Assignment 5.1: Course Project—Interactional Dimensions of Conflict
Dontay L. Fortune
Jones International University
February 7, 2015
BC465: Managing Conflict in Organizations

To begin this assignment I began to explore Theme 2 of the Jones International University database and an EHow website to get a better understanding of the style of conflict experienced between the Lockheed Martin Corporation and the Pentagon. I began to get a better understanding of the conflict styles by reading Theme 2; coincidentally I looked for the specific one that I thought fit the conflict style read in the article from the Washington Post—it just so happened to be 5 categories of conflict styles present. Next, I focused my attention toward the article were the conflict was first contacted by discovery and read the article entirely. I then used the EHow website to locate and read the five categories of conflict and chose “compromising style” because I remember in the article that the Pentagon asked the Lockheed-Martin Corporation to remove potential conflicts of interest within government contractors.
The Lockheed-Martin Corporation did so by divesting most of two units -- in part to head off conflict-of-interest concerns. Furthermore, assertive efforts to rename the two divested units and Lockheed will also form a new business unit called Global Training and Logistics under its Electronic Systems business by combining two information systems units -- Readiness & Stability Operations and Savi Technology -- with its Simulation, Training, and Support unit (The Washington Post, 2010). The compromising style is present within this conflict, and therefore can’t be either of the other four remaining conflict styles such as the following: 1. the competing style 2. avoiding style 3. collaborating style 4. accommodating style
Positioning was a bit difficult for me to determine, Theme 3 of the JIU database helped me to better understand the positioning of conflict for the Pentagon and the Lockheed-Martin Corporation. First, I had to think about the many forms of human thoughts, but the form that is of paramount importance for most people is thinking as the use of cognitive tools to carry out the tasks of everyday life. This was a great way to conclude that there are two forms of positioning—intentional and unintentional. Finally, I had to go back to the article of the resulting conflict between the Lockheed-Martin Corporation and the Pentagon to determine whether the conflict was intentional or unintentional. It was determined that the conflict was intentional because the Lockheed-Martin Corporation was a contractor of the Pentagon, who had received orders to refer to the L.M.C.
I read into the use of metaphors in The Washington Post article mentioned earlier and located a statement that the Lockheed Chief Executive Robert J. Stevens said (i.e. "Increasingly, the work that has been done in EIG has fallen under this general discussion area of a potential conflict of interest," said Lockheed chief executive Robert J. Stevens. "We just simply respect the fact that the government wants to raise the standard here."). Next, I forced the idea that metaphors indicate how we are perceiving, organizing and evaluating our experiences to help me understand metaphors in conflict.
All three of the mentioned interactional dimension—conflict styles, positioning, and metaphors are relevant in my conflict. When it comes to conflicting styles between the Pentagon and the Lockheed-Martin Corporation the conflict was one of compromise because business continuance was more important than an all-out fight because the two were working on a project together. Secondly, positioning is something that every conflict has in common and are also a necessity to communication between people, furthermore, I have learned that positioning can either be intentional or unintentional. Finally, metaphors can be an easy or hard find if you can’t understand the use of a metaphor in conflict. However, because the compromise between the Lockheed-Martin Corporation and the Pentagon was achieved, I now understood the used of the metaphor “general discussion area of a potential conflict of interest”. I learned that a metaphor can help a people relate to each other as a communicator because they add the characteristics of life, color, and descriptiveness to human communication.

References
Censer, M. (2010). Lockheed Martin retools to meet new Pentagon rules on conflict of interest. Retrieved January 31, 2015, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/06/02/AR2010060204496.html
Kelchner, L. (2015). Thomas & Killman's Five Conflict Styles. Retrieved February 7, 2015, from http://www.ehow.com/list_6005285_thomas-killman_s-five-conflict-styles.html
Jones International University Database, (2015). Module 5 Interactional Dimensions of Conflict: Themes 1-4. Retrieved February 7, 2015, from https://courses.jonesinternational.edu/display.jkg?courseSectionId=35223&uid=85965&t pl=frameset