One significant trend of the present times has been the growing tendency towards conflict. Psychologists have ascribed many reasons for this. The increasing awareness and rising aspirations are the natural concomitant of the present post modern society. It fact it is an age of contradictions. Excessive use of technology that was supposed to facilitate human performance seems to be crippling it due to over dependence. People have more leisure and yet they are always running short of time. The traditional view holds that little knowledge is dangerous. In the modern times we find that more knowledge has become more dangerous.
In professional lexicon this is called information overload. If little choice led to anxiety, excessive choice is leading to more of it. Scarcity had its own problems plenty has its own. less consumption led to malnutrition, over consumptions is leading to obesity. And both the states have their own attendant complexities. This too has created a fertile ground for rise of conflicts. The have nots versus the haves. Those who do not have want more and those who have also want more. Conflicts thus are a basic fact of life. They are inevitable and will keep on arising. With changing need patterns, wants, desires and demands there may be a growing tendency towards conflicts. Though many reasons may be identified one important reason seems to be the tendency to power equalise.
Management experts attribute this to the shrinking of ‘Zone of Acceptance’ and hence questioning of authority is growing. So conflicts are here to stay whether one likes it or not. There is little point thus in trying of cordon off reasons of conflict. There will always be some reasons or the other for conflict to arise. The solution lies in managing conflict and there have been many time tested ways that have been and are being used for managing conflict. However, the big question is can there be a better approach to manage conflict, different from those that are already there in vogue. Or simply stated can there be an alternative paradigm. Well it is not going to be easy but our hitherto conflict management approaches have not proved very effective. Not that efforts were not made. In fact, evolution of conflict management approaches suggests that people have been serious in the endeavor to resolve conflict and many approaches were developed. Some created a lose-lose situation for the conflicting parties while some created a win-lose situation.
The win-win situation though proclaimed has yet to arrive. What then can be done so that conflicts are resolved to the satisfaction of all the conflicting parties. The first and foremost step is to understand the nature of conflict. Though social scientist are wont to attribute conflict to the problem of sharing of resources the real reason is different. Or else Cane would not have slain Abel as given in the Bible. Because they had the whole world at their disposal. It is more about perception than reality. When people don’t listen to heart and apply the mind conflicts arise.
The solution lies in developing this ability of listening to the heart. Once we are able to do this we will think in terms of collaboration rather than competition. The paradigm which we need to look for is that let the heart talk and mind listen rather than mind talk and heart listen. True this needs a bit of patience and training. But yes it can be achieved.
The writer teaches management at Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad (Jharkhand). He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com