an intervenor

came up a few weeks later when the original conflict reached the ​disruption stage​ (Folger et al.,

2013, p. 76).
 At the onset of this conflict and throughout the ensuing conversations, the power levels

were uneven. Mike, due to his tenure at the company, his position of authority over me, and the

fact that I was approaching him for help in the first place, all meant that he maintained power

because I gave it to him (Folger et al., 2013), but also because he had the resources of structure,

knowledge and tenure.

Folger et al. describe five ​conflict styles​, which are ​competing​, ​accommodating,​ ​avoiding​,

collaborating​, and ​compromising ​(Folger et al., 2013, p. 109-110). Conflict styles are, according

to Moberg in 2001, how a person normally responds to conflict. My personal style is usually

avoidance​, as I feel uncomfortable in conflict and either try to smooth things over or get away

quickly. This was demonstrated with Mike not long ago when I was following protocol and

chatted him for help. This is also when the ​disruption o​ ccurred as mentioned earlier. Mike

replied to my chat, but rather than following through with my request, he started asking me

questions about why I was asking for this particular request. This would be a type of ​competing

called​ forcing​ where one party uses power to try to exert control over another (Folger et al.,

2013, p. 115). I gave my answers, though I was thrown off by the sudden quiz on my knowledge

of how our service works. I was also trying to help the customer in an efficient and timely way,

and so once the issue appeared resolved I let the customer go and ended the call. At this point, I

realize now that I was trying to maintain some control by manipulating the situation because I

felt I had lost the power once Mike started asking questions (Folger et al., 2013). I was also

withdrawing​ slightly because of the flood of words (p. 117). Mike chatted in a moment later

saying he was not done working on the issue, and that I should not have ended the call. He told

me that I did not handle the call well, which led me to feel frustrated that I had been quizzed in
the middle of helping a customer during a call, before receiving the help I had originally

requested. I felt ​justified​ again because I acted out of self-defense (p. 96). I replied with

measured responses while Mike berated me, practicing my personal style of conflict

management, ​avoidance​, even as he practiced ​competition​ (Folger et al., 2013).

Shortly after the call, I brought this situation before my supervisor, who apparently then had a

chat with Mike. This is when my supervisor once more acted as an intervenor based on his

relationship to both me and Mike. At this point he had become supervisor over both of us and

our teams. I chatted with Mike a couple of hours after the call and let him know I liked his new

hair color. It was my attempt at making peace and to restore the relationship by giving face

(Folger et al., 2013, p. 194), though I did not directly mention the earlier conversation. He said

“thanks” and then explained a bit of where he is coming from when people chat in for help. He

acknowledged how he is often blunt in chat, but he tries to not come across as rude, and that if it

ever happens that I should feel free to call him out. Although this has been an ongoing conflict,

real management of it did not start until this conversation happened.

Effective ​conflict management​ requires that parties ​differentiate ​their positions so that issues are

understood from both points of view by both parties (Folger et al., 2013, p. 230). This week

during a training meeting with Mike and two other coworkers on my team who also chat in for

help from Mike’s team, Mike went through the training presentation, then brought up the topic of

chatting in for assistance from his team. Chatting for help is part of our team’s protocol. He

reiterated what he said to me before in chat about how he comes across as harsh, but he does not

mean to be rude. He apologized for his team, who has been told by our supervisor that they all

come across as abrupt or harsh at times in the chatroom. He said they are aware of it and will try
to maintain a friendlier tone in their messages, but for us to also expect them to be direct. He

apologized for his specific manners, and when he said that I realized that I had already forgiven

him when I talked to him about his hair. He then opened the meeting for questions or comments.

According to Vliert, Nauta, Giebels, and Janssen (1999), Mike’s approach to this discussion

would follow a pattern of forcing, then problem solving, which is one of the more effective ways

to handle conflict in dyads. That is, he laid down what to expect and how things would work

between our teams, then opened up the discussion for feedback and told us to “air our dirty

laundry”.

I commented that I and the people on my team should not take offense at how things are said if

the purpose is for us to improve. I echoed what my supervisor had said earlier in the day during

my weekly coaching: conflict can lead to progress if we are working toward the same goal. Mike

agreed and the four of us spoke for a few minutes about how we could face the upcoming

challenges as a joint effort, not just as competing teams. Examini[BA5] ng my reactions to

Mike’s words in that meeting, I can see that my ​forgiveness​ (Folger et al., 2013, p. 245-246) of

him stem from a few reasons: My desire to restore the relationship between Mike and I, the fact

that Mike is a likeable guy, my need to relieve resentment toward him, and to relieve my own

guilt for avoiding this difficult conversation.

From the discussion we had in that meeting, it was clear that there is an expectation that the

teams within the company will use both ​competition​ and ​collaboration​ (Folger et al., 2013) to

move forward and stay apace of all the internal change happening in the next few months.

Indeed, this idea is demonstrated by an announcement made earlier this week by my supervisor.

The call floor will be competing agent versus agent to win an Xbox One, but the purpose is for
the whole call floor to raise its overall performance to higher standards and come together as a

team. This means we will have to work more effectively together, my team with Mike’s, and

both of those teams with the other teams in the company.

Through this competition and the coming weeks, I plan to improve my performance at work even

as I engage in intentional conflict with my coworkers. For me, who tends to avoid by ​smoothing

or ​withdrawing​ rather than ​competing​ (Folger et al., 2013), this will be a challenge. There are big

changes coming to our company, and I can see that Mike, my supervisor, and the whole call floor

team really want to be prepared for what is coming. We want to see the company take off, and

I’m happy to work with people who understand that, as my supervisor said again just recently,

conflict can be constructive when we are moving toward the same goal.
Sources:

Arendt, H. (1969). ​On Violence.​ New York. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Folge​[BA6] ​r, J. P., Poole, M., & Stutman, R. K. (2013). ​Working through conflict: Strategies

for relationships, groups, and organizations ​(7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Education, Inc.

Moberg, P. J. (2001). Linking conflict strategy to the Five-Factor Model: Theoretical and

empirical foundations. ​International Journal of Conflict Management,12​(1), 47-68.

doi:10.1108/eb022849

Vliert, E. V., Nauta, A., Giebels, E., & Janssen, O. (1999). Constructive conflict at work. ​Journal

of Organizational Behavior,20​(4), 475-491. doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-1379(199907)20:43.0.co;2-g