Conflict in the Workplace - Essay Example

? Managerial Behavior CONFLICT IN THE WORKPLACE (b) Your knowledge of the behavior of a manager whom you have worked for or with. Introduction With increasing complexities within organizational structures, there has been an ever-growing emphasis in recent years on conflicts between components of organization and their adverse effects on overall corporate performance (De Dreu and Weingart, 2003). Conflicts mainly arise due to interpersonal and cultural differences or inconsistency in approaches on how to run organizational processes (Jehn, 1997). This paper highlights how a conflict was approached and resolved by a manager whom I had an experience working with recently during my time spent оn a project team. We were responsible for development, design and implementation of a website for a retail company which was aimed at enabling it to receive online orders directly from its customers. The project was planned to be completed in 6 months and was led by a manager, who was already working on two other projects. However, within a short period of 2 months, there arose drastic conflicts between team members and manager had to intervene to resolve them promptly so that the project would not suffer. 1. How does the manager undertake the activity being studied? When the matter reached the manager, he developed sound knowledge of background and circumstances of the situation before arriving at any conclusions or resolutions. Soon it was revealed that the bone of contention was partially the manager himself. The complexities of matrix structuring and ambiguous project requirements made it difficult for the team members to be clear about their team roles and duties and allocation of resources. This in turn was caused by the manager’s minimal input in the project and absence from most of the team briefings. His negligence towards this specific project had caused role conflicts and low morale amongst the members. The manager diagnosed the nature of conflict and identified that the team members were blaming each other for delay in designing a phase of the website. As a result a milestone, which was to be achieved 2 weeks back, was still in progress while 3 specialists responsible for it were finding a scapegoat for this setback. With no proper delegation and allocation of tasks, there were clashes as to who was responsible to complete which process. They claimed that the resources were not sufficient and time was wasted due to unavailability of website development tools simultaneously to each of them. Manager decided to focus his attention on this project to get it back on track according to initial project plan. He allotted each member equal tasks according to their skills and strengths and scheduled the processes to facilitate the sharing of resources. Project had limited funds and therefore it wasn’t possible for him to arrange for more and therefore it was necessary to ensure completion within the given manpower and equipment. He drafted formal role definitions for each of the members to avoid any ambiguities and confusion regarding what was expected to be contributed by each of them. His attention was substantially needed in areas of controlling and monitoring since the project was lagging behind schedule. He mobilized the resources and ensured effective and efficient utilization of each member’s core competences and resources available, diverting resources from stronger areas and focusing them on those more in need of them. He held team meetings and conducted one-on-one sessions to address concerns of each member, educate them with project requirements and deadlines, familiarize himself with the entire team and boost their morale through empathizing skills. He also encouraged members to feel free to contact him in person and whistleblow about other members if necessary. After taking updates on progress of each task, he compared them with the planned timetables and appraised performances accordingly. Since thereafter, he gave equal attention to this project and finally completed the project successfully, producing output of standard quality within the budgeted costs and time constraints. 2. How do the theories explain what the manager is doing and why they are doing it? A team is a collection of people having complementary specialized skills, making up an optimum mix set of competences (Eppler and Sukowski, 2000). Initially, the team was scattered and bewildered about how to fulfill their mission. Later, the manager intruded to clarify the vague requirements and team roles, organizing the team effectively to utilize core competences of members to the maximum benefit of the project itself. In the event of a conflict, he applied different theoretical models and gave effect to the most suitable conflict management tools in the given contexts. There are supposedly 3 broad categories of conflict resolution tactics: deciding by referring to hierarchal status, resolving as the law may prescribe or collaborating efforts of all parties to achieve collective goals by working together in а single direction (Tinsley, 1998). Manager incorporated a more relaxed technique to reach a win-win situation and did not use force or authority to impose a decision. He educated the team, diverting efforts in a single direction and superseding individual goals by the project’s overall objectives. It is never necessary to keep everyone happy at the end of a conflict, a situation referred to as ‘satisfizing’. The opposing parties must be willing to lose something and prioritize organizational goal above own interests (Klein, 1991). The manager in the given situation did not satisfy their wants by arranging more resources; instead he made sure that given limited resources were shared effectively by them in a co-operative manner and discouraged rigid and egoistic attitudes. The complex matrix structures and dynamics, due to the existence of the project, had caused employees to be uncertain about whether to report to the project manager or their head of relevant function. Also, many employees did not welcome a change immediately and as a matter of fact some feared being replaced eventually or were so preoccupied with work that they were not mentally prepared to accept many changes at such a short notice. At such time, it was vital that manager would bring to use his interpersonal and change-management proficiency. This enabled the team to participate in decisions to be made and accept the decision happily. This trait is often referred to as ‘selling’ an outcome. Similarly, the manager thoroughly took interviews on one-on-one basis to understand points of views of each of them and devised a strategy to bring project into running addressing their concerns in the best possible manner. 3. How effective is the manager at this activity? Why? (The focus should be on the last two questions) The manager needs not only to resolve the conflict but also take more participative measures to ensure rectification of any further conflicts regarding similar problems. After a careful coordination by the manager with team and project events, it is only fair to assume that his used methodology and tactics were very effective in generating the outcomes nearly as planned. Through proper education within the team, he was able to influence the members to put aside their grievances and work together as a team aiming at same objectives. If а conflict is not being resolved through normal means such as negotiation, compromising and legal enforcement, then manager must assess what went wrong and how а few failing activities are making the whole project suffer. If still it remains uncorrected and is consuming time and cost, then an assisted negotiation must take place where a third party is brought in to resolve conflicts, as a last resort. However, fortunately this manager did not try these horizons since he already had acted proactively to mitigate probability of any further similar mistakes and departures from the project plan. Project managers, similar to this situation, are mostly involved in multiple projects simultaneously and therefore it was difficult for him to put a stop to all other projects in order to give extra attention to this specific one (Ramsbotham and Woodhouse, 2011). Nevertheless, he demonstrated a professional attitude and excellent management skills by driving the project back on track while other projects did not get affected much since they had staff with proper delegations. Conflict is merely a form of competition and if dealt with properly, it can be constructively utilized to generate better outcomes from manpower. Therefore, he saw it positively and did not take drastic measures to eliminate the conflict. Instead he managed the conflict to project’s advantage so that each member competed for the same resources and tried to make best use of them, gaining better appraisals from manager. This enhanced overall performance of the project. Due to material time being wasted, he analyzed all activities in terms of value creation and tried to eradicate any non-value adding activities and processes in order to free resources from there and deploying them to create more value. Those support activities that did not lie on critical path were reduced or otherwise controlled strictly to generate more savings. Conclusion It is evident from the above arguments that there are a number of other factors involved when manager makes a decision as to which approach he should apply in resolving conflicts, including unforeseen circumstances, ability to manage multiple issues simultaneously and implications of applying the approach and risks involved therein (Kuchar and Yang, 2000). Conflicts have always been seen to have a substantial footprint over the processes and business performance of an organization. They tend to steer the team efforts away from the primary organization goal and waste energy and resources on dividing team in groups of people or resolving conflicts (Behfar, et al., 2008). Managers play an essential role in managing conflicts arising due to multicultural environment and difference of opinions etc. In the given scenario, the manager demonstrated a responsible behavior by intervening into the project and managing conflicts amongst team members through clear role definitions and completing the project within cost, quality and time constraints. Reference List Behfar, K. J., Peterson, R. S., Mannix, E. A., & Trochim, W. M. 2008. The Critical Rote 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(1), 170. De Dreu, C. K., & Weingart, L. R. 2003. Task versus relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction: a meta-analysis.Journal of applied psychology, 88(4), 741-749. Eppler, M. J., & Sukowski, O. 2000. Managing team knowledge: core processes, tools and enabling factors. European Management Journal,18(3), 334-341. Jehn, K. 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