A conflict is a clash of opinions. The basis of conflict varies but, it is a concept we will always have with us as part of society. The basis of conflict could be personal, racial, class, caste, political and international.

Conflict exists everyday and everywhere. Anger flies in the air even when the atmosphere seems calm.

Conflict has broken many relationships, organization and a lot of coexistence between humans. It’s a concept less touched in the society but it leads to a lot of consequences affecting the society.

The number one way to tackle conflict and get to its end is to understand the stages of conflict.

There are five stages of conflict, and they can be resolved by learning how each works.

In 1967, Pondy developed a process model of conflict which is very useful in understanding how conflicts start and their stages. Pondy highlighted the five conflict episodes :

1. Latent stage
2. Perceived stage
3. Felt stage
4. Manifestation stage
5. Aftermath stage

Latent Stage

At this stage, factors which could lead to conflict are in place. People may be in conflict without knowing. The basics of this stage are :

1. Competition for scarce resources
2. Drive for autonomy
3. Divergence of goals
4. Role conflict

A server at a restaurant may have inputted an order incorrectly and the food being made for a table is the wrong food. The manager and persons involved do not know this yet. But every tool needed for conflict is on ground. This is the latent stage.

Perceived Stage

At this stage, one party perceives the other to be likely frustrating his or her goals. The person at the table now knows the wrong order has been inputted. The best solution to conflict at this stage is communication.

Felt Stage

At this stage, the conflict is not only perceived but it is actually felt and recognized. The two parties at this point recognize there is a serious disagreement between them. One party might be coping while the second is already tensed. It is already affecting his or her affection to the first party.

The personalization of conflict is the mechanism which causes many people to be concerned with dysfunction of conflict.

Manifestation Stage

The felt stage will lead to a situation in which the conflict can be observed. It might take different means – face to face meetings, phone messages and others. When the manager pulls that server aside to speak with her, the others perceive conflict and it has manifested. The two parties involved in behaviors that invoke responses from each other – open aggression, apathy, etc. Violence is a leading manifestation of conflict in an uncivilized society.

Aftermath Stage

This takes place when there is an outcome of conflict such as resolution or dissolution to a problem. This maybe a positive or negative one.

Most of the times, recognizing and addressing issues that cause conflict will lead to fast resolution and a better relationship and workplace existence. The problem lies in the fact that both parties feel wronged and expect their demands to be met. At this point conflict escalate.

Families are melting pots of conflict. Most times neither party grew up the same way, and this heightened stress of learning to accept differences leads to conflict.

It is expedient to know, and understand conflict at a psychological level if we all hope to live in peace and harmony.

All Together

In handling conflicts, we must all be democratic and address our differences openly and without fear. Conflict sometimes leads to escalation stage; at this stage neither party can win but neither side is ready to accept loss either. Most times, conflict that has been in the latent stage for long often leads to violence.

After my first article, Cryptocurrencies- Digital Wealth in a Flip (read it, if you haven’t), there have been so many requests from people asking to be taught on how to invest in cryptocurrencies, and the easy ways to go about it.

This article is in response to your requests as it will expose step and step, on how to invest in cryptocurrencies, and make investing in cryptocurrencies as simple as possible.

Decide on the Amount

The first step of investing in cryptocurrencies is to decide how much you want to invest. It is advisable to invest your spare money or money you could easily let go (every investment has risks including cryptocurrency investment). It’s your money and I can’t dictate for you on how to deal with your money, so you hold the knife and the yam.

You also have to decide whether you want to buy to sell when you have made a little profit margin, unless you are investing to hold it as an investment. Holding is advisable, if it’s possible for you to hold a cryptocurrency. You can go long for years and you will be amazed of the value creation that will accumulate. Of course, nothing is guaranteed. 

Decide on the Coin Type

You need to decide on what coin you want to invest on. Yes, you need to decide what coin you want to buy from the exchange. There are a whole lot of coins with high prospects. So you can pick any you like or your instincts lead you to. You can decide to go for Bitcoin, which is the most popular and the most expensive now, or you could choose from other coins referred to as altcoins and invest in them.

There are more than 3000 altcoins in existence so you could pick from any of them and invest in. I’m not here to tell you which you have to pick and invest in.

Create Account and Wallet

The next step now is for you to create a cryptocurrency account with any of the online cryptocurrencies exchange sites. You are asked of your email address to be used in creating the account. It’s advisable you use your email address or any email address you have exclusive access to in creating the account for security reasons. Creating an account is very simple; it’s just to open any of the exchange wallets online.

Once an account is created you are assigned a wallet. The wallet is where you store your coins, you can use that wallet to send or receive coins to and from other wallets. Some exchange wallet can accept or recognize more than twenty coins while some wallets can accept or recognize less than five coins.

You can only fund your wallet with the coins recognized or accepted by the exchange. Due to the popularity of Bitcoins, and for the fact that it’s widely accepted and mostly traded with, most of the exchange wallets accept it. So, if you are investing in Bitcoins you won’t have to worry much as most wallets accept it.

Fund the Account

After the account creation and wallet have been assigned to you, the next step is funding the wallet.That’s when you buy any of the coins of your choice, after choosing from the coins your wallet accepts. Since it’s your money, you can go to any length in buying any amount of coins. Just as I said in my last article of cryptocurrencies titled; Cryptocurrencies – Digital Wealth in a Flip, there is no minimum amount of coins you can buy into your wallet and there is no maximum amount of coins you can as well buy into your wallet. You can buy as low as $10 and you can buy as high as $500,000.

You can buy coins online from the site you created your account with. Some of the exchange sites trade cryptocurrencies, so if you created an account with an exchange site that trades cryptocurrencies, you can buy and sell your coins from the same site, but if you created an account with an exchange site that doesn’t buy and sell,  you will have to create another exchange wallet with a site you can buy coins from and then send it into your wallet. Also, you can buy using the bitcoin ATM. 

Bitcoin ATM is a machine where you can transact cryptocurrencies on, so you will have to use Google Maps to find out if there is any Bitcoin ATM in your area. While buying coins into your wallet, your wallet address is all you need to send in the coins into your wallet. Wallet addresses are usually long letters and are usually a mixture of alphabets and numbers. Utmost care should be taken while copying this address because if there is any mistake in the letters or wrong address was copied you might end funding another person’s wallet. Alternatively, you could do it by scanning your wallet barcode.

Good luck in your risks.

Africa is bedeviled on all sides with a myriad of problems that need innovative solutions in order for them to be solved. A lot of people have brilliant ideas that can be used to shape the African continent into a thriving business continent. Some are already using these ideas: from Gokada to Paystack, to other start-ups that have specific problems in the sectors they are trying to address, African young people are fixing challenges through the start-ups.

However—and this is a sad development—many founders of great firms, businesses, companies and start-ups are hard pressed to part with equity. They would rather hold on to the entire equity value than split equity with other people, by bringing on these other people to help them run the companies they found, and share equity/profits with them.

Question:

Are you the only one in the business, with the combined functions of CEO, CMO, COO and even typist, alongside web designer rolled into one? Do you have different roles, yet all of them seem to be hung on your shoulders? 

If you are all of the above, then you have too much stress on your hands. No matter what you want to say, it is not going to be easy for you to handle all these tasks on your own. The business is bound to suffer, and if you are in the tech space, then the weight of the entire tasks you are handling may become too burdensome to handle in the future.

Options to Choose From:

• Hire Competent Staff

As a founder of a business with lots of work on your hands, you have available options to choose from. The first one that comes to mind is for you to hire competent hands and delegate the work functions for them all. It will surely entail hiring a full-on team that will handle the various aspects of your startup, but you will have people on your payroll. But what if you don’t have the funds to hire a full-on staff to handle the bulk of the other work that is needed to be done? What if the work that needs to be done requires a lot of technical expertise or sector-specific technical know-how which requires lots of monthly spending to have someone handling them as part of your staff?  

If you go with the above position and your startup ends up not being profitable within a short, specific time frame so you can recoup your investment, then you may start to sink. Remember, the business terrain is tough and there are no specific guarantees that you will hit it big within a short time. Having to keep afloat for the business and having salaries to pay may not be easy. 

• Get Competent Co-Founders

This option involves splitting Equity with other people, which in turn means that you are giving up a measure of control over your business, but the benefits can quite outweigh the risks involved. You can onboard competent co-founders for your startup, each one handling specific areas of the business, tied to their technical skills and/or monetary contribution. Together, you will all work to make the business scale.

 I know that many people will argue that they are not ready to give up control or stock from their startup, but I will leave you with an adage: better to have 1% share of a company worth $1 billion USD than to have 100% of a startup that is worth nothing.

So look for co-founders if you cannot effectively pay staff. They could be life saver for you. Sometimes you can afford to pay staff, but it will be instructive to note that your staff will not be as invested in the success of your business more than your co-founders would. Working in tandem with a team that understands the business and are willing to give their all to see the business is quite rewarding in and of its own. Besides that, managing a business on your own can be quite challenging and impractical especially if you are trying to build a large empire that can stand on its own years down the line.

End Note

Most people are usually tempted to keep everything we have and make for themselves without sharing with others, but take a look around you. People and businesses have grown exponentially when they have people behind them. One person can hardly run a venture at optimum performance, so why not bring on people that can help you build and scale? There are always legal issues to be considered, but the services of a good business attorney can put everything into perspective.