Why do Work Conflicts Occur? Reasons of Conflict in the Workplace

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Why do Work Conflicts Occur? Reasons of Conflict in the Workplace

Ben Dattner in his article "Most Work Conflicts Aren't Due to Personality", HBR Blog, May 20, 2014, argues that the real underlying cause of conflict in the workplace is the SITUATION ITSELF, rather than the PEOPLE INVOLVED, as people are inclined to think.
Humans tend to attribute conflicts to other people's personality (e.g., style typologies concept like Myer-Briggs) rather than to situations because that is more complicated. Dattner argues that the real reasons for conflict are a lot harder to raise (and resolve) because they are likely to be complex, nuanced, and politically sensitive.
For example people's interests may truly be opposed; roles and levels of authority may not be correctly defined and delineated.
Do you agree with Dattner (and me) that conflicts in the workplace are mostly due to the situations of the workplace itself rather than to the personality of people involved?

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		1 horatius dyani, South Africa
	Reasons of Conflict in the Workplace Human INTERESTS are different, including both personal interests and expectations and workplace interests and expectations.

		2 Helen Strong Business Consultant, South Africa
	Reasons for Conflict in the Workplace - I believe that conflict often arises due to the Power, Recognition and Money aspirations of one person or group over others. If you don't do it "my way" I cannot control the resources, what you do and what I get out of the situation. i.e., the conflict is about "WHO BENEFITS FROM THE SITUATION". - Conflict also happens when people do not have EQUAL ACCESS TO INFORMATION... If there is irrefutable evidence there should not be conflict regarding the problem. Of course there could be disagreement on how to best handle the situation. - Another issue lies in the significance of the evidence... Conflict will arise when FACTS ARE INTERPRETED DIFFERENTLY and against a set of biased objectives.

		0 Basil Smith Business Consultant, South Africa
	Understanding and Defining Conflict It would be helpful to any further discussion if the terms "conflict" and also "situation", as used in your post, were more clearly defined. While I find the topic interesting and relevant and worthy of further discussion, I feel that these terms are too vague to enable particular or specific comment to be made which could possibly add value, without resulting in too subjective an interpretation or a possible misunderstanding.