ake in the early 1980s.CONFLICT MANAGEMENTConflict is good! Stimulating conflict can provide several benefits to the organization. They provide the organization a means to introduce radical change. Management can drastically change the existing power structure and attitudes. While it is argued that conflict increases hostility between group members, external pressures and threats tend to make the unit more close knit. Intergroup conflicts raise the extent to which members identify with their own group and increase feelings of solidarity, while, at the same time, internal differences and irritations dissolve. Additionally, Conflicts improve group and organizational effectiveness by encouraging innovation through diversity of opinion and through the creation of a Kmore constructive level of tension . Low-tension levels signify insufficient motivation within the group. The introduction of a conflict activates peoples gray matter and this is beneficial for the organization. Recent studies show that the right amount of conflict maximizes organizational performance (See Appendix A). Although conflict does not facilitate efficiency in decision making, it prevents groupthink. Differences in opinion prevent wayward decision making as they provide a natural system of checks and balances for the group. Americas intervention in the Vietnam War is the perfect illustration of the negative effects that the lack of conflict has on the eventual decision. Recorded below are transcripts of four successive American presidents regarding the importance of Americas intervention into the Vietnam War. EISENHOWER, August 4, 1953: ...So when the United States votes $400 million to help that war, we're not voting for a giveaway program. We're voting for the cheapest way that we can prevent the occurrence of something that would be of the most terrible significance to the United States of America, our security! KENNEDY, September 2, 1963: ...If we withdrew from...
