Conflict management is a diverse term encompassing many issues in it and has very vague boundaries. By this term we generally understand that it deals with the ways and manners of handling a conflict. Although there is much more to the idea of conflict management but this definition points out the essence of the field of conflict management.
The field of conflict management is relatively new one but it has been functioning long before they named it. Man has been facing conflict ever since he was born. For survival of men alongside each other as well as for the progress of man it was very essential to learn the art of managing conflict. In the beginning he used violent methods but later learned a few other non violent ones and hence the bases for this modern branch of management.
Conflict is considered a negative word yet truth of the matter is that whenever men are working alongside each other there are bound to be conflicts and it is very natural. What makes these conflicts negative is our attitude towards them. The modern man like the old uncivilized man finds himself losing control over the situation once a conflict arises. For this reason the ideas of conflict management grew into a complete field to facilitate men and teach them to handle and resolve their conflict.
With the increase in organizations and companies, professionals are much needed by such firms to help smoothly run their institutes. Bigger organizations have large number of people working together under the same roof so greater chances of conflicting situations arising, which leads to the need of such professionals that can smooth things over and leave all the parties satisfied as it increases the efficiency and productivity of each individual and eventually benefiting the organization on the whole.
Many techniques and ideas have been given by researchers that are applied by the management for conflict resolution. Different approaches are used for different conflicts depending on the nature of the conflict. Deciding and implementing the best possible approach to resolve a conflict is the mangers choice and needs to be taken very seriously as the wrong approach could as easily destroy the relationship as it could make it peaceful. Different approaches used for conflict resolution are
• Negotiation
• Conciliation
• Mediation
• Facilitation
Other than these some other advance ideas are presented after researches for more complex conflicts to help countries and international bodies to help them resolve their conflicts. This field has endless possibilities for research and practice for as long as man continues to produce new conflicts there will always be these facilitators to help them find solutions to resolve them. In this modern world where everyone seems to be looking for peace this branch of management is in great demand.