Conflict and Stress: Their Potential Impact on a Project

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Potential Conflicts
Stress
Consensus Decision Making
Conclusion
References

Introduction

In an organization, conflicts are always inevitable. It is thus essential for the management of an organization to have a clear understanding of conflicts and the effects they may have (Anderson, 2012). This paper shall therefore focus on conflicts, stress, and consensus decision-making in a working environment.

Potential Conflicts

Competition is a common conflict in a working environment. Competition can be positive if it leads to an increase in the overall performance of an organization, for instance, when two or more employees compete to earn a high bonus. This can be viewed as a positive conflict since the overall revenue of the organization shall increase considerably.

However, when an employee with the worst performance rate competes with another employee who has the best performance, negative conflict may arise. This is because this form of competition may result into frustrations hence reducing the overall performance of an organization. Spurring creativity is also a positive conflict that arises when employees argue about different ideas all of which can improve the overall performance of an organization. A manager or a supervisor is supposed to encourage this form of conflict.

Personal conflict on the other hand is an example of negative conflict. Personal differences among individuals normally lead to a drop in the performance of individuals hence reducing the overall productivity of the organization. Harassment is another form of negative conflict within a working environment.

The management should discourage physical, sexual, and verbal forms of harassment since they may lead to development of negative attitudes that usually reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of performance. Discrimination in form of color, sex, religion or any other ground is also a negative conflict and it should not be encouraged by the management.

Stress

Stress among employees occurs in an event where the demands of work surpass the capabilities of an employee and the resources that an employee has while performing the roles and duties that have been assigned to him/her (EFILWC, 2007).

Working under pressure usually leads to the development of stress in an employee. This usually arises when an employee works under strict supervision and is expected to meet tight deadline and provide high quality work. Under this circumstance, the productivity of an employee can decline due to too much pressure at work. Monotony of work can also lead to stress.

Doing the same things over and over can be mentally challenging and demoralizing. Finally, the risk of accidents and injury at work can lead to the development of stress. This usually arises when employees use heavy machinery that may have adverse effects on their health. All these elements of stress usually result in the reduction of employee performance and the performance of the organization at large.

Consensus Decision Making

Consensus decision making is a decision making process whereby all the participants or the individuals who might be affected by the outcome of a given decision are involved in the decision-making process (MindTools, 2012). The Consensus-Oriented-Decision-Making (CODM) model is an effective decision making tool for a team project. This model has the following steps (MindTools, 2012):

Problem Identification.
Discussion of the issue.
Identifying underlying concerns.
Proposing suitable solutions to the problems.
Selecting specific direction(s) to follow.
Formulating an effective solution.
Closing.

This model can be used to solve any conflict that may be present among team members and include each and every team member in the decision-making process. This makes all the team members to feel as the brains behind the decision.

Conclusion

For a project to be conducted effectively and efficiently, the performance of all the team members need to be maintained at the highest level. This can be achieved by encouragement of positive conflicts, discouragement of negative conflicts, elimination of stress and consensus decision-making. This will ensure that the goals and objectives of the project are achieved at ease.

References

Anderson, A. (2012). Positive & Negative Conflicts in the Workplace. Web.

EFILWC (2007). Working Environment Risks and Other Job-Related Stress Factors in Austria. Web.

MindTools (2012). Hartnett’s Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making Model Developing Solutions Collectively. Web.

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