Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Conflict is frequently seen as a 'bad thing' and often referred to as something to be avoided or prevented. However it may be a creative opportunity, said Sonal Sisodia, while addressing a session organised by IndoreManagement Association on the topic "Spinning Conflicts into Opportunities" here on Tuesday. Sisodia is the principal of city’s Daly College of Business Management (DCBM).
A Sophia College alumnus, Sisodia is an MBA (Gold Medalist) and PhD in Management from Ajmer University. She has over 20 years of experience in mentoring graduate and post-graduate students, engaging in quality research, conducting and handling MDPs and consultancy assignments.
Addressing the session she talks about conflicts. She said that conflict is the material from which we create learning, connection, insight. It is a message that something is presently stuck, or wrong or not working or no longer appropriate. Conflicts actually are practical changes created in recognition that how something has been done is not working and hence needs a new way of doing it. In unresolved conflict we tend to dismiss others' views as crazy or unreasonable or maliciously motivated and so we close ourselves off from even listening to them or trying to understand them.
She said that if we develop 'Connection', we can understand why someone sees things the way they do and how that influences their actions and so we can do things differently in the future in ways that accommodate
that other perspective. Insight that is an acknowledgement to us of our difficult feelings and a commitment to support ourselves with those feelings without needing to condemn or 'battle' with, or avoid others can help. Conflict is always an opportunity to create a more constructive way forward rather than a situation that inevitably escalates to a stressful competition to be proved right.
Sisodia said that it is so easy to just entrench and focus on the negatives, not that they can be ignored but using them as motivation to create constructive change, so much more useful as a response.
Assess how thinking differently about talent and people management can help companies succeed in an innovation economy. It is also important to demonstrate that while managing internally is necessary for team
success, it is managing externally that enables teams to lead, innovate, and succeed in a rapidly changing environment. Being called to take a new leadership role, teams must become the eyes that read the changing environment, the people who bring commitment and energy to the task, the visionaries who help shape a new future, and the inventors of innovative solutions for business and world problems.
To what extent are we able to use these conflicts as natural resources, or are we missing and losing the potential opportunities they provide for creativity and useful learning and change, in the battle to be
right and others to be wrong? We often respond to conflict constructively, creatively and effectively without even noticing it, but when we respond to conflict destructively and ineffectively, we notice the consequences and often respond in ways that continue to make things worse.
