A Critical Reflection on Conflict Transformation and Reconciliation

Introduction

The corresponding reflective journal would be an evaluative critical assessment of the various dilemmas as well as possibilities which are associated with the process of conflict transformation and reconciliation development parameters. The factor of power and the various implications of same in terms of conflict evolution and management of the same would be also significantly delved into through approaches which would be based on both theoretical and practice based observations relating to the existing procedures of addressing conflict within variegated situations. The orientation of the critically reflective journal would be five fold, involving the demonstration of critical understanding of various theoretical constructs of conflict resolution and transformation, critical analysis of situations which spawn conflicts, exploration of different processes for change management through which the conflict demarcation and resolution could be developed, explaining the implications of factors such as gender, power and even race in terms of transformation of conflict situations and finally, the assessment of the impact of organisational as well as group based conflicts on professional approaches. The purpose of the critically reflective journal would be to contribute effectively to the development of skill and knowledge attributes to effectively understand the existing issues pertaining to the intercession by the element of power in the transformation and resolution of conflict.

Discussion

Dynamism of Power

Pace (2002) has specified that the element of POWER could be comprehended to be the status of control which could be exercised by certain components of social structures on other various components. This could be better explained through the evaluation of the intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships of people. This further involves dynamic interaction between particular individuals or social units and those associated or related to such elements within any particular situation, which could be either political or socio-economic and even military. Thus, Cloke and Goldsmith (2011) have been off the opinion that power is primarily the functioning of a relational concept which could signify the interaction and the outcomes of such interactions in between the individuals and their environments.

Dimensions of Power and Conflict in a relative manner

This could be further explained as the interaction between the subjects and the prevalent situations in which they find themselves so as to bring forth the characteristics which exemplify such individuals. In this context, de Wit, Greer & Jehn (2012) have been certain that conflict could be considered to be a means of maintaining or even attempting to maintain the existing balance in between different relationships and power represents the tool through which such an effort is projected. Furthermore, the intercession between power and conflict could be perceived as a symbolic representation of the effort of any individual or that of any socio-political or economic unit to preserve the right of self-determination or identity perception. Concerning this approach of analysis of power, in respect to the social dynamics of mobility or preservation of the status quo, power could be considered also as the leverage through which social actors could attempt to achieve their goals.

Furnham & Treglown (2017) have further observed that power could as well influence the various types of conflicts to which the social actors, involving people of various classes and social status, could be exposed to in variegated frequencies. The most interesting observations in this regard highlight the significance of availability of differential tactics and strategies concerning the influence such strategies and tactics of conflict management could have on the greater scheme of proceedings. These could be considered to be the core elements which get shaped by the availability of extent of power to the involved social participants of such conflicts at various levels of social interaction. According to Todorova, Bear & Weingart (2014), the rights of determining the appropriate and just procedures of social existence are more often than not reserved by those social actors who can concentrate maximised effects of power in their possession. Thus, in any conflict, the participants who wield the most extensive ability to exercise power, are generally the elements who shape and control the processes and methods through which the resolution of such conflicts could be effected. Dijkstra, Beersma & Cornelissen (2012) have stated that the alterations in conditions of power primarily impact the motivations and aspirations of the involved conflict participants and such effects lead to the subsequent changes in the structures and employment of conflict resolution tactics by such influenced participants of the respective conflicts.

In terms of the organisational conflict perception, generalised learning about the various dynamics of power and conflict as well as their interrelationships could lead to the realisations of the psychological implications of primarily two different categories of conflict upon the lives of human subjects of the general social order. These are Task Conflicts and Relationship Conflicts. The task conflict measure involves serious clash of ideas or perceptions regarding the professional task management perspectives which could lead to extensive disagreements amongst the participants of such task responsibilities. On the other hand, Coleman (2014) has observed that relationship conflicts pertain to interpersonal friction concerning personalities or clashes of ideas concerning particular interests of the individuals. From the personal and reflective perspective, the better understanding development of the nature of such conflicts and the role which is played by the element of power within the existing situational constructs has thus been particularly effective in terms of providing the perceptual solutions through which such conflict situations could be managed in future.

Furthermore, the critical reflection has also brought into focus the factors which particularise and signify workplace based conflict. Prior to evaluating these factors, it is necessary to come to contemplate the effect of any high frequency conflict which could occur at the workplaces involving interpersonal and intrapersonal professional relationships. Martin et al (2017) have outlined that such conflicts are primarily detrimental regardless of the workgroups and the individuals who could be involved in such conflicts. In this context, from the personal reflective perspective, it has been realised that the attitude of oneself towards the situations which could be prevalent and could be the source of most of the effects of conflict which could impact an individual, is generally shaped through the physiological stressors which could be perpetuated by the nature of conflict to which such a person could be exposed to. Such stressors are also suggestive of the dual constituents of the human threat perception in terms of professional field related conflicts, which could be perceived as the threats of rejection and ostracism at the place of work. These two psychological stressor points could be perpetuated through the workplace based conflict factors which have been mentioned earlier.

Organisational conflict model of 4Cs

Such factors are related to the theoretical constructs of the 4 Cs conflict generation model at the professional backdrops. The initial one is the factor of Complications/Complexity. From a personal and critical realisation based perspective, it is comprehensive that realisation about the actual reasons of such complications generally do not effectively contribute to the resolution of conflict. However, the significance of such a realisation has been that it is always necessary to reflect upon the personal qualities which are integral to individuals, by such individuals who could be experiencing different conflict measures at their workplace and could have outlined the complications which could be contributing to such conflict generation, so that greater awareness about the possible resolutions could be fostered.

Covertness element in conflict development and dearth of empathy

This brings to the second factor of such professional conflict scenarios which is the element of covertness which outlines the situation when the discussion about the conflict could become a rare event within the work unit which could be affected by such conflicts. This could be indicative of the misalignment of the organisational cultural values with the personal values and attributes of such conflict affected personnel. From a personal perspective, a critical sense of evaluation could lead to the realisation that the reasoning behind such phenomena is related to absence of emphatic leadership skills on part of the organisational leadership elements. One elemental realisation could further be acknowledged through the fact that empathy is considered to be the core aspect of any form of emotional intelligence which has been contemplated by Peiró & Meliá (2003) to be critical for the development of effective leadership skills within any individual concerning any organisational responsibility.

Furthermore, such observations are as well indicative of the shifting nature of leadership which could be observed at the workplaces in the current business scenarios. The reflective evaluation of such observations from the learning exercise, thus, could provide the perspective to any learner that building and maintaining effective interpersonal relationship is key for any efficacious leadership development at the workplaces to properly resolve the multitudinous conflict situations which are integral to any form of human interaction. This realisation could find credence from the opinion of Slabbert (2004) in the form of the observation that person centric focus of team management and leadership ability development could foster greater effectiveness in the process of maintaining a judicious balance in between resolving conflicts and exercising of primary power standards at the workplaces.

Intercession between commonality of conflict and role of negative individual responses

To consolidate such reflective realisations, the third element in the 4 Cs conflict generation model is the Commonplace nature or commonality of conflict within business organisations where enhanced human interaction could have become the norm of work responsibility execution. In most cases, the point of inception of such conflict could be comprehended as the adverse reaction of people to varying measures of pressures exerted on them through the exercise of effective and direct power structures by their superiors/leaders within the workplaces. Such pressures are generally constituted in the form of various types of demands (relating to either performance demonstration or progressive value addition to their designated task roles) which are placed on them. The conflicts become intensified when the increasing pressures could lead to certain levels of stress within such personnel on the basis of their inherent apprehension of becoming incapable to produce the desired outcomes under such measures of pressure.

Operational approaches

According to Theiss, & Haverfield (2016), effective power could be incumbent upon four different operational approaches. The first one is the exercising of effective and sustained control on the resources through which power relevance could be developed. The second one is the leadership ability of enhancing the motivational levels of team members/employees so that influencing any change process within the human resources of any organisation could become possible. The third one is also another leadership skill of efficiently converting the existing resources into sustainable power relationships through which others could be sustainably influenced. This element is critical in transforming the interpersonal professional relationships through which vast workforces could be managed and concurrent conflicts could be resolved or controlled, depending upon the situational imperatives. According to Jit, Sharma & Kawatra (2016), these situational imperatives are identified as the resource constraints which could hamper the efforts of employees to achieve their objectives, rotational durations of responsibility, abrupt changes in work responsibility or working process structures, unmanageable targets and workloads, lack of decision formulation capabilities within the leadership elements, ambiguity in task methods and varying measures of control which could lead to the discontinuity of proper co-ordination between different personnel within any organisation.

The process of critical reflection of such situational imperatives has impacted particularly, to a personal extent, in the process of working around conflicts. This could be better explained from the perspective that the necessity to, achieve effective cognitive fusion so that ensuring of experiential avoidance of conflict situations and causes, has been realised. In other words, it has been deduced from the learning experience that fostering of psychological flexibility is essential to resolve conflicts which are based on misappropriation of power.

Organisational conflict

To further explain this obtained perception, it is necessary to first delve into the nature of organisational conflict which becomes evident as a direct outcome of exercising of primary or secondary power. Sofer (1966) has described any form of organisational conflict as a state of procedural discord which could be effectively characterised through negative feelings such as anxiety, apprehension, frustration and anger. Such negative feelings could be exacerbated through interpersonal dissonance which becomes evident through workplace interaction. Thus, from the perspective of critical reflective understanding, it could be realised that any conflict within any business organisation could emerge at a particular point of inflection. This inflection points highlights the perceived threat by one or more than one individual/group of individuals/employees that the existing power structure could be perpetuating any unresolved dispute which could jeopardise their core interests such as sense of identity or job satisfaction or even professional security of theirs. The state of conflict commences from that point of inflection.

This realisation brings forth the final element in the 4Cs model of conflict genesis. This is the Challenging situational perspective which is generated through any conflict amongst the personnel who could be involved within any working unit of any company. The primary constituent of such challenging perspectives is the distress which could be engendered amongst the personnel who could be involved in the discourse of conflicts. The levels of generated distress could be further exacerbated or alleviated depending on the various levels of two other emotional qualities of every participant in the conflict discourses. These are feelings and behaviours of individuals. Barsky (2000) has emphasised on the element of informed judgemental qualities to employ the differential elements of power to appropriately manage these conflicting cognitive and emotional qualities (such as behaviours and feelings). This could be further lent credence from the fact that effective judgement in terms of employment of power could be effective in terms of employing a proportionate approach of conflict resolution in terms of the magnitude of the situations.

In this context, Coleman, Deutsch and Marcus (2014) have opined that achievement of sustainable conflict resolution and professional relationship management regarding the existing power structure could be performed through combining the efforts of long term based strategic thinking with the ability of power users of effectively band accurately reading the concurrent changes in the existing situations and structures of interpersonal relationships at the workplace backdrops. The intended outcome of such efforts would be to identify the inception points of conflicts from assessing the negative feedback generated by the conflicting personnel and this could lead towards the development of adaptive responses as per the requirements of the situations. Fusch & Fusch (2015) have added to this conclusive observation through the opinion that it is always necessary for personnel who could be engaged in interpersonal interactions at the workplaces to perceive such situations in their work placement through which identification of various conditions of conflict could be performed. This self reflective practice has also brought about, in terms of the learning experience, to evaluate the effectiveness of power in terms of bringing about the desired outcomes.

Perceived power

To this effect, one reflective realisation has been achieved in terms of the necessity to further develop the concept of perceived power with greater accuracy since this could become the point of significance in the future study experiences regarding evaluation of the interpersonal conflict nature exploration. Thus, perceived power could be interpreted as a distinct dynamics of the overall concept of power. It relates to the perception about the power which could be utilised by any individual or organisation on others. This could be better put into perspective as the fact that as a process, Power could not only be the outcome of all of the actual resources which any subject could own or posses. On the contrary, Power could be the outcome of the impact of the strategies employed by various subjects to formulate a perception of possession of sustained power.

Impact of different perceptions regarding effective power structures

The perceived nature of power could be understood to have equal effect on personnel who could have the predisposition of avoiding any form of conflict and on those who generally harbour uncompromising attitudes or extremity of views. This effect could lead to the contention between general and relevant power discourses. This contention gets generated through erroneous assessments regarding the extent of power which any person could have. The aggregates of such assessment could vary extensively since the comparison between the extents of power of two or more than two individuals is never constant. Such contentions could further fuel the complications regarding efficaciously implementing the strategies through which relevant solutions could be evolved for existing conflicts. Such situations also culminate in diametrically opposed situations where those in possession of Primary or Secondary power could feel overconfident and emboldened and those situated at the lower rungs of the power ladder could experience helplessness.

Reflective observations

So far, the learning from the critical reflective process has been instrumental in pointing out the avenue through which progressive change could be instituted in terms of shaping the attitudes and values as well as beliefs of the learners at the personal level. The most effective realisation could be suggested as the cognisance of the necessity to develop interpersonal connections which could be based on shared values and empathic understandings between differing personnel. This has been one of the realisations pertaining to the preferred modes of preventing conflicts through imparting the value of shared beliefs amongst employees through which the sense of solidarity could be fostered within personnel with possibly conflicting viewpoints. This process could also have a bearing on the future practice of management of workplace challenges which could emanate from stress factors amongst the working personnel or from the demands placed upon organisational employees to meet their objectives within particular relational contexts (pertaining to task designations). The preferred outcomes would be instilling of experiential empathy within conflict participants, challenging the existing prejudices and highlighting of the prevalent commonalities which could be discovered, development of the art of engaging conversations through which both sides of the conflict could be understood and communicated and the processes through which the bridging of empathetic gap could become a possibility.

Conclusion

At the conclusive segment of the reflective study, it could be observed that, the interaction between Power and Conflict, as two distinct processes, is mostly relative to existing values and related personalities of the subjects associated with both Power structures and Conflict processes. This is lent credence from the fact that majority of workplace conflicts could be engendered by personality disputes. Thus, the reflective journal base development of learning has finally culminated into the understanding that future business responsibility executions, involving management of large human interaction procedures, would require application of accommodative qualities such as flexibility of operational doctrines, tolerance in terms of individual performance shortcomings and informality in communication approaches. Combined effects of these could mitigate the situations which spawn conflict and better orient organisational workforces (leaders and subordinates) towards accepting the existing power structures and operate effectively from within such frameworks of operations.

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