Conflict Resolution and Negotiation

Part One

Mentoring has been defined as the process in which a person who is more skilled or experienced serves as a role model, encourage, teaches, and counsel, among other things, the less skilled and less experienced persons for the purpose of promotion of the latter’s personal or professional development. Preceptorship is a way of assisting an individual’s growth via a partnership with a workmate or other person who is an equal. In preceptorship, one individual focuses on the qualities of another that may not be recognized or appreciated. A role model encourages or inspires another to strive for greater heights, live their fullest potential, and see the positive side within oneself (Jacobs, 2018).

I have served as a mentor to new staff in the healthcare facility. In my role as a mentor, I was responsible for ensuring that the new staff successfully integrated into the work and that he was well-versed with the systems and protocols of the care department. The staff initially shadowed me for three weeks, after which I would observe how he performed his tasks and correct him where needed.

By being a mentor, I learned the importance of good communication skills. I learned how to make a new staff feel comfortable enough to ask me questions. Diminishing the power balance between myself and the new staff is critical for communication to take place. This significantly impacts the staff’s confidence and increases efficiency and a shorter learning curve.

The most important characteristic to possess as a preceptor is being available for the students. Creating time dedicated to meeting regularly with students, providing them with feedback, and ensuring that their learning objectives and goals are met is important. This will allow them to succeed in their learning and also for me to identify their areas of weakness and work on these together with the students.

The difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is that the former allows an individual to learn new skills and perform tasks because of external rewards to avoid punishment. Intrinsic motivation comes from inner compulsion or desire to achieve a goal or perform a task (Hennessey et al., 2015).

Several factors contribute to job dissatisfaction, two of which are poor workplace relationships and the failure of the work environment to empower employees. A person will become dissatisfied with their job if the environment is hostile and also when the organizational managers curtail employee ingenuity and creativity (Sousa et al.,2019).

One of the factors that have caused me to be dissatisfied with my workplace is the poor work environment caused by a shortage of staff. This often leads to overwork for the staff on duty and mounting pressure to offer good patient care under stressful conditions.

Part Two

The five stages of conflict are the latent stage, where participants are unaware of the conflict; the perceived stage, where the participants are aware of the existence of a conflict; the felt stage is where the participants feel stressed and anxious; the manifest stage is where conflict is open and is observable; the aftermath stage is where the conflict outcome, resolution or dissolution takes place.

In conflict resolution, five approaches can be taken. Competing is where one powers their way to defending or powering the other person; accommodating is the opposite of competing, where a person subordinates one’s interests to those of others; avoiding is denying that conflict exists or withdrawing from it; collaboration is the opposite of avoiding, working and engaging together; compromising is getting to the middle ground and agreeing on a partially acceptable solution (Jeong, 2018).

The two strategies I have used in conflict resolution are accommodating and collaborating. Sometimes, I have found it more resourceful to work together with the opposing staff to get to a solution, while other times, I have had to allow one or two ideas from the opposing staff to be included in the final decision-making.

Functional conflict is one that is healthy and involves a constructive disagreement between individuals or groups and often results in brainstorming and new knowledge acquisition. Dysfunctional conflict is an unhealthy disagreement that occurs between individuals or groups and often can result in a stalemate or division (Bercovitch, 2019). Do you need help with your assignment ?

Conflict, in my view, is an opportunity to see the weaknesses and strengths of an issue as described by two different studies. When one person defines an issue through a particular lens, and another does the same, the issue becomes clearer, and a resolution is and should be sought while putting both perceptions into consideration.

In simple terms, negotiation is ‘I win, you lose’ while collaboration involves a ‘win, win’ situation. Negotiation also involves separate agendas and suspicion, while collaboration requires shared goals and trust.

The stages of negotiation involve preparation, where all pertinent fact of the situation is made known so as to clarify a person’s position; discussion, where participants put forward their viewpoints and interests, that is, how they understand the situation; and clarifying goals, viewpoints and interests of both sides are made clear. The next steps are negotiating toward a win-win where both sides gain via negotiation something positive and feel that their viewpoints have been taken into consideration, agreement of both sides’ views and opinions, and implementation of a course of action to carry through with the decision made.

Collaboration comprises seven essential elements, and these are cooperation between the parties, assertiveness by both sides on their views and opinions, autonomy where each person is not forced into making decisions, accountability/responsibility for each action that a person takes, communication between the participants, coordination to achieve the goals, respect and mutual trust for each other’s views and opinions.

At my workplace, I have used negotiation and collaboration to resolve issues between staff and between staff and patients. In one example, one of the older nurses had the habit of being hostile to the new staff. When I observed the situation, I reported the matter to the senior departmental head, who took the necessary action. During the conflict resolution meeting, I helped the senior staff and the new staff to come to a compromise, with the elderly staff promising to learn new technology and the new staff agreeing to learn from the older staff.

References

Bercovitch, J. (2019). Social conflicts and third parties: Strategies of conflict resolution. Routledge.

Hennessey, B., Moran, S., Altringer, B., & Amabile, T. M. (2015). Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Wiley encyclopedia of management, 1-4.

Jacobs, S. (2018). An analysis of the evolution of mentorship in nursing. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education.

Jeong, H. W. (Ed.). (2018). Conflict resolution: dynamics, process and structure. Routledge.

Sousa, C. C. D., Araújo, T. M. D., Lua, I., & Gomes, M. R. (2019). Occupational stress and job dissatisfaction with health work. Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, 32.

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