9 Conflict and Polarity Thinking
LEARNING GUIDE: CONFLICT AND POLARITY THINKING
OVERVIEW
This lesson is on conflict which can be viewed primarily as the antithesis of team collaboration. Conflict can be examined through various lenses of interprofessional competency. It explores conflict and its management which is not the same as conflict resolution. It is important to recognize that not all conflicts can be resolved. Team members may need to “respectfully disagree”. Seemingly unresolvable conflicts do not mean that the persons involved should not try to manage or address the conflict at hand. Unresolvable conflicts or recurring conflicts are very difficult because they may include polarities instead of conflicts. Polarity thinking is introduced as way to address recurring problems that may not be conflicts or problems, but rather a pair of polarities.
OBJECTIVES
For this lesson you will:
- Identify the common sources of conflict that occur in healthcare.
- Describe ways to de-escalate a conflict such as conflict resolution strategies and negotiation.
- Compare and contrast conflict resolution and conflict management.
COMPETENCIES
| IPEC Sub-competencies – Values/Ethics for Interprofessional Practice | |
| VE8 | Manage ethical dilemmas specific to interprofessional patient/population centered care situations. |
| IPEC Sub-competencies – Interprofessional Communication | |
|---|---|
| CC5 | Give timely, sensitive, instructive feedback to others about their performance on the team, responding respectfully as a team member to feedback from others. |
| CC6 | Use respectful language appropriate for a given difficult situation, critical conversation, or interprofessional conflict. |
| CC7 | Recognize how one’s own uniqueness, including experience level, expertise, culture, power, and hierarchy within the health care team, contributes to effective communication, conflict resolution, and positive interprofessional working relationship. |
| IPEC Sub-competencies – Teams and Teamwork | |
| TT6 | Engage self and others to constructively manage disagreements about values, roles, goals, and actions that arise among health and other professionals and with patients, families, and community members. |
DEFINITIONS
Conflict – a disagreement through which the parties involved perceive a threat to their needs, interests, or concerns.
Conflict resolution – the process used by two or more persons find a peaceful solution to their dispute.
Groupthink – The symptoms of groupthink arise when the members of decision-making groups become motivated to avoid being too harsh in their judgments of their leaders’ or their colleagues’ ideas. They adopt a soft line of criticism, even in their own thinking. At their meetings, all the members are amiable and seek complete concurrence on every important issue, with no bickering or conflict to spoil the cozy, “we-feeling” atmosphere” (Janis, 1991).
Negotiation – a method by which people settle differences. It is a process by which c