Building Blocks for Successful Conflict Resolution - Assignment Example

Abstract The following paper is dedicated to the topic of conflicts resolution in multicultural settings, focusing specifically on some of the skills and competencies that a person needs in order to be able to function effectively while interacting with culturally diverse groups. The importance of the issue is conditioned by fact that the world is continuing to grow more globalized and people – mobile, which increases social diversity and creates a demand for knowledgeable and skillful people capable of managing multicultural settings. Subsequently, this work both highlights a set of building blocks of a successful interpersonal and group conflict resolution as well as provides grounded explanation of why the mentioned skills and competencies can be regarded important. As a whole, the problem under consideration has been much discussed within various fields of study, therefore, a sufficient base of literature is available today. The paper concludes that although the given list of skills is not exhaustive, it contains the essential components of conflicts resolution and building warm atmosphere within culturally diverse groups. A conflict is a common and normal part of human relationships that can occur in any setting: at home, college, personal and professional life. It is not necessarily a negative notion since disagreements and conflicts can signalize one that something in behavior or attitudes can or should be changed for the best. Therefore, appearance of conflicts can lead to certain kind of growth and positive development, however, only in case when they are handled and resolved properly. In this context, interpersonal skills can be recognized as basic building blocks of conflicts resolution standing behind establishing healthy, trustful, and productive atmosphere within a group. As the world becomes more globalized and diverse, the need in conflict-solving skills increases as culturally diverse settings are at even greater risk of the occurrence of conflicts. Diversity at the workplace has become a common notion today, which creates both new opportunities and new challenges to manage multicultural groups and teams. From one side, various authors agree that diversity provides the ground for finding the new perspective and approaches to solving problems and running a business. (Anand, 2014) From another one, cultural differences can prevent members of a team to communicate and cooperate effectively, generating misunderstandings, frustrations and conflicts. Therefore, possessing and developing a set of certain skills that would enable one to resolve group conflicts effectively is necessary today. To start with, the first building block for successful interpersonal conflict resolution can be considered self-awareness. The following includes having the plausible image of self in terms of both, knowing individual personality traits and realizing the way a group dynamics is being influenced by these traits and behaviors. The importance of self-awareness lies in its power to maintain self-control and prevent a need for unjustified blaming of either self or group members for things over which they do not have any influence. (Goleman, Boyzatis & McKee, 2002) In other words, knowing personal strengths and weaknesses, an individual avoids making wrong assumptions and having a distorted picture of a situation. This is especially important in multicultural teams as far as a person may have some prejudices or stereotypes about representatives of other cultures, which can influence relationships within a team to the significant extent, but be not even aware of them. Moreover, another important component standing for the competency to respond to and resolve conflicts is empathy – ability to understand emotional signals of other people and sympathize with them. Empathy has a profound influence on a way people understand and resolve conflicts because it enables one to see a situation from more than one perspective, to grasp a position, feelings, and expectations of opponents. As a result, an individual is likely to search for a mutually acceptable compromise that would satisfy all the parties involved. According to Mayer & Louw (2012), conflicts are often the results of an individual or group perceiving “differences as well as opposition between others and self about interests, needs, and values.” (p. 4) In this context, empathy can be viewed as a power that would encourage team members to refer to verbal and, most importantly, non-verbal signals explaining emotions of other people in a multicultural; team, helping to cope with conflicts and reducing the probability of their occurrence. Apart from that, discussing the building blocks of effective conflicts resolution and creating collaborative process when mediating in a culturally diverse setting, active listening skills cannot be left without attention. The essential benefit of active listening is that it is aimed at generating deep understanding of one’s motives and concerns that constitute the ground for finding an acceptable solution or a way out of difficult and conflicting situation in a multicultural team. The set of techniques of active listening includes questioning and encouraging people to express their thoughts and feelings, clarifying all points of the conversation not to leave space for any assumptions or misunderstandings, leaving aside personal emotional reactions on what is being said and concentrating on comprehending the message. (Anand 2014) As a whole, apart from facilitating full understanding of the situation and position of an interlocutor, active listening will also help to demonstrate that a person is being appreciated and what he/she says is respected and cared of. Subsequently, the relationships of trust and positive atmosphere within the group can be enhanced. It can happen that possessing sufficient skills of communication and negotiation, a person cannot make a message he/she delivers to be comprehended due to not having presentation skills needed to explain an issue to a specific audience. Communication skills are recognized as increasingly important building block of creating supportive, clear, and collaborative process between culturally diverse groups. However, an issue can arise from different communication styles that were developed under the influence of unique norms accepted in different cultures. (Mayer & Louw, 2012) For example, for Western cultures it is common to establish direct and explicit patterns of communication while in other cultures the presentation of a message can be more important than what is being actually said. At the same time, there could be significant cultural differences in body language, thus, conflicts due to misunderstandings can occur. Therefore, apart from possessing strong presentation and negotiation skills, persons should also be able to adjust them to the audience. In the context of diverse groups of people the following means that one has to develop multicultural awareness and intercultural competence. To sum up, due to the world growing more multicultural and globalized, working with diverse groups of people is becoming a norm today. The following offers the variety of opportunities for business and organizations, but only under the condition of establishing trustful, supportive, and collaborative atmosphere between members of different cultural groups. Consequently, it is essential for individuals to possess a certain set of skills and competencies, needed for responding to and resolving conflicts effectively. Among such are self-awareness, empathy, active listening and communications skills as well as multicultural awareness and intercultural competence. Obviously, the given list is not complete, but, to my mind, contains the most important aspects that would enable one to function successfully as a mediator in a culturally diverse setting and help to build an open and respectful atmosphere. References Anand, P. (2014). Cross cultural diversity in today’s globalized era. Journal of Human Resource Management, 2(6), 12-16. Retrieved from http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.jhrm.s.2014020601.12.pdf Anuja, J., Sivaraman, M., & Dhanojmohan, M. (2014). Realizing the power of emotional intelligence by altering the leadership skill. International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, 3(8), 151-163. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/9750165/Realizing_the_power_of_Emotional_Intelligence_by_altering_the_leadership_skill Goleman, D., Boyzatis, R., & McKee, A. (2002). Key leadership competencies and emotional intelligence skills. In D. Goleman (Ed.), Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional IntelligenceRetrieved from http://www.hr.niu.edu/ServiceAreas/EmployeeAssistance/Downloads/Coaching - Leadership Skills.pdf Mayer, C., & Louw, L. (2012). Managing cross-cultural conflict in organizations. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 12(1), 3-8. 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