Week 5 Assignment 1: A Plan to Resolve Conflict and Promote Collaboration

Conflict is inevitable and happens all the time. Northouse (2018) defines conflict as a clash or struggle between people, groups, organizations, or even nations (p.239). Conflicts can arise between coworkers if they fail to understand each other. Just like my coworkers who had issues over accomplishing tasks. The day nurse was always unable to complete her tasks and leaving them for the next shift. This would upset the ingoing nurse because it was more work to her already busy schedule. Over time, both nurses started having arguments over the unfinished tasks. In this case, it was an interpersonal conflict, which is a dispute between individuals and this type is very common in organizations (240). Interpersonal conflict can escalate from a simple disagreement, to a full-blown fight, depending on the situation. However not all conflicts result in negative outcomes. Sometimes what starts out as a bad experience might produce good feedback. In the situation, things did not look good because one nurse was frustrated with the other’s work completion. Reporting it to the manager looked like a better option, which in the end turned out even better. It was discovered that this day nurse had not been fully oriented on what to do, and making matters worse, she was a new graduate that needed extra time and orientation to get adjusted to her new position. Huber (2018) explains that an individual’s disharmony and stress are caused by unmet needs or expectations (163), which is exactly what happened with the day nurse. She was a new graduate and a new hire at the facility. She had received minimal orientation, and was not comfortable working independently, and yet there she was all by herself with no close supervision. Of course, she was overwhelmed, disappointed, stressed. This explained why her work was never completed. Communication between the nurses would have played a huge part in avoiding this whole conflict. The nurse manager and the nurse should have communicated more, since this nurse was a new nurse, let alone a recent graduate. The manager should have kept a close eye on her, that way she did not feel alone, and to know that she had assistance especially due to the high acuity of the floor, causing delays in patient care. Northouse (2018) emphasizes the importance of communication, and how it helps resolve a conflict, or make it worsen (p.242). How the manager chose to handle this situation would determine the outcome for both the nurse and manager. Weinclaw (2019), explains that there are many ways to handle conflict, for instance avoiding, competing, compromising, collaborating and accommodating.  Accommodating is choosing to please someone at one’s own expense, Avoiding is pretending a conflict does not exist, Collaborating is clarifying the problem difference, while Compromising is giving something up, and Competing is wanting to satisfy one’s own desires, regardless of the consequences to the others. Different conflicts will require different approaches in order to be resolved. For conflict resolution to be effective, leaders have to evaluate their personal connection to the conflict, know how and what style of resolution to apply.

The manager in the situation chose to approach this conflict in a calm way, knowing that this nurse needed her help, she was ready to work with her to resolve this conflict. Portere and Briede (2019) researched that mediation as a method of conflict resolution helps organize the conversation in a way that feelings, interests and needs of each person are heard, the circumstances of the situation and future prospects, as well as the consequences of the solutions are assessed. I believe that this manager approached the situation with open mindedness, willingness to listen to the reasons as to why the day nurse was leaving work unfinished. She never jumped to any conclusion, until she knew exactly what was going on. She must have thought about ways of handling this conflict way before she spoke with the day nurse.

According to Northouse (2018), whenever leadership handles conflict appropriately, it increases problem-solving and interpersonal relationships, and the stress that surrounded the conflict is reduced or even alleviated (240). Even though conflict is usually related to negative feedback, Haraway and Haraway III (2005) believed that not all conflicts are destructive. Some conflicts led to a sharpening of critical issues and the creation of new systems and institutions that could be beneficial to an organization.

In a journal by Piryani and Piryani (2019), the authors stated that conflicts have an unfavorable effect on efficiency, confidence, self-reliance, self-esteem and morale of healthcare professionals and they seriously affects patient care. The conflicts eventually lead to higher healthcare professionals’ turnover and undoubtedly limit their contributions and overall hamper efficiency and productivity of healthcare institute. Negative results from conflict resolution can lead to decreased productivity in terms of work, increased turnover, absenteeism, job dissatisfaction, however Huber (2018) emphasizes the most effect being negative impact on patient care (p.166).

Since effects of conflicts can either be negative or positive, and Haraway and Haraway III (2005) emphasize the importance for companies to have a direct way to approach and deal with conflicts since they are unavoidable. There are positive outcomes to conflicts which include strong relationships, improved communication, high productivity. Huber (2018) list some of the positive functional outcomes as increased group performance, stimulation of creativity, innovation, encouragement of interest, improved quality of decision making. Although conflict is often seen as a negative situation, it also produces positive feedback which help the leaders, staff and organization grow, and this is constructive conflict resolution.

Per the ANA and the NCSBN, delegation is a process for a nurse to direct another person to perform nursing tasks and activities (as cited in Huber 2018). Delegation can be done by the leader or the nurse on the unit. However, sometimes it can be a challenge to delegate to staff, especially when they are incompetent. Kleinman and Saccomano (2006) believed that, although there was a lot publication about the need for nurses to delegate and supervise patient care-related activities, nothing had been written about the skills needed to do this effectively or how these skills may be learned.  Clinical educators needed to find ways to facilitate the development of delegation and supervision abilities as nurses increasingly work with nonprofessional staff. This has led to nurse burnout and high turnover, as nurses are trying to cover skills or tasks that should have been assigned to other staff. In the case of the day nurse, all her unfinished tasks fell on the next nurse, which in turns caused a conflict. The second nurse felt burned out, having to do the other nurse’s tasks in addition to hers. The nurse manager should have had this day nurse well trained before putting her on the unit all by herself. The nurse leader and her nurses used constructive group roles in helping solve this conflict. Huber (2018) explains group building roles as initiator, encourager, opinion giver, listener (132). The second nurse listened to the day nurse and understood what her problem was, and why she never accomplished her tasks. And the manager displayed emotional intelligence by encouraging her nurses and coming up with ways that this conflict could be resolved, which included re-orienting and training the new graduate more. The day nurse felt empowered because she was included in the conflict resolution. Huber (2018) further explained that, a group-members that felt that were active participants in the discussion felt empowered, and this would contribute to a positive working group.

This would lead to a better relationship for everyone involved. The day nurse was a nontalker in the beginning, one of the reasons for

that being that she was new at the job and did not know who to trust. Huber (2018) describes nontalkers as ones that are not comfortable speaking in front of a group (133). Since this was the nurse’s character, it took the second nurse to intervene and find out what was going on with her and her work. Once she was comfortable with the second nurse, the day nurse opened up to her about her inexperience and frustrations, to which the manager was able to help solve.

Noh et al., conducted a study whose sole purpose was to measure hospital performance and the internal and external factors that affected that performance. 89 training hospitals that were participating in the Home Nursing Care (HNC) service in Korea all took part in the study and it was concluded that internal factors such as managerial resources were more important than the external factors. In the scenario, the internal variables contributed more to the conflict. Lack of communication, inadequate training, employee status, are some of the contributing factors. There was no communication between the manager and the nurse, so the manager did not know what the day nurse was going through. She (the manager) did not know that the nurse was overwhelmed with the tasks because of inadequate training. It was the manager’s responsibility to follow up with this nurse, mainly because she was a new graduate, to make sure that she was comfortable and doing fine, or if she had any concerns that she wanted to discuss. However, the nurse too should have spoken up. She should have approached the manager and voiced her concerns, because the managers are busy all the time that they tend to forget to check on their staff, unless something calls for their attention. In order to resolve this conflict, there needed to be open communication. This creates ease among staff, knowing that they can go to the manager

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

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Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

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Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
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• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
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and voice their concerns freely. This would create a high functioning healthcare team and better relationships in the long term.

Effective conflict resolution is crucial to an organization, not only is it about making the organization look good but, Huber (2018) states that conflict has an impact on performance, individuals, collaborative efforts, job satisfaction, and sometimes it negatively impacts the patients. Piryani and Piryani (2018) concluded that conflicts are a result of incompatible behavior or unmet expectations. And the authors suggested that the best way to manage conflicts was preventing them from happening in the first place. They also mentioned that poorly managed conflicts end up in bad outcomes. Just like in the scenario, the manager waited long to check in with the day nurse or she might have forgotten about her till it became a conflict that was reported by another staff. Sometimes leaders wait too long to intervene in issues that could result into conflicts, and once they become conflicts, two things could happen; they could result into positive outcomes or they could end up being negative.

However, when conflict results in positive outcomes, employee morale, creativity, and organizational cohesiveness are evident. Effective conflict resolution brings about better relationships between the leader and followers, increases productivity because then, everyone is working toward the same goal, better communication, trust is established. Conflict is inevitable, but sometimes we can use it to bring about positive results. Labrague & McEnroe, 2017) examined conflict management styles of nursing students and assessed the consequences of nursing education. The results found that specific training in conflict management for nursing students would improve conflict resolution skills of nursing students as they joined the field.

 

Conflicts are inevitable and everywhere. Its through these conflicts that leaders get to lead how to be better leaders of tomorrow. As we prepare to be future leaders, it is good to know how to handle conflicts when they do happen or even better try to stop them better, they happen. As leaders it is how we choose to handle these conflicts that dictates what kind of leaders we are. We should aim to resolve conflicts in ways that will bring about better relationships with our teams, better communication skills and increased productivity.

References

Haraway, D., & Haraway, W. (2005). Analysis of the Effect of Conflict- Management and Resolution Training on Employee Stress at a Healthcare Organization. 83(4), 11-17. doi:10.3200/HTPS.83.4.11-18

Huber, D. (2018). Chapters 8 and 11. In Leadership and nursing care management (pp. 162-244). St. Louis, MO, MO: Elsevier.

Kleinman, C. S., & Saccomano, S. J. (2006). Registered Nurses and Unlicensed Assistive Personnel: An Uneasy Alliance. Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 37(4), 162-170.

Labrague, L. J., & McEnroe, P. D. M. (2017). An integrative review on conflict management    styles among nursing students: Implications for nurse education. Nurse Education Today, 59, 45–52. 

 

Noh, J. W., Kwon, Y. D., Yoon, S. J., & Hwang, J. I. (2011). Internal and external environmental factors affecting the performance of hospital‐based home nursing care. International Nursing Review, 58(2), 263-269. doi:https://doi-org.regiscollege.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/j.1466-7657.2010.00868.x

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Chapter 10. In Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice (4th ed., pp. 161-174). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.

Piryani, R. M., & Piryani, S. (2019). Conflict Management in Healthcare. Journal of Nepal Health Research Council, 16 (41), 481-482.

Portere, V., & Briede, B. (2019). CONFLICT MANAGEMENT MODELS IN THE CONTEXT OF CONSTRUCTIVISM IN MEDIATION. Research for Rural Development – International Scientific Conference, Vol. 2, 260-267. doi:10.22616/rrd.25.2019.078

Weinclaw, R. (2019). Conflict management. Salem Press Encyclopedia.

 

NU 605 Week 5 Assignment 1: A Plan to Resolve Conflict and Promote Collaboration