ESSAY: CONFLICT RESOLUTION PAPER

Read Finkelman (2016), Chapter 13: Improving Teamwork: Collaboration, Coordination, and Conflict Resolution, section on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, pp. 324-333. Watch tutorial below.
Write a 5-7 page paper (not including the title or References pages). Follow APA format. Consult your APA manual, and consider using the APA resources provided by Chamberlain. Cite the course textbook and two scholarly sources.
Cite the course textbook and two scholarly sources. Scholarly references must be published within the last 5 years, from the Chamberlain library only and must provide the permalink.
Review the information provided in our library of how to search for journal articles (Links to an external site.)
Review the information provided in our library of how to locate and copy a journal permalink (Links to an external site.)
You are required to complete this assignment using the productivity tools required by Chamberlain University, which is Microsoft Office Word 2013 (or later version), or Windows and Office 2011 (or later version) for MAC. You must save the file in the “.docx” format. Do NOT save as Word Pad. A later version of the productivity tool includes Office 365, which is available to Chamberlain students for FREE by downloading from the student portal at http://my.chamberlain.edu (Links to an external site.) Click on the envelope at the top of the page.
Observe nurses in a care delivery setting. Identify a recurring conflict with the potential to negatively impact patient care. This should be from your practice setting or prelicensure experiences.
Provide details of what happened, including who was involved, what was said, where it occurred, and what was the outcome that led you to decide the conflict was unresolved.
REVIEW AND DISCUSS the four stages of conflict as found in Finkelman. IDENTIFY AND EXPLAIN how the stages of conflict relate to the example in your workplace.Do not use direct quotes.
Describe how you would collaborate with a nurse leader to reach consensus on the best strategy to deal with the conflict. Besides the textbook, the paper needs to summarize conflict resolutions from two scholarly articles.
Describe the rationale for selecting the best strategy.
Provide a summary or conclusion about this experience or assignment and how you may deal with conflict more effectively in the future.

ANSWER

Instances of conflict are common in many organizations. In healthcare settings where there is a continuous interaction between healthcare providers and patients/ caregivers, conflict instances may not be avoided. In a hospital setting, the nurse plays the role of a caregiver, an educator and at times a manager. To achieve this mandate, there various interactions that can result in conflicts as well. Some common causes of conflict include perceived differences in goals, attitudes, the difference in opinion, unwanted actions and at times competition. Conflict can as well originate from the management when it comes up with reforms that may cause friction at the workplace (Sexton & Orchard, 2016). This task seeks to evaluate recurring conflicts that have the potential of causing conflict in a care delivery setting. The four stages of conflict as per Finkelman and how they relate to the workplace will also be evaluated.

The Recurring Conflict

After observing nurses in my work practice setting, many instances of conflict came up. The most notable one, however, was the lack of clearly defined roles as well as expectations. It was clear that some of the nurses having different statuses had their delineation of duty unclear. This conflict also spanned from nurses to physicians. In the care setting, there is always an unwritten rule that physicians are leaders and hence responsible for the patients and hence they ought to delegate duties with minimal input from them. This always made some of the nurses feel disrespected and devalued. There was thus an identity conflict between these two camps. For the nurses themselves, I could note that there was no harmony especially between experienced nurses and those who just started their nursing career as well as those on internship. The old and supposedly experienced nurses could at times skip their rotations and delegate the duties to ‘junior nurses’. Despite the inexperienced nurses reporting such instances to the nursing officer in charge, no action seemed to be taken. The junior nurses started complaining and their service delivery to patients reduced due to low morale. The fact that the nursing in charge wasn’t responding to such concerns accelerated the conflict calling for a clear allocation of roles and rotations that have to be followed to the latter. Perceived junior nurses also insisted on being respected and allowed to undertake their responsibilities without interference. My conclusion that the conflict was likely to be unresolved was the continued disagreements, the low morale of some nurses and the complaints patients raised as such conflicts directly negated service delivery.

Four Stages of Conflict as Found in Finkelman According to Finkelman (2016), conflicts can be described in different stages. Even though commonly there are five stages of conflict, four are the most common as the fifth normally describes the result of the skirmish. The latent stage is the first one and this is when parties involved have no idea that there is a conflict between them. The disagreements, therefore, haven’t begun but all indications show that it will start. Depending on the prevailing reactions of parties involved, this conflict can escalate to an actual instance of conflict. The second stage is the perceived phase where one or both parties become aware of what is happening. Once this happens, it becomes necessary for the parties involved to re-evaluate what went wrong and why people could be upset. The felt stage is the third stage and is mainly characterized by strain and unease. The involved….