Please don't make it sound really professional

I'm a student who works in a dental office

read the part of Chapter 13 about styles of conflict management. Then, write a 200- 250 word essay about a time you didn't handle a conflict well. Speak of the styles of conflict management you used in that situation and the style of conflict management that would have been better suited to resolve it.

Conflict Management Styles

Managers have at their disposal a variety of conflict management styles: avoiding, accommodating, competing, compromising, and collaborating. One way of classifying styles of conflict management is to examine the styles'assertiveness(the extent to which you want your goals met) andcooperativeness(the extent to which you want to see the other party's concerns met).Figure 13.4graphs the five conflict management styles using these two dimensions.Table 13.3lists appropriate situations for using each conflict management style.

Figure13.4Conflict Management StylesSOURCE: K. W. Thomas, "Conflict and Conflict Management," in M. D. Dunnette,Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology(Chicago: Rand McNally, 1976), 900. Used with permission of M. D. Dunnette.Table13.3Uses of Five Styles of Conflict Management

Conflict-Handling Style	Appropriate Situation
Competing	When quick, decisive action is vital (e.g., emergencies). On important issues for which unpopular actions need implementing (e.g., cost cutting, enforcing unpopular rules, discipline). On issues vital to company welfare when you know you are right. Against people who take advantage of noncompetitive behavior.
Collaborating	To find an integrative solution when both sets of concerns are too important to be compromised. When your objective is to learn. To merge insights from people with different perspectives. To gain commitment by incorporating concerns into a consensus. To work through feelings that have interfered with a relationship.
Compromising	When goals are important but not worth the effort or potential disruption of more assertive modes. When opponents with equal power are committed to mutually exclusive goals. To achieve temporary settlements to complex issues. To arrive at expedient solutions under time pressure. As a backup when collaboration or competition is unsuccessful.
Avoiding	When an issue is trivial or more important issues are pressing. When you perceive no chance of satisfying your concerns. When potential disruption outweighs the benefits of resolution. To let people cool down and regain perspective. When gathering information supersedes immediate decision. When others can resolve the conflict more effectively. When issues seem tangential or symptomatic of other issues.
Accommodating	When you find you are wrongto allow a better position to be heard, to learn, and to show your reasonableness. When issues are more important to others than to yourselfto satisfy others and maintain cooperation. To build social credits for later issues. To minimize loss when you are outmatched and losing. When harmony and stability are especially important. To allow employees to develop by learning from mistakes.

Avoiding

Avoiding is a style low on both assertiveness and cooperativeness. Avoiding is a deliberate decision to take no action on a conflict or to stay out of a conflict situation. In recent times, Airbus, a European manufacturer of aircraft, has faced massive intraorganizational conflict stemming from major expansions that included French, German, Spanish, and British subsidiaries within the same parent company. Power struggles among executives combined with massive changes in organizational structure are believed to have led to this conflict. Airbus seems to be adopting the avoidance strategy in an effort to let these conflicts subside on their own.Some relationship conflicts, such as those involving political norms and personal tastes, may distract team members from their tasks, in which case, avoiding may be an appropriate strategy.When the parties are angry and need time to cool down, it may be best to use avoidance. There is a potential danger in using an avoiding style too often, however. Research shows that overuse of this style results in negative evaluations from others in the workplace.

Accommodating

A style in which you are concerned that the other party's goals be met but relatively unconcerned with getting your own way is called accommodating. It is cooperative but unassertive. Appropriate situations for accommodating include times when you find you are wrong, when you want to let the other party have his way so that that individual will owe you similar treatment later, or when the relationship is important. Over-reliance on accommodating has its dangers. Managers who constantly defer to others may find that others lose respect for them. In addition, accommodating managers may become frustrated because their own needs are never met, and they may lose self-esteem.Research has also shown that individuals will overestimate the importance of the relationship and accommodate at the expense of actual outcomes. Research has shown that two females involved in conflict or negotiation overuse accommodation more than two males involved in similar situations.

Competing

Competing is a style that is very assertive and uncooperative. You want to satisfy your own interests and are willing to do so at the other party's expense. In an emergency or in situations where you know you are right, it may be appropriate to put your foot down. Greenpeace has long used an aggressive strategy to force corporations to respond to environmental issues. One of its notable efforts was to influence toymaker LEGO to quit doing business with oil giant Shell because of Shell's drilling in the Arctic. Millions of people joined in to sign petitions, hold protests in LEGO costumes, and tell Shell to stop exploiting the melting Arctic for more oil. LEGO responded by not renewing its contract with Shell (for Shell-branded LEGO toys sold at gas stations).This is one of many ways Greenpeace uses active resistance in conflicts. Relying solely on competing strategies isdangerous, though. Managers who do so may become reluctant to admit when they are wrong and may find themselves surrounded by people who are afraid to disagree with them. As noted earlier, task conflict and relationship conflict could occur together in team settings, although task conflict is seen as functional and relationship conflict as dysfunctional for the team. In a recent study, dyads of participants were exposed to taskbased conflict. One of the two members of the dyads was trained on using either the competing conflict-handling style or the collaborative style. Results indicated that the competing style led to the most relationship conflict, whereas the collaborative style led to the least relationship conflict.

Compromising

The compromising style is intermediate in both assertiveness and cooperativeness because each party must give up something to reach a solution to the conflict. Compromises are often made in the final hours of union-management negotiations, when time is of the essence. Compromise may be an effective backup style when efforts toward collaboration are not successful.

It is important to recognize that compromises are not optimal solutions. Compromise means partially surrendering one's position for the sake of coming to terms. For this reason, people often inflate their demands when they begin a compromise. A problem with compromiseis that the solutions reached may only be temporary, and often compromises do nothing to improve relationships between the parties in the conflict.

Collaborating

A win-win style that is high on both assertiveness and cooperativeness is known as collaborating. Working toward it involves an open and thorough discussion of the conflict and arriving at a solution that is satisfactory to both parties. Situations where collaboration may be effective include times when both parties need to be committed to a final solution or when a combination of different perspectives can be formed into a solution. Long-term collaboration leads to improved relationships and effective performance.Teams that use collaboration effectively view conflict as a mutual problem that needs common consideration to achieve resolution. Understanding this, team members have confidence that other members will work toward mutually beneficial solutions and ultimately generate diverse ideas to facilitate team performance.

Research on the five styles of conflict management indicates that although most managers favor a certain style, they have the capacity to change styles as the situation demands.When supervisors are a third party to a conflict, using collaboration rather than competing or accommodating, and intervening early in the conflict, minimizes anxiety and bullying among team members.