Prevention of interpersonal conflicts in the workforce

Koreneva Vera Viktorovna PhD in Pedagogy Associate Professor, Department of General and Social Pedagogy, Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny str., Krasnoyarsk Territory, 660041, Russia kop_ipps@sfu-kras.ru Gudovskii Igor' Vital'evich PhD in Pedagogy Associate Professor, Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, Siberian State University of Science and Technology. M.F. Reshetnev 82 Mira str., Krasnoyarsk Territory, 660049, Russia dogadaev81@bk.ru Other publications by this author     Smirnova Anastasiya Viktorovna PhD in Pedagogy Associate Professor, Department of English Philology, Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University named after V.P. Astafiev 89 A. Lebedeva str., Krasnoyarsk Territory, 660060, Russia anastastasyavic@mail.ru Dulinets Tat'yana Grigor'evna PhD in Pedagogy Associate Professor, Department of Developmental Psychology and Counseling, Siberian Federal University 660062, Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Krasnoyarsk, Svobodny str., 82 tadulinec@yandex.ru

Gusarenko Viktoriya Vladimirovna Senior Lecturer, Department of General and Social Pedagogy, Krasnoyarsk State Medical University named after Professor V.F.Voino-Yasenetsky 660062, Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Krasnoyarsk, Partizan Zheleznyak str., 1 gusarenko_vv@mail.ru

The relevance of this topic is due to the fact that every person repeatedly faces various kinds of conflicts throughout his life. Conflicts between people occur on a daily basis, but not everyone is able to resolve a conflict situation correctly. Conflict in psychological science is understood as: "a clash of oppositely directed goals, interests, positions, opinions or views of two or more people." Conflict behavior is "actions aimed at directly or indirectly blocking the achievement of the opposing party's goals, intentions, and interests."

Interpersonal conflicts are the most common conflicts. They can occur in various areas of people's lives. One of the important tasks is the resolution and prevention of conflicts in the workforce. In the process of production, joint activities, people enter into interpersonal relationships and the effectiveness and productivity of the employee himself largely depends on whether they are favorable or unfavorable. A conflict can lead to an imbalance in the entire sphere of production activity. The consequences of conflicts can be very devastating.

High achievements in production and in work depend on many factors, among which interpersonal understanding, favorable relationships and psychological compatibility in the team play an important role. They directly affect the cohesion of employees and the entire team as a whole. The low level of employee cohesion is expressed in the presence of frequent conflicts between team members.

In turn, frequent, long-term conflicts have a destructive effect on interpersonal relationships, cohesion and the socio-psychological climate in the team.

In this work, we will rely on the experience of world and domestic conflictology in the person of: Cornelius H., Feir Sh., Lorenz K., Myers D., Scott J., Bogdanov M., Kontorov D., Kontorov N.; Dmitriev A., Kudryavtseva V., Antsurova A., Malysheva A.; Kanataeva Yu.A. et al.^{[2, 5]}

At the same time, a number of issues remain unaddressed by scientists.

Business leaders do not always try to resolve interpersonal conflict at an early stage of development, using methods that will prevent the escalation of the conflict and which would help to find an effective way out of a difficult situation. Many managers do not pay due attention to this aspect, do not have a psychologist, a conflict analyst on staff, or do not invite them to the organization to organize and conduct trainings, effective programs for the prevention and prevention of interpersonal conflicts. Thus, managers miss the opportunity to resolve contradictions in a timely manner or direct the conflict in a constructive direction.

Many managers do not consider it important and meaningful to introduce psychological programs and recommendations for conflict prevention and resolution into the work of employees.

In this regard, the purpose of this study is to develop a program of psychological education for employees of the organization in the field of prevention of interpersonal conflicts.

The subject of the study is the prevention of interpersonal conflicts in the workforce.

The degree of scientific elaboration of the research problem.

The first holistic concepts of conflict, which appeared at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, were preceded by the views of scientists of antiquity, who considered conflicts a part of people's lives in society. They saw the cause of conflicts and strife in the inequality and dissimilarity of people.

The general concept of social conflicts began to take shape at the turn of the XIX – early XX centuries. It is presented by foreign scientists M. Weber and G. Simmel. Interpersonal conflict in their works is described as a necessary and unavoidable part of life. People have different interests, and they create conflict.

Sociologists R. Dahrendorf and L. Kozer made a significant contribution to the study of interpersonal conflict. Together they created a theory of conflict.

In foreign psychology, the cause of interpersonal conflict was investigated by Boulding K.E. ^[16] Deutsch M. ^[17], Deutsch M. ^[18], Homey K. Smith W. P. ^[19], Ward H. ^[20].

D. B. Averkin ^[1], L.A. Fedoseeva ^[13], T. P. Grigorieva ^[3], O. A. Ekimchik ^[4] and others made a significant contribution to the development of modern Russian science on the problem of interpersonal conflict in the team. From the position of scientists, interpersonal conflict is considered as an open clash of subjects of interaction. The concept and essence of conflict are presented in detail in the works of scientists.

Conflicts in interpersonal relations in teams were considered by T.V. Skutina ^[10], L.A. Fedoseeva ^[13], A.A. Chuguy ^[14] and others. They believed that the nature of personality in the development of interpersonal conflict has a direct impact.

The concept of labor conflict, causes, consequences, and methods of regulation are presented in the works of T.L. Kryukova ^[5], Z. R. Sabirova ^[8], M. S. Semchenko ^[9], and others.

Research methods. The following methods were used in this work: generalization, theoretical analysis.

We interviewed the staff of the chamber choir using the author's questionnaire "Conflicts in the team", leading strategies of behavior in a conflict situation according to the method of K. Thomas (adaptation by N.V. Grishina). An author's questionnaire was also developed to assess the effectiveness of the interpersonal conflict prevention program. The team participates in various creative events in the city of Krasnoyarsk. The choir consists of 13 people: 8 women and 5 men.

Before developing a conflict prevention program for the choir team, we conducted a survey of employees in order to determine the presence of conflict situations in the team.

Research. To begin with, a questionnaire survey was conducted among employees regarding how often conflicts occur in their team and for what reason.

To the question of how often conflict situations arise in your organization, the respondents' answers were distributed as follows (Fig.1): very often 2 people count, periodically 3 people count, sometimes -6 people and almost never -2 people.

Fig.1. The frequency of conflict situations.

Thus, most employees believe that conflicts in their team happen only occasionally.

To the question "How often do you find yourself involved in a conflict at work?" (Fig.2), the respondents' answers were distributed as follows: very often 2 people count, periodically 3 people count, sometimes -6 people and almost never -2 people.

Fig.2. Frequency of participation in conflict at work

To the question of "How do you think the conflicts that arise in your organization are manageable?" The respondents' answers were distributed as follows (Fig.3): 2 people believe that conflicts in the organization are completely manageable; 3 employees believe that sometimes conflicts cannot be controlled; 7 employees believe that control is often impossible and 2 people believe that conflicts in the organization are practically uncontrollable.

Thus, most employees believe that conflict situations in the organization cannot be controlled.

Fig.3. Manageability of conflicts in the organization

To the question of "What is the most common cause of conflict in your organization?" the respondents' answers were distributed as follows (Fig.4): unfair remuneration -2 people, high ambitions of some employees – 3 people think so; improper organization of work -7 people; abuse of official authority by the head - 2 people, envy of employees towards each other -1 person, low level of professionalism -1 person and the struggle for the position is not it is, in the opinion of employees, the cause of conflicts in the organization.

Fig.4. Causes of conflict in the organization

Thus, according to employees, the main causes of interpersonal conflicts in the organization are: improper organization of work and high ambitions of some employees.

To the question of whether you have a desire to leave this organization, the respondents' answers were distributed as follows (Fig.5):

Fig. 5. The desire to leave the organization

2 people answer that such a desire never arises; 2 people answer that the desire to leave the organization arises all the time; 7 employees have this desire occasionally, 3 people often.

Finally, to the penultimate question of the questionnaire, which is related to finding out the opinion of employees about how important, in their opinion, is the participation of a specialist (consultant) in resolving conflicts in the team? The answers were distributed as follows: 5 employees believe that it is desirable to have a specialist; 4 people believe that a specialist is necessarily needed and 4 people believe that such a specialist is not necessary (Fig.6).

Fig.6 The importance of a specialist's participation in conflict resolution.

To the last question of the questionnaire: "How do you assess the socio-psychological climate of your organization?", the respondents' answers were distributed as follows: "everything is calm" - 4 employees believe; there are certain hotbeds of tension - 8 people; 1 person says that there are very tense relations in the team (Fig.7).

Fig.7 Assessment of the socio-psychological climate in the organization.

Thus, according to the results of the initial survey, the following data were obtained, which indicate the presence of interpersonal conflicts in the organization and the need for their prevention.

Most employees believe that conflicts in their team happen only occasionally; 20% of employees periodically become involved in conflict; 50% of employees believe that the most common cause of conflict is the improper organization of work in the organization; 50% of employees sometimes have a desire to leave the organization; 40% of employees believe that in resolving conflicts that arise in an organization, the participation of a specialist is important; 60% of employees believe that there are "hotbeds of tension" in the team, which affects the overall socio-psychological climate of the team.

In order to emphasize the relevance of this research in the team, we decided to look at what leading strategies of behavior in a conflict situation employees use.

We defined the leading strategies of behavior in a conflict situation according to the method of K. Thomas (adaptation by N.V. Grishina). K. Thomas identified the following leading strategies of personality behavior in a conflict situation: rivalry, adaptation, compromise, avoidance, cooperation.

The following results were obtained using this technique (Fig.8).

Fig.8. The leading strategies of behavior in a conflict situation according to the method of K. Thomas

1 employee most often uses a competitive strategy in a conflict, 1 employee uses a strategy of adaptation; 7 employees choose a strategy of compromise, 3 people choose avoidance. No one chooses the strategy of cooperation in this team.

Based on the data obtained, it can be said that the socio-psychological situation in the team can be tense, and employees do not use constructive strategies of behavior in a conflict situation, preferring competition and compromise. None of the employees are ready to cooperate.

Interpersonal organizational conflicts occur from time to time. This is evidenced by the data from the results of a written survey (60% of employees believe that there are "hotbeds of tension" in the team, which affects the overall socio-psychological climate of the team), as well as data from a psychodiagnostic study using the method of K. Thomas, which showed that there is an employee in the team who chooses a competitive strategy, which means that he it can be a provocateur of conflict.

The program for the prevention of interpersonal conflict in the workforce was conducted on the basis of the municipal budget cultural institution "Krasnoyarsk Chamber Choir", Krasnoyarsk.

The participants of the prevention program are 12 people, 7 of them women and 5 men. The age group of the team members is from 24 to 42 years old. Education: specialized secondary and higher education.

The program for the prevention of interpersonal conflict in the workforce of the Krasnoyarsk Chamber Choir Municipal budget cultural institution was developed taking into account that interpersonal conflict is the result of circumstances in which the needs, goals, and ideas of one person come into confrontation with the needs, goals, and ideas of another. The program is also based on the position of M. Y. Zelenkov ^[1] that interpersonal conflict is based on individual psychological characteristics of a person, which manifest themselves in three main aspects of a person's life: cognitive, emotional and activity level.

Accordingly, the interpersonal conflict prevention program consists of three group meetings with the staff of the chamber choir.

The content of group meetings to educate employees about conflict prevention has been defined and structured as follows:

Day 1 – work with the cognitive sphere, awareness and understanding of what conflict is, what conflicts are, what causes conflict can be caused. A theoretical introductory lecture was developed for this purpose.

Day 2 – work with the emotional sphere, through familiarization of employees with exercises, techniques, means and methods of conflict prevention, which are aimed primarily at regulating the emotional state to prevent conflict.

Day 3 - work with the behavioral sphere – understanding and awareness of which behavioral forms contribute to conflict prevention, which strategies of behavior in a conflict situation exist, in which types of interpersonal conflicts it is better to apply one way or another to prevent the conflict itself.

A group meeting. Day 1.

Lecture: "The concept of conflict and conflict situation. Types of interpersonal conflicts. Causes of conflicts, signs of conflict.

The purpose of the day is to form a cognitive understanding among employees of what interpersonal conflict is, to be able to recognize its signs and causes.

The duration of the lesson is 60 minutes.

The lecture (see Appendix 1) consists of 4 main parts:

1. Introduction

2. The introductory part

3. The main part

4. Conclusion

At the acquaintance stage, the organization's employees get acquainted with the moderator, he informs about the purpose of the lesson, the rules, and the stages of the lesson.

The presenter announces the basic rules of teamwork: the rule of the raised hand, the rule of "do not interrupt", the rule of "activity", the rule of attentiveness and empathy for others. It is also important to understand the expectations of the group members from the meeting and group work.

In the main part, the coach reveals the topic of the lecture, focusing on the most important points that everyone is invited to record in their notebook.

In the final part of the meeting, the coach answers questions, and then a reflection on the issues is conducted: 1. Evaluate the importance of the information received during the first meeting.2. What conclusions have you drawn based on the information received? 3. What knowledge is not enough for you to prevent the onset of conflict situations

A group meeting. Day 2.

Work with the emotional sphere, through familiarization of employees with exercises, techniques, means and methods of conflict prevention, which are aimed primarily at regulating the emotional state to prevent conflict.

The goal is to form ideas about conflict prevention exercises, as well as for "filling", "environmentally friendly disposal of negative emotions"

The introductory part is a reflection of the previous lesson. Memories of what happened in the previous lesson. The coach also informs the purpose and plan of this lesson, its rules.

The main part of the lesson is exercises that are aimed at working with the emotional state in order to prevent a conflict situation. These exercises work to correct the emotional sphere and negative emotional experiences associated with a conflict situation.

1. Exercise "Shelter"

Goal: exercise helps to calm down, relax, relax. It is performed for four to five minutes in a calm, dimly lit room.

2. - Exercise "Trash can" - 10 minutes. The goal: liberation from negative feelings and emotions.

3. The "Connecting thread" exercise. Time: 10 min.

Goal: to help participants feel the connection between each person forming the team.

4. The game "Where do we want to go?"

The goal: to form a common idea among the participants, obtained during team interaction.

After the exercises, a 10-minute reflection is conducted: what is your impression of the exercise, what "insights", insights did you experience / did not experience, did you manage to fully experience the emotions described in the exercise?

A group meeting. Day 3.

Purpose: To work with the behavioral sphere and conflict prevention at the activity level.

Purpose: to form an idea of effective coping strategies for conflict prevention.

In this lesson, students share their experiences, tell how they acted when they got into conflict situations.

Next, the coach talks for 20 minutes about strategies of behavior in conflict situations according to K. Thomas.

Question for discussion: what coping strategies do you use most often in your life? Give me an example. The information you have received about existing coping strategies may somehow help / helped you understand your behavior in the process of interpersonal communication.

At the end of the work, the coach asks the audience to share their impressions of the three meetings.

Reflection after the program of prevention and prevention of conflict situations was carried out on the following issues:

1. How do you assess the effectiveness of the meetings held?

2. What useful and necessary things have you learned for yourself?

3. What conclusions have you drawn about yourself and your behavior in the conflict?

4. Did the trainer manage to show the effectiveness of exercises for conflict prevention?

5. What information did you lack during these meetings?

6. What information did you find most valuable?

The program for the prevention of interpersonal conflicts in the workforce was developed and tested among the employees of this organization to form and increase the level of employee awareness on the cognitive (what are interpersonal conflicts, their types, functions), emotional (ways and forms of reaction in conflict, features of forming an attitude towards an opponent, the specifics of experiencing emotions in conflict) and activity (basic strategies of behavior in conflict) levels.

The main goal of the program was psychological education of the organization's employees in the field of prevention of interpersonal conflicts.

Classes were held not only in the form of lectures, but also in the form of interactive interaction with students, during which they shared their problems and questions about interpersonal conflicts, as well as shared their impressions of the classes.

The effectiveness of the prevention program was assessed on the basis of a questionnaire. All those who participated in the testing of the prevention program took part in the survey: 12 people: 7 women and 5 men. One of the employees was ill at the time of the survey.

Based on the conducted employee survey, the purpose of which was to determine the level of satisfaction with the completed interpersonal conflict prevention program in the organization, an analysis of the responses was carried out.

When asked how employees evaluate the effectiveness of the meetings, the following results were obtained (Fig. 9):

Fig. 9. Question 1 "How do you assess the effectiveness of the meetings held"

3 employees believe that after testing the program, there are still questions that are unclear; 10 respondents believe that the meetings were effective. There are no employees who would not understand the meaning and purpose of the lessons.

When asked about the shortcomings of the interpersonal conflict prevention program in the organization, the respondents' answers were distributed as follows: 4 people believe that there are no shortcomings; 4 people believe that theoretical material is insufficiently presented in the program; 1 person does not understand the purpose of the meetings; and 4 people believe that practical material is insufficiently presented.

Fig. 10. Question 2 "Indicate the shortcomings of the interpersonal conflict prevention program in the organization"

To the question of whether the interpersonal conflict prevention program helped in understanding how to avoid conflict situations, the respondents' answers were distributed as follows:

Fig.11. Question 3. Has the implemented prevention program helped to achieve an understanding of how to prevent conflicts in the organization

9 people responded positively to this survey, indicating that the prevention program was useful. For 4 people surveyed, the program has drawbacks and does not contain clear instructions on conflict prevention.

To the question concerning the evaluation of the effectiveness of the theoretical part of the program, the respondents' answers were distributed as follows: 10 employees consider the theoretical part necessary, 3 people believe that the theoretical part was not needed (Fig. 12).

Fig.12. Question 4. Effectiveness of the theoretical part of the program

To the question regarding the evaluation of the effectiveness of practical exercises and recommendations, the respondents' answers were distributed as follows: 13 people believe that practical exercises and recommendations were useful (Fig. 13.)

Fig.13. Question 5. The effectiveness of the practical part of the program

To the last question of the survey: "How often is it necessary to carry out preventive measures to prevent conflicts in your organization?" The respondents' answers were distributed as follows: 7 employees believe that such programs should be implemented in the organization regularly; 4 people believe that this should be done as needed: 2 people believe that the event already held was enough. The results are shown in Figure 14.

Fig.14 Frequency of preventive measures to prevent conflicts

Thus, according to the results of the evaluation by the staff of the conducted program of preventive measures for conflict prevention, it was found that 10 respondents believe that the meetings were effective. Regarding the shortcomings, 4 employees believe that the program has no shortcomings, 4 employees do not understand the purpose of the meetings. The prevention program was useful for 10 employees, while 10 employees considered the theoretical part necessary, and the practical part was useful for 13 respondents. 7 employees believe that such programs should be implemented in the organization on a regular basis.

The data obtained generally indicate the effectiveness of the conducted prevention program to prevent interpersonal conflicts for the majority of employees.

Activities to prevent interpersonal conflict situations can be carried out in three main directions: creating conditions that prevent the emergence of destructive interpersonal relationships; optimizing organizational and managerial conditions; eliminating socio-psychological factors and personal causes of interpersonal conflicts.

The prevention of interpersonal conflicts in the organization should be carried out simultaneously in all three directions. In addition, this work should be carried out not only with the employees of the organization, but also with the management staff.

In this regard, the development of skills of communicative culture, culture of interpersonal communication, conflictological competence of employees and managers through socio-psychological training programs and exercises is important for the prevention of interpersonal conflicts in the organization.

Based on the data obtained, it can be said that the socio-psychological situation in the team can be tense. Interpersonal organizational conflicts occur from time to time. This is evidenced by the data from the results of a written survey (60% of employees believe that there are "hotbeds of tension" in the team, which affects the overall socio-psychological climate of the team), as well as data from a psychodiagnostic study using the method of K. Thomas, which showed that there is an employee in the team who chooses a competitive strategy, which means that he it can be a provocateur of conflict.

Conclusions. We have developed and tested a program for the prevention of interpersonal conflicts in the workforce. 13 members of the chamber choir participated in the program. The very implementation of the program involved three meetings. Day 1 – work with the cognitive sphere, awareness and understanding of what conflict is, what conflicts are, what causes conflict can be caused. A theoretical introductory lecture was developed for this purpose.

Day 2 – work with the emotional sphere, through familiarization of employees with exercises, techniques, means and methods of conflict prevention, which are aimed primarily at regulating the emotional state to prevent conflict.

Day 3 - work with the behavioral sphere – understanding and awareness of which behavioral forms contribute to conflict prevention, which strategies of behavior in a conflict situation exist, in which types of interpersonal conflicts it is better to apply one way or another to prevent the conflict itself.

Thus, according to the results of the evaluation by the staff of the conducted program of preventive measures for conflict prevention, it was found that 10 respondents believe that the meetings were effective. Regarding the shortcomings, 4 employees believe that the program has no shortcomings, for 4 employees the purpose of the meetings is unclear. The prevention program was useful for 10 employees, while 10 employees considered the theoretical part necessary, and the practical part was useful for 13 respondents. 7 employees believe that such programs should be implemented in the organization on a regular basis.

The data obtained generally indicate the effectiveness of the conducted prevention program to prevent interpersonal conflicts for the majority of employees.