What is Conflict?

The definition given for "Conflict" at the beginning of the tenth chapter is, "the interaction of interdependent people who perceive incompatible goals and interference from one another in achieving those goals".

The textbook elaborates that "interaction" refers to communication, "interdependent" is for people who are close to each other in an organization, and conflict primarily stems from perceptions.

The most important part of the definition appears to be "perception", because from my experience, it is difficult to have two people share the exact same perceptions on any topic though they attend the same meetings and listen in on the same discussions. Even if the communication process is the same, there is a difference in perception of the same issue because no two people share the same history or the same sense of risk-taking, which is difficult to communicate to another person.

For example, presented with an identical project, one team-member may see the project as "doable" because 90% of the time the work yields good results. However, another team-member may feel that this project is important enough that 90% is not a good enough sense of certainty. This may result in a conflict with the first person voting for the project and the second voting against it, even though they both agree on all the basic data and theory that goes into the project.

(Mis)Labeling creating (Mis)Perceptions

Pages 445-6 of the textbook discuss how the perception of an event changes when the event is given a different label. The example in the textbook is how the terrorist act of September 11, 2001 would be viewed quite differently if described as "a crime against humanity".

This is a useful insight to guard oneself against misperceptions perpetrated by people who want to portray some acts or events in a different vein from what it really is, creating a "spin" on the event which may not agree with known facts.

Only recently, a fifth grader in Aurora, Colorado, was suspended for wearing a t-shirt saying, "Obama is a terrorist's best friend". While neither condemning nor condoning the actions of the school in suspending the fifth grader, I must say that it is quite a convenient untruth to say that Barack Obama, the presidential candidate, is the "best friend" of a terrorist. Are there real facts to support Obama being THE BEST FRIEND - a better friend than anyone else in the world, for at least one terrorist? It is quite obvious that the quote is hardly defensible as being true, and was written with the chief aim of being provocative in an irrational way.