Page 199 - Becoming a Successful Manager

190 BUILDING ON YOUR FOUNDATION

person and you enjoy your job. Because of your success, you are
offered a position as sales manager. You face what is called an
approach-approach confl ict. That is, you want to continue to sell,
but you also want the promotion. Confronting this choice, you
have to thoroughly examine what’s best for you and why.
A second example depicts what is called an approach-avoidance

conflict. Here, you’ve been offered a high-paying job as a consultant
for a company that sells computer software. The work is appealing to
you, as is the money, but the job entails 50 percent out-of-town travel.
That does not appeal to you, since you have a spouse and three chil-
dren, and you don’t want to be away from them for long stretches.
Finally, you may have an avoidance-avoidance confl ict, which
is characterized by the adage “caught between a rock and a hard
place.” For instance, you are offered a promotion that requires you
to relocate, something you don’t want to do for personal reasons.
However, if you don’t accept the promotion, you will have to remain
in your current job, which you no longer fi nd challenging.
In all three confl icts, as you weigh your choices, you learn
about yourself. You learn what’s important and unimportant to
you, what you like and dislike, what you need to be happy with your
life, what your values are and their relative strengths, and more.

Other Types of Confl icts

Confl icts come in all shapes and in various degrees of complex-
ity. What follows are general descriptions of some familiar types.
For each, think of actual examples from your own experience;
note them in your journal under the appropriate headings: perfor-
mance rating, group consensus, and meeting expectations. As you

reflect on them, try breaking them apart to notice three things:
(1) the actual difference, (2) the approach to the difference, and