Steem4nigeria Accelerator Contest Week 82, Conflict and Resolution

Greetings to you my amazing friends. We give God the Glory for seeing a great day like this and for all his wonderful works in our lives.
It's a great pleasure to participate in this contest organized by @steem4nigeria.

In Nigeria, there's an adage that says, "a cow will not know the value of it's tail till it loses it". It's same with conflict. You will never know the value of peace till you're faced with conflict or you find yourself in a conflict proned environment. You tend to lose your sleep, your peace of mind is not longer there. Both your mental and physical health will be affected.

Let's have an indepth knowledge on conflict.

Source

In your own sentence, what do you think conflict means?

In my own words, conflict can be defined as a misunderstanding or disagreement between two or more individuals, groups or parties which often is a result gaps in communication, clash for limited available resources, differences in beliefs, as well as conflicts resulting from struggles for power as can be seen with most African leaders.

Conflicts often have a lot of effects and setbacks in our lives and the society at large. These effects range from physical harm (in some cases, resulting in death of innocent people who know nothing about the cause of the conflict), damages relationships and trust that has been built over the years, emotional pains, as well as decreased productivity.

Conflicts could come in different forms and this include:

1. Cultural conflict involving disagreement or clash between different cultural beliefs, values and practices. Sometimes, a particular culture will feel superior over the other culture which often brings a clash with the other culture who would want to proof that they can't be trampled upon.
2. Interpersonal conflict: This is a misunderstanding between two or more individuals. It could be as a result of some persona gains.
3. Intra personal conflict: oh yes, one can have conflict with himself. This often occurs when your are struggle to fight off an addiction or make a firm decision about yourself. It's a struggle within an individual.

Mention at least 4 ways conflict can be resolved in workplace, home or among friends

In resolving conflict, one can adopt the following ways to amicably resolve conflict at home, workplace or amongst friends:

1. Active listening: Listening and understanding each parties grievances is a major step to conflict resolution. The parties will be confident in you owing tothe fact that you've shown concern to listen to their grievance.
2. Open communication: Ensure that you have an open communication and not have some sort of hidden agenda as that will only make matters worst if the other party gets to find out. Ensure that you both arrive at a level ground in other to settle any misunderstanding causing the conflict.
3. Compromise and negotiation: is benefits outweighs harm or disadvantages, be willing to compromise for peace to reign.
4. Seek mediation: Don't feel to big or shy to seek for a third party help where need be as this could hasten the resolution process of whatsoever conflict that is lingering.

Have you been in conflict with someone before? How was it resolved?

Yes, just of recent, I had a conflict with a colleague of mine at the office. It was a case of misunderstanding in communication. He misinterpreted what I said a week before and this brought a very big friction by weekend.
I tried explaining myself over the phone but he wasn't having any one it. I realized the more I tried to explain myself, the more aggressive he tends to become. I had no option than to drop the call and give him some space.

It was the next week when work resumed that I decided to walk up to him at his office. With a smile on my face, I greeted him and apologized for the call over the week (though it was entirely not my fault). I explained to him that it was a gap in communication of which his colleagues also affirmed to it.

After all has been said and done, he smiled back and also apologized with way he sounded over the phone. He appreciated how calmly I handled and situation. We became good buddies after the incident.

I'm inviting my friends @vickyson @ashley-p and @owulama to give their insight on conflict and how one can resolve conflict.