Types of Conflict Essay Example for Free

Types of Conflict Essay Conflict in business meetings usually falls into two categories: 1. Real professional differences – Conflict can arise from very real differences in professional opinions. In many cases, these differences dont develop into open conflict. But conflict is more likely when the outcome is extremely important, when the decision being made is irreversible, or when the impact of making the wrong decision will reflect badly on those involved. When this type of conflict is left unresolved, it can rapidly spoil relationships. 2. Power struggles and personality issues – Conflict can arise when individuals or groups dislike one-another, or feel that their positions are being threatened. This type of conflict tends to be more about peoples personalities than about facts or decisions being made. The techniques well discuss below still apply, but you may also need to resolve the underlying problem. For more on this, see our articles on Conflict Resolution (in particular, Thomas and Kilmanns conflict styles) and on Resolving Team Conflict. Reducing the Opportunity for Conflict The best defenses against conflict often involve preparing thoroughly before the meeting, and chairing strongly during the meeting. If you develop a reputation for running tightly structured meetings, theres less chance that individuals who attend those meetings will try to pursue their own agendas. See Running Effective Meetings for practical tips on how to do this. Send out the agenda in advance, and when the meeting begins, ask the group to agree to it. Then follow your agenda closely, but dont be overly rigid. If a conflict arises, a good agenda makes it easier to recognize that the group is going off course. If people agree to the meetings goals, interruptions that lead to conflict arent as likely to occur. You should also be alert for meetings where the atmosphere and dynamics of the people involved make it more likely for conflict to arise. These include gatherings where known troublemakers – individuals or groups with a history of causing conflict – are present. They also include meetings of new teams that have reached the storming stage of their team development – when individuals begin to struggle for influence, but the team hasnt yet established effective ways of working. Read more about this in Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing. In these situations, state the meeting rules in advance. For example, meeting rules might be as follows: †¢ Individuals will be allowed to speak after raising their hands – and only one person may speak at a time. †¢ The chair may summarize what has been said to make sure everyone understands. †¢ Everyone will be invited to contribute, so that one person cannot take over the discussion. As chair, you must be firm about managing and enforcing these rules! If the team needs to make decisions, you may also want to establish the decision making process, and ask all participants to agree to this. Gaining Benefits from Conflict Have you ever attended a meeting in which a conflict – probably the real professional disagreement type – was successfully resolved? If so, you can appreciate the benefits of working through your differences to a satisfactory conclusion. Conflict is not, therefore, something you need to avoid at all costs. In fact, conflict can sometimes be the quickest and best way to make creative progress. You certainly dont want everyone automatically to say yes to everything without proper discussion! Spotting Potential Conflicts Early One key to spotting the first signs of conflict is watching body language. If the conflict is mostly due to professional differences, rather than personality differences, the sooner you allow people to make their points, the better. Make sure that people have the opportunity to express disagreement as soon a possible, so that issues can be resolved and the discussion can proceed on a correct basis. How do you know if someone is frustrated? Look for these signs: †¢ Making facial expressions of amazement or disagreement, such as shaking the head or rolling the eyes. The person may also fidget, or move around in a restless or nervous manner. †¢ Looking at other people to see if anyone elses body language or facial expressions reveal their disagreement with the speaker. †¢ Whispering or writing notes to another person. This may indicate that the frustrated person is checking on his or her position or trying to gather support for a confrontation. This can apply to both types of conflict. †¢ Staring, possibly in an intimidating way, at the speaker or potential target of confrontation. When you spot the signs of conflict brewing, use the resolution approaches set out in the next section proactively rather than reactively. And nipping the problem in the bud is usually better, because then no one will have to live with the memory of what was said at THAT meeting. Resolving Conflict So, what if you follow these suggestions, and an unexpected conflict still occurs? What do you do then? Here are some approaches and techniques you can use. Depersonalization This involves wording issues so that they focus on what one party doesnt like rather than the person who is proposing the unpalatable option. How does this work in practice? Lets going back to our earlier example: Well, I can see your arguments for appointing Alison. But I just think James would be better, and youre not going to convince me otherwise. As a leader, you need to pick this up and rephrase the statement: So what youre saying is that while Alison clearly has strengths, James strengths may well be more important. From here, you can move the discussion into an objective analysis of the relative importance of different qualities. Questioning Another approach is to switch your teams focus from conflict to research. Encourage people to provide information, rather than state that theyre angry or disagree with something. To achieve this, use some carefully phrased questions. Dont just ask yes-or-no questions – try to clarify what people are thinking. Ask for specific examples, and perhaps suggestions for how the disagreeable idea would need to be changed to make it acceptable to them. In some cases, the alterations they want may be quite small. When a conflict arises in a meeting, you, as the chair need to take control. Dont let others start wading in to the conflict by interrupting you or the speakers. Remove or Reduce the Perceived Threat A key cause of anger or conflict is that people may perceive that they, or things they hold dear, are threatened. Perhaps they feel that something being discussed threatens their reputation, judgment, chances of leading a successful project, or chances of getting a bonus. Or perhaps they perceive a threat to a project theyve worked hard to promote, or believe in strongly. There are two parts to this: the perception of threat, and the threat itself. This is where you need to explore the issue and fully understand what it is. Its possible that the perception may be wrong – perhaps based on faulty or incomplete information. Here you need to supply the correct information. Or it may be that the perception is correct, and the person is right to feel threatened. Here you need to address the situation. Another thing you can do is make sure that you clear up unknowns, because the unknown is often treated as a threat. Going back again to our example of the Alison vs James hiring decision, you might ask the supporters of each to talk about what benefits their non-preferred candidate would bring to the team, and what areas for development theyd need to work on. Take Things Off Line There are times when you cant resolve a situation in a meeting: this is particularly the case where problems involve sensitive personal issues, which shouldnt be discussed in public. In this case, youll need to acknowledge the disagreement, and arrange a specific meeting to address the issue later on.

Scandals :: essays research papers fc

Imagine a boardroom of these corporate executives, along with their lawyers, accountants, and investment bankers, plotting and planning to take over a public company. The date is set; an announcement is only weeks away. Once the meeting is over, several phone their brokers and instruct them to purchase tons of stock of the Target Company. When the buyout is announced, the share price zooms up and the investors drop these stock shares for millions of dollars in profits. Insider trading is perfectly legal. The officers and directors who owe a duty to stockholders have the same right to trade and purchase the security as the next person does. The primary difference between legal and illegal insider trading lies in the motive. What I plan to explain in this paper is investigating the illegal aspects of insider trading and the scandal of it. What is insider trading? According to Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, it is "any manipulative or deceptive device in connection with the purchase or sale of any security." This ruling served as a deterrent for the early part of this century before the stock market became such a vital part of our lives. But as the 1960"s arrived and illegal insider activity to be a lot, courts were chained by the vague definition. So members of the judicial system were now forced to interpret "on the fly" since Congress failed to resource them with a concrete definition. This resulted in two theories of insider trading liability that have evolved over the past three decades through judicial and administrative interpretation. The classic and the misappropriation theory, is the classic concept is the type of illegal activity one usually thinks of when the words "insider trading" are said. This theory started from the 1961 SEC administrative case o f Cady Roberts. This was the Sec’s first time to regulate these security trading’s by corporate insiders. The ruling basiacally brought about the way that we define insider trading - "trading of a firms stock or derivatives assets by its officers, directors and other key employees on the basis of information not available to the public." The Supreme Court officially recognized the classical theory in the 1980 case U.S. v. Chiarella. U.S. v. Chiarella was the first criminal case of insider trading. Vincent Chiarella was a printer who put together the coded packets used by companies preparing to launch a tender offer for other firms.

Analytical Essay About Leaders Essay

What is a leader? A leader is a person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country. There are many types of leaders. A leader can be a laissez-faire leader that lacks direct supervision and fails to provide regular feedback to those they lead, an autocrat that possesses total authority and take decisions upon their own will without consulting those who are following or even a participative leader who has the responsibility of making the final decision but greatly includes the opinions, ideas and feedback of those they lead. Leaders can also be transactional leaders who receive certain tasks to conduct and give rewards or punishments to those under them based on their performance or transformational leaders who motivate followers and increase productivity using communicative techniques and involvement in the tasks they set. Not only that, a leader also has to have some traits that correspond to their types of leadership. For example, transformational leaders have to be patient with their followers otherwise relationships can break down and the whole idea of efficiency is destroyed. Leaders need to be persuasive as well to motivate and convince their followers to believe in an idea or their ability to do a task which they hesitate to do or think they are unable to. As seen in history and many novels, leaders lead differently than other leaders as ideas, methods and perceptions of perfection differ between them. For example, the ideas and methods used by Queen Elizabeth the First differed from those used by Sampath Chawla from the novel entitled ‘Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard’ written by Kiran Desai as well as Mark Antony from the play entitled ‘The tragedy of Julius Caesar’ written by the famous William Shakespeare. The three of them all differed in how they led their followers and using which ideas to do so. Despite differing in many aspects, they all shared some common traits that are the bases of leadership. In ‘The Tragedy of Julius Caesar’, some conspirators had killed the almost roman emperor, Julius Caesar. They did so, giving the false reason that they wanted to rid him of the fear or worry of death. Mark Antony, using persuasive techniques, managed to change the mindsets of the public who believed in the conspirators’ reason into believing that Caesar was a good man and had no bad intentions, which is what the conspirators’ thought. Mark Antony uses persuasive techniques like repetition, false intentions and sophistry. He uses these in his speech at Caesar’s burial to convince the crowd into believing his ideas by first commending Brutus on how honorable he is but then repeating how honorable he is to make the crowd question their faith in Brutus. He also says that he did not arrive to praise Caesar but to bury him which is exactly the opposite of what he wanted to do. Another false intention was that he did not want to disprove Brutus which is exactly what he did by using appropriate facts. Lastly, his speech was sophisticated and so led the crowd to believing that he was superior to Brutus which cemented his gaining the crowd’s support. In ‘Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard’, the main character, Sampath, is a leader later on in the novel after losing his job at the post office where he reads every letter that passes him. He becomes a sort of spiritual leader as he passes on some of the knowledge, both useful and downright senseless, to those who believe he is one. He manages to convince the people who come to him for advice, as he seemingly has an answer that seems meaningful and wise, using persuasive techniques that include loaded language and glittering generalities. An example of the responses he gives to people is when someone asked him if anyone could comprehend all there is to know about god to which Sampath replied ‘‘ Once you have broken the bottle you can no longer distinguish the air inside from the air outside’’ This represents the colorful and loaded language Sampath represents as well as his ability to confuse and manipulate people into thinking meaningless sentences like these have greater meaning and that is the reason they cannot understand. He is also a leader because he represents a symbol of knowledge and religious importance and this gives people something to look forward to, believe in and rely upon. Queen Elizabeth the First was a leader as well when she ruled over England in 1588. She was brave, intelligent, caring and because of this, loved by the people. At this time, England was about to go to war with Spain. The units in concern were the naval fleets of both nations that were about to engage in combat. The Spanish fleet, nicknamed the Spanish Armada, were in comparison to the English fleet, bigger, stronger and heavily armored and this caused the soldiers to doubt their own ability to win and caused large bouts of cowardice. Despite this, the English fleet came out victorious. Queen Elizabeth, on the eve of the Spanish Armada, gave a powerful speech that motivated her soldiers and showed her love and respect for the country. She used persuasive techniques like bandwagon appeal to bring out the desire to belong in the soldiers, rewards that gave incentive to the soldiers to fight, win and return, loaded language to appeal to her audience, a tone of self-assurance to show that she knows the position of power she is in and how she is not threatened by anything on the outside and lastly, the most powerful technique she used was to keep using the word ‘we’ to show how they are all united and how she was willing to give up everything for the nation. This inspired the confidence needed to win the battle. A leader is a person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country. This is what all three leaders have shown, the ability to lead. They have shown this in their own ways and with their own ideas. They all share this common trait as well as being persuasive and adapting intelligently to fit the situation. That is the basic leadership trait that all successful leaders throughout history have shown and that is all that is needed in order to be a successful leader.

The North Inn Bar Was A Sleepy Little Place - 1059 Words

The North Inn bar was a sleepy little place, the kind of shabby pub that locals liked to congregate in to trade gossip and visit with one another without having to fight scores of inebriated preppies for a table. Memorial Day meant that summer had officially arrived, and even if the town was obscure and unknown, the seasonal swell of tourists to the East End brought a good number of visitors who found themselves within the city limits, and several new establishments had begun to cater to this crowd. But not the North Inn. The well drinks were strong and cheap, and other than a decent view of the water, that was pretty much all it had going for it. How things had changed. It was still a local place but it was no longer quiet or hushed.†¦show more content†¦The Brits: The Sex Pistols. The Clash. The 70s rock-opera - stylists: Queen. Yes. Early Genesis (this was crucial - Peter Gabriel - led Genesis, not the earsore it became under Phil Collins). Metal: Led Zeppelin. Deep Purple. Metallica. Party Rock: AC/DC. Def Leppard. Motley Crà ¼e if she was feeling a tad ironic. Since she d arrived at the North Inn, the place was always blasting with the screech of guitars and the fist-pumping dance-floor anthems that drove the crowd to its feet. But next to the slashers she hunted, the music was almost irrelevant. However, a week after her arrival in town, the bar, like Cassie, was a bit subdued. While the music was still loud and strong, it had an underlying mournful echo. The Rolling Stones sang Waiting on a Friend: I m not waiting on a lady, I m just waiting on a friend . . . , the cocktails were limp and sweet, the gin fizz didn t fizz, the champagne was flat, the beer turned lukewarm after only a few minutes. It was just like the hunt, but worse. She was glad Vlad wasn t around to notice; she didn t want him being any more suspicious than he already was. What happened on the hunt that evening had been an impulsive act, but it was over now and everything would be all right. There was no need to panic. So what if all she could dream about that night? So what if it had invaded her consciousness, had become the subject of her every waking thought? When she closed her eyes, she could still see that beautiful face,