Conflict Management Assignment: Discussion On Two Techniques Of Resolving Conflicts

Question

Task: Your Task
Students are to watch two short videos, then write an analytical report exploring the Conflict Management issues evident in those videos.

Conflict Management Assignment Description
Use the following links to access two short videos of Dr Anthony Fauci answering questions posed during US Senate Hearings: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=l6FjOFMj_YM
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=j0r10OWrBqg
Biographical information regarding the three speakers (Dr Anthony Fauci, Dr Paul Rand, Jim Jordan) can be accessed via the following links:
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/director
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/how-anthony-fauci-became-americas-doctor
https://www.paul.senate.gov/about-rand
https://jordan.house.gov

The following questions should be covered in your report:
1. What real or imagined audience is each of the three key speakers addressing with their comments
2. Identifying in (minutes:seconds):
a. The point in each video where any of the participants became threatened and explain why.
b. Instances where participants were relying on opinions, and where they were relying upon facts.
3. The extent to which the session Chair in each video restored order or resolved issues

Answer

Introduction
The analytical report on conflict management assignment is based on the two mentioned videos where the three eminent politicians of the U.S.A have been debating over the issue of Covid-19 lockdown norms and the role of statisticians or government in awaking the people about the precautionary norms. Additionally, conflicting situations have also arisen when one speaker wanted to know about the exact date or month upto which the people have to maintain the precautionary measures due to Covid-19 pandemic situations. The report has structurally analyzed the debates and highlighted the cause of conflict. Moreover, two techniques of resolving conflicts at a higher level have been discussed in detail along with brief biographies about the three speakers. After the analysis for each video, the report identifies which protagonist was most effective in getting their core message across and reveals the various emotional or adversarial moments in the videos. The lessons that have been learned by the analysis have been included in it.

Causes of conflict
The cause of conflict that has been noticed from the two videos is the imposition of Covid-19 lockdown norms to the general public by the government for nearly two years without a specific roadmap on how or when to lift the restrictions from the people of the concerned states (Shpakou, 2018). Additionally, the conflict enhances when the representative of the government cannot satisfactorily answer the questions of the other two speakers and he also can't show any report in favor of the decisions of the government.

Description of two techniques
The Thomas-Kilmann model has identified several conflict resolution strategies that have been used for resolving conflicts among two or more subjects. The strategies are namely, avoiding, accommodating, compromising, competing and collaborating (Ahmedet al., 2019). Moreover, the mentioned model also reveals two dimensions into which every person falls while selecting a perfect conflict resolution strategy in a particular situation. The dimensions are namely, assertiveness and cooperativeness. Assertiveness values the actions to satisfy the need of the self-whereas cooperativeness involves the actions to satisfy the need of others. The analytical report has considered the following two techniques of conflict resolution.

Accommodating: This conflict resolution technique involves a higher sense of cooperativeness and a lower sense of assertiveness. Additionally, the resolution of conflict using this method needs some action to satisfy the desire of the other party at the cost of their own needs.This process has a high degree of success.Furthermore, the nature of conflicts that have been observed in the video needs some positive step or responsible action from DrFauci as a representative of the U.S. government to satisfy the demand of Jim Jordan and Dr Rand Paul.

Competing: The conflict resolution technique of competing involves more sense of assertiveness and a lower sense of cooperativeness. This technique needs some action to satisfy the demand or need of the self without considering the demand of the other. Furthermore, competing techniques of conflict resolution have a lower degree of success since it involves lower chances of cooperativeness where every party is trying to satisfy their own demand without considering the desire of others. The conflicts observed in the video can be resolved only if both the speaker is ready to cooperate and to answer appropriately to the questions of the other speaker (Edetet al., 2017). Moreover, competing techniques can be effective only when one party is weak whereas in this case, all the three speakers involved in the conflict have a strong background.

Background
The brief biographies of the three key speakers and the details of the respective audiences are as follows: Jim Jordan: Jim Jordan is a politician based in the US and a member of the Republican Party.He is serving as the U.S.representative for the congressional district in Ohio since 2007 Jordan is also the founding member of the Conservative House Freedom at Caucus. The speaker is appealing on behalf of the general citizens of the U.S.A and other countries where the imposition of lockdown norms has fetched their individual liberty to move freely along with the timeline upto which they have to wear masks in some forms.

DrFauci: Dr Anthony Stephen Fauci is a scientist cum physician who is the Chief Medical Advisor to the president of the U.S. and serves as the director of the NIAID(National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Tikhonovaet al., 2018).DrFauci is very experienced and has served in the public health program under the U.S for nearly fifty years. Moreover, the speaker here addressed the questions of Jim Jordan and Sen Rand Paul by appealing to all the masked and vaccinated citizens of the country.

Sen. Rand Paul: Rand Paul is an American physician turned politician who has been serving as a U.S. senator from Kentucky states since 2011. He founded the North Carolina Taxpayer’s Union in 1991 and was a candidate for U.S. presidential election in 2016 from the Republican Party. Dr Paul as a speaker is here appealing to the people of North America and people of other continents regarding the issue of the chances of reinfection even after vaccination and over the issue of wearing masks.

Analysis
All the three protagonists are equally equipped and bold during their argument through which they try to reach their potential audiences. Each of them has logic in their argument but amongst the three Jim Jordan seems to be more confident, prepared and aggressive while arguing with DrFauci regarding the Covid 19 lockdown norms and the dateline upto which the people have to compromise with their rights of liberty (Rodrigueset al., 2019). Jim Jordan seems to be most effective in presenting his argument and delivering his core message to the audience since he is using the visual data to counter DrFauci. Finally, his arguments are strong enough and quite justified in the interest of a huge number of audiences.The speakers during their speeches have invented certain stories such as Jim Jordan have added the stories of immigrants or plight of taxpayers in his speech whereas DrFauci has quoted the stories of various variants of the viruses from Africa to make his statement stronger.

The mentioned videos are based on the heated debate between the three prominent protagonists of America. The debate has been around the topic of Covid-19 lockdown norms and inefficient execution of the government regarding the lifting of the ban after lockdown. Among the two videos, the video which shows the debate between Jim Jordan and DrFauci is a mixture of emotional and adversarial discussion. Moreover, 0:23 to 0:36 minutes of the video shows the emotional discussions in which Jim Jordan highlights the plight of the American people due to the Covid-19 lockdown norms whereas between the 2:06 to 2:15 minutes and 2:20- 230 minutes interval of the video highlights the heated debate between Jim Jordan and DrFauci revealed the adversarial discussions. The analysis of another video revealed that between the interval of 0:11-0:16 minutes of the video Rand Paul have become emotional whereas between the interval of 0:52-0:57 minutes and 1:16- 1:23 minutes of the video both the speakers have involved in heated debate showing the example of adversarial discussion in the video.

The analysis of the video reveals that the interruption by the chairman Mr Clyburn at end of the discussion diffuses the tension between Jim Jordan and DrFauci upto a certain extent (Bercovitch, 2019). Additionally, the discussion has been concluded in a safe manner only when DrFauci has admitted that he can not specify any date upto which the people have to wear masks or face the burden of lockdown. Apart from that, the interruption by the house in the second video has helped a lot in diffusing the tension between two speakers that may ultimately lead to a conflict. Finally, the discussion reached a safe conclusion by the cooperative approach of both the speakers in the house.

Conclusion
The analytical report has systematically highlighted all the important aspects of the two videos in the light of conflict resolution strategies. Furthermore, the report has highlighted the background of the conflicts and the arguments of the three speakers. Moreover, it analyses the effectiveness of the two conflict resolution techniques under the given circumstances as depicted in the two videos. The report has also evaluated the effectiveness of the speeches made by three speakers in the video to spread the respective messages to their potential audiences. Emotional or adversarial situations have also been identified in the video and the actions that have been taken to resolve the conflict have been noted in it. Apart from that, it is worth mentioning that the two videos and the analytical report have focused on the lessons on how to select a strategy to resolve a conflict like these when both the parties are strong enough in their arguments. Finally, the lesson that has been learned is that healthy debates are good for a democracy to resolve an important issue like lifting the lockdown barriers from the general people and the strategy of cooperativeness should be encouraged for conflict resolution.

Reference Lists
Rodrigues, D.L., Huic, A., Lopes, D. and Kumashiro, M., 2019. Regulatory focus in relationships and conflict resolution strategies. Personality and Individual Differences, 142, pp.116-121.
Bercovitch, J., 2019. Social conflicts and third parties: Strategies of conflict resolution. Routledge. Tikhonova, N., Demina, N., Klimatckaia, L., Osipov, A., Kudryavtsev, M., Zhavner, T. and Shpakou, A., 2018. Arterial hypertension as a factor in the choice of conflict resolution strategies by elderly persons. Conflict management assignmentFamily Medicine & Primary Care Review, (4), pp.368-372.
Edet, A.O., Benson, U.R. and Williams, R.E., 2017. Principals’ conflict resolution strategies and teachers’ job effectiveness in public secondary schools in AkwaIbom State, Nigeria. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 7(2), pp.153-153. Ahmed, R.A., Fakhry, S.F. and Saad, N.F., 2019. Conflict resolution strategies training program and its effect on assertiveness among nursing students. Egypt J Health Care, 10(2), pp.237-49.