Collaborative or principled negotiation

Collaborative or principled negotiation. Conflict often arise in a workplace and if pushed underground unresolved, it usually resurface in a new form. Effective resolving of conflict creates a positive environment for everyone and allows the company to achieve its goals. While some conflicts are between individuals, other entails a group of people in the office. In a health center near my hometown, I witnessed a conflict between nurses and physicians. Today, nurses are knowledgeable and effectively trained yet physicians rely on the traditional hierarchy which states that nurses are completely subordinate to doctors. In the health center, nurses were angered and claimed that they could not conduct their duties effectively. Considering that nurses are trained to care for a patient holistically while physicians tend to pay attention of the case and offer treatment, the two disciplines often tend to differ while making certain decisions.  The conflict from disparities in knowledge and power threatened the safety of the patients which prompted the management to take action to resolve the conflict. While both parties seek to enhance the wellbeing of the patients, nurses ought to feel empowered so that they can deliver effective care. Therefore, instead of physicians addressing them as subordinates, the best solution was to allow nurses speak freely without the interference of physicians.  

Collaborative or principled negotiation

Negotiation Process

The healthcare management sought to resolve the conflict after one nurse got in a physical fight with the doctor. Considering that the tension had already been there, the nurse assumedly reached a breaking point and decided to fun the fire.  A meeting was scheduled and both nurses and physicians were asked to say what they believe was the root of the conflict and what needed to be done. During the meeting, each team was given equal opportunities to talk about the disagreement and how they felt about the issue. At the beginning of the meeting, both teams seemed to be attacking the other without paying much attention to the problem. Despite feeling that the nurses were more justifiable, both teams got rather emotional which threatened to make the negotiation process unsuccessful. However, after a short period of persuasion, both teams were ready to listen carefully and address the problem.  To enhance communication, both the nurses and physicians were asked to choose a representative who would speak on behalf of their team. At some point, a nurse stormed out of the meeting room as a result of being frustrated from lack of a solution.

The proposed solution which from the nurses was development of policies that would ensure nurses had a voice in the healthcare facility as well as equal access to resources equivalent to physicians. The doctors on the other hand expressed their concerns that nurses had not gone through adequate training that would facilitate a collaborative relationship. However, both nurses and physicians agreed to work as a team. Additionally, policies were formulated entailing guidelines to be used by both teams when making a decision. Conflict management is essential in enhancing job satisfaction and enhancing productivity (Younyoung and Junghee 2018). Therefore, the management ensured that both teams came to an agreement. Finally, both teams developed an incident reporting system to encourage employees to report conflicts before they got out of control.