Conflict Management - Personal Investment Pty Ltd - Assignment Example

Conflict Management Name Institution Course Professor Date A case study of the Personal Investment Pty Ltd Executive Summary The Personal Investment Pty Limited situated in Sydney is experiencing a catastrophe due to the employment of an employee called Tabitha. This catastrophe is related to the continuous disagreements that the partners of the organization have had because they do not agree to Tabitha’s ways of doing things in the organization. According to the mangers of the organization, Tabitha is not fit for the job basing on the fact that she is not the sort of employee who stays in a job for a long period of time. This is evident in her curriculum vitae as it states that in seven years she had worked with four firms thus, according to them, this is not a good record for a person seeking for a job. Conflict can be divided into three; the system conflict, bureaucratic conflict and bargaining conflict (Taylor 2010). Personal Investment Pty Limited is a good example of an organization that is experiencing the system type of conflict. This is the type of conflict that involves individuals in an organization at an equal level. That is, the individuals are of the same rank and thus, share the same goals in the organization. In this case, the sources of the conflict at PI are the different views that the managers have about the new employee, Tabitha. The Barnard-Simon model which involves the aspects of inducements and contributions would be appropriate for this case study. This model also corresponds to the views of the balance theory of conflict. The balance theory asserts that. In every conflict, there should be a balance in the way conflict is managed. For instance, managing the conflict might involve altering the relationships in the company and at the same time changing the policy of the company too (Fisher 2010). According to Maccoby & Scudder (2011), they provide fives steps to managing conflict and they include; anticipate, prevent, identify, manage and resolve. These steps act as a guideline to managing conflict in an organization and the managers are advised to use these steps in order to put their firms in order. Basing on the fact that, the conflict in PI is as a result of dissension among the mangers, a number of things need to be considered in order to avoid further conflicts. For instance, the C.E.O. need to consider the views of his fellow partners in the business by first of all getting rid of the main obstacle, Tabitha, the unwanted employee. Secondly, the partners need to come up with a lasting solution that would not compromise the company’s reputation but rather maintain its name in the investment market. Working as a team is the surest way to the success of an organization (Huo et al. 2005). Thus, when the all the people in the organization are able to consider each other’s opinion, the activities in the firm will be performed without any hitches. Introduction Conflict refers to the disagreement that arises between two individuals or a group of people (Myers & Larson 2005). Several reasons can be connected to the occurrence of a conflict and it is usually a common thing to encounter people in an organization disagree because of a difference in opinions concerning the firm. Thus, there are two types of conflicts; substantive and affective conflicts. These two types of conflicts affect both individuals and groups of people. The affective type of conflict is one that is personal and this includes the disagreements that involve personal issues between individuals in a firm. It is an emotional type of conflict because it touches on people’s personal lives. On the other hand, substantive conflict is the type of conflict that is based on issues concerning an organization, for instance, ideas. In this case, the individuals involved disagree due to reasons concerning the management of the company or firm. However, in formal organizations there are three main types of conflicts that are identifiable. They include; system conflict, bureaucratic conflict and bargaining conflict. The system conflict is that type of conflict that occurs as a result of dissension among parties aimed at establishing a working relationship. The bureaucratic conflict occurs between the management and the subordinate staff in an organization. Last but not least is the bargaining conflict which involves the disagreement that occurs among a particular group of people in an organization. According to Schaller-Demers (2008), all these types of conflicts might result to changes in the organization. It is thus, essential to note that, in an organization the manager should be endorsed with a strong character that enables him to carry out his duties by considering the decisions of the other people in the organization. For this case study involving the PI, focus will be put on the situation and analysis carried out to determine the sources of conflict and the remedies will also be provided. Analysis of the situation The Personal Investment Pty Limited is a firm that deals with the investment of funds for various institutions. According to the C.E.O. Dan Richardson, who is also the one of the organization’s founder, the firm has been trading at low profits and maintaining safe investments. This is a worrying scenario since a good business should aim at earning more profits every day. However, looking at the situation surrounding the happenings in the company, the blame cannot be associated with any of the company‘s partners. The investment company is run by a group of partners whose views are bound to the policy of the organization that state that, all decisions should be carried out in a unifying manner (Ishak et al. 2012) The essence of this is to agree to the goal of maintaining safe investments rather than aiming higher and falling down disastrously. This is actually a bad way of managing the success of a firm as the people involved are scared of taking risks. For an organization to increase its profit margins, interest should be put on making risks that lead to the provision of high profits (Rupp et al. 2006). Dan is worried about the situation and that is why he accepts the idea of having Tabitha in the organization as a way of fulfilling the sole goal of success. However, his partners consider her maverick. Actually, looking at Tabitha’s history of work, one would easily conclude that she is not a stable employee. This raises his partners concerns in the meeting during the discussion about her recruitment in the organization. Despite Dan defending her, the mangers end up being in conflict with him because they totally do not agree to her employment to the organization’s premises. Nevertheless, Dan goes ahead and employs her and thus, heightens the alarming situation in the organization as the partners continue complaining about her fast and irrational way of doing things. Thus, this simple history about the PI explains the source of the conflict in the organization. However, Tabitha is indeed a good agent of success in a company since she comes up with short term wins that are meant to win over the confidence of her audience. This strategy is a good one especially when a company wants to achieve long term goals. Conflict Management strategies Conflicts in an organization are inevitable. Thus, the only way is to learn how to manage them. Due to this sole reason, Barnard-Simon came up with a model of conflict referred to as Inducement – contribution balance. In this model, emphasis is put on ways that bring about a balance between the services and ideas of people involved in an organization (Renner 2007). Since most of the conflicts in organization are as result of a difference in ideas, it becomes a very crucial matter for organization’s success. However, this model discourages the idea of eliminating a problem and supports the ideas of establishing a solution within a problem. Barnard asserts that, a problem eliminated without solution is not a problem solved. When one faces a problem, it is wise to handle it the correct way and increase the positive effects of the problem rather than doing away with it. There are also approaches that are defined by Maccoby and this approach tends to identify the steps that a manager should consider while managing a conflict in a company. They include; anticipate, prevent, identify, manage and resolve. Basing on the first step, which is to anticipate, the manager is supposed to solicit information from his colleagues that might lead to future conflicts. This means that, the manager is the sole agent of conflict management and since he comes into contact with most of the employees it is easy for him to get information quickly. This can be done on one on one type of communication. Before the conflict is bound to happen, the manager is supposed to look for strategies that will prevent its occurrence. These strategies might include, holding a meeting to discuss the matter. The third step is to identify the type of conflict and deal with it accordingly. The forth step includes the management of the identified conflict (Lang 2009). Depending on the type of conflict in an organization, whether interpersonal or procedural, the manger will able to look for the correct ways of putting it to a stop. The last but not least step is to resolve the conflict and this is the stage where the manager is not supposed to blame anyone for any conflict regardless of his information about the source. Basing on PI, these steps would help the C.E.O Dan a great deal with handling the situation of interpersonal conflict in the organization. Recommendations Basing on the PI organization, several factors need to be put into consideration in order to ensure the progress of the organization. First and foremost, the C.E.O should put the interests of his colleagues first before he handles his own interests. That is, when he wants to carry out a decision, he should consider the opinions of his colleagues in order to avoid conflicts (Behfar et al. 2008). Dan, as the C.E.O. employs Tabitha as a result of his personal interests. Even after tabling the matter, he insists that Tabitha is a good employee and would change the image of the organization that would result to more profits. Most of the partners speak negatively about Tabitha basing on her experience with work but Dan deflects all that and urges them to give it a try. This is a poor way of handling a problem and thus, combined effort is recommended. Secondly, the manager needs to differentiate work from friendship. As it is known, most of the managers who employ their friends end up violating the policy of the organization due to their friends’ negligence. Tabitha is a friend to Dan and that is why he accepts easily to take her in without even considering the alarming change of firms within seven years. Friendship and work are two incompatible things and should not at all levels be mixed. Since conflicts are unavoidable, Dan should use the Barnard-Simon model of conflict together with the approach that (Maccoby & Scudder 2011) talks about in form of steps to managing conflicts, to handle conflicts in the organization Conclusion Conflict is inevitable especially at a place where a large group of individuals is involved. There are tree types of conflict; system, bureaucratic and bargaining conflict. For the PI organization, the system conflict seems to dominate the other types of conflicts, the system conflict is the type of conflict that involve people of the same rank and in PI, the partners of the company are the ones in conflict. This is due to the employment of an individual that they consider unsatisfactory. However, it is evident that it the sole duty of a manager to manage conflict an organization in order to make sure everything is in place in the organization. The sources of the conflict in PI are the different views and dissatisfaction concerning the new employee. Thus, when the recommendations are considered in the managing of conflict, the manager would be sure that handling conflicts would be the easiest task in an organization (Wilson 2006). Bibliography Behfar, K, J, Peterson, R, S, Mannis, E, A, & Trochim, W, M, K 2008, ‘The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: A close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies, and team outcomes’, Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 4, Pp. 170-188. Fisher, N 2010, ‘A better way to manage conflict’, Political Quarterly, 81, 3, Pp. 428-430. Huo, Y, J, Molina, L, E, Sawahata, R, & Deang, J, M 2005, ‘Leadership and the management of conflicts in diverse groups: Why acknowledging versus neglecting subgroup identity matters’, European Journal Of Social Psychology, 35, 2, Pp. 237-254. 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