Managing Conflicts

I personally feel that conflicts are inevitable for all kinds of relationships, be it friends or even political alliances. It is only through conflicts that one will learn to appreciate his or her relationship with the other party. For me, I always have this idea that there can never be world peace or a day with no conflicts at all. I am not being pessimistic by thinking this way, but is a matter of fact that we have to accept that humans are not perfect. There may be a day where peace is experienced, but this day would not last because people will start to take peace for granted and will become complacent. Thus, it is only through conflicts that appreciation can really be to the fullest and peace can be enjoyed.

Therefore, to start off, I think I will talk about the resolution of the conflict first. The only thing that differentiates a constructive conflict from a destructive conflict is that constructive ones are correctly resolved and destructive ones are sometimes even not resolved at all. Conflict can be depicted as very strong storm surges against the coastline. With enough attention and proper management of the coastline (i.e. coastal protections like breakwaters), beaches and other coastline features will still be destroyed but other new features might be constructed because of the surges. The coast has been changed, but perhaps for the better.

What are the positive impacts of constructive conflicts? Well, one thing for sure is that (like what the LMS notes say) you can get to understand yourself very much better. You might be able to find out how you often react when faced with conflicts and how you deal with them. Well, for me, I think I do not just stick to one type of conflict resolution style. However, primarily, I would usually take either the accommodating or compromising style when I am faced with a conflict. I realised I do not normally confront the conflict first hand as I usually do not see the need for the conflict to arise in the first place. Thus, there may be good and bad points as it may seem as if I am avoiding the conflict as it happen.

In my project group, we often identify conflict (or disagreement to be not so exaggerating) as our way of assembling idea or our way of life. That is why sometimes I really feel that conflicts can be humorous when you reflect on it on how it started and how our group can manage to pull off from the conflict. In a sense, conflicts definitely make us more cohesive. Without the conflicts, we may never understand each other better or be aware of each other’s potential and pitfalls. How can we be more cohesive and harmonious without ever understanding each other? Hence, the result of all these conflicts and resolution led us to a pretty efficient group in doing our projects. Conflict allowed us to be able to go home earlier (due to our efficient task assignment) after our project discussion.

Definitely, I do not think that I can live without conflict. I can never imagine how boring life would be without conflicts!