The result of the activities of any company depends on the people working in it: not only on their qualifications, but also on how they interact and understand each other. Today, organizations often have an intergroup conflict that inevitably affects work productivity. In order to avoid its reduction, it is necessary to understand the sources of the formation of disagreements and methods of dealing with them.
Conflict is a clash of two parties, each of which has its own view of a certain situation and stubbornly proves it. Everything can turn around quarrels, threats and even insults. Sometimes this phenomenon can also bring positive qualities: additional information and real opinions of employees are leaked, as a result of which you can really find the optimal solution. Everything will depend on how to coordinate the emerging differences.
The causes of intergroup conflicts can be very diverse. First, in any organization, the availability of resources is not infinite, and management makes decisions on how to use them most effectively. However, the staff wants to increase everything that it has, begins to share resources, thereby creating a conflict. Secondly, often the result of work depends on the activities of units. If one of them functioned incorrectly, intergroup conflict is inevitable. Thirdly, sometimes departments independently set a goal for themselves, which they strive to achieve, no matter what. If she is given more working time than the overall mission of the organization, staff provokes a breakdown. Fourth, employees can perceive circumstances differently because of their aspirations, studying only those features that are favorable for their group and their own needs. This cause of conflict is very common in organizations. Fifth, if people of different ages, length of service, social status, with different experience and values work for the company, an intergroup conflict can easily arise. The sixth reason is the imperfection of communications. If the management does not clearly inform employees about job descriptions, cannot accurately justify the reasons for the change in pay, or makes mutually exclusive requirements, the result is a decrease in labor productivity, failure to fulfill the plan, and insufficiently high-quality result.
Intergroup conflicts in organizations can be resolved in several ways.
1. Evasion - one of the accused parties transfers the topic to a completely different area, referring to the lack of time for a showdown.
2. Smoothing - dispute resolution based on agreement with the opposite opinion or justification of one’s own judgment. The latter only superficially eliminates the discord, inside the person is even more opposed to the opponent, so the situation is secretly exacerbated.
3. Searching for a compromise involves examining the positions of both parties and determining the optimal solution that best suits them.
4. Coercion is not a particularly effective option in which one group has accumulated quite a lot of small grievances and makes claims that the other is not able to resist.
5. The solution to the problem. In this way, ideas about the circumstances of both groups are considered, after which a specific solution strategy is developed.
How people resolve the intergroup conflict depends on people's perception of everything that happens and the degree of their trust in each other.