The Improve Phase—The Path to Solving Conflict

WCM 610 Final Project Case Study Two You are a human resources manager for a global organization that produces and distributes soft drinks throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The site has three existing manufacturing sites located in Jersey City, New Jersey; Los Angeles, California; and Toronto, Canada. Throughout the organization’s existence, there has been a history of “homegrown” hiring. Many of those now in leadership positions have been with the company from very early on. Corporate leadership feels strongly that employee morale has a significant impact on productivity and maintaining a culture of positivity is imperative to the organization’s success. Sales have significantly increased and the company plans to open a fourth bottling site in Dallas, Texas. Doing so will enable the firm to better serve its client base in the southwest region of the United States and Mexico. Sales are expected to grow as a result of this expansion, with positive impact on the existing three sites. The corporate leadership team has communicated that it will seek internal candidates for leadership positions in the new site, specifically for the plant manager, plant controller, and plant human resources director. A number of internal candidates have expressed interest in being considered for these positions. The following negative behaviors have begun to emerge:

 Some of the high-potential candidates who have been told they are likely to be future leaders in the organization have communicated that they will apply for these positions when they are posted, but if they are not selected, they will seek employment outside of the organization.

 Some site leaders may be changing the day-to-day operations of their site to positively impact their site’s performance metrics on a very short-term basis. This involves short-term changes to reduce cost, reduce work- in-process levels, and reduce head count to positively impact monthly metric performance. However, these short-term changes could have long-term negative consequences.

 Employees in the Canadian facility have also expressed interest in being considered for the leadership positions in Dallas, Texas. The Canadian site has the highest level of efficiency and an excellent customer service record, and it is best in overall financial performance. A challenge in considering candidates from the Canadian facility is ensuring compliance with United States immigration laws, which have greatly tightened under the Obama Administration.

You have been tasked with developing the selection process by which the best candidate will be identified for each of the three leadership positions. You will manage the selection process you create, guiding the process to success by filling the three new leadership positions. The selection process needs to consider the following variables:

 The candidates’ career paths

 The candidates’ leadership and management styles

 The candidates’ performances at their respective sites

 Employee morale at the respective sites, based on annual employee satisfaction surveys administered at each site

 Recommendations outlining how Canadian nationals can be considered for the openings

 Recommendations on managing potential voluntary attrition if high-potential incumbents are not selected for the position

The following are process-excellence tools or procedures that could be used in process design:

 Voice of the customer (VOC) is used to gather data to better define and understand customer needs. It helps provide critical features, parameters, and requirements for the desired outcome, helping better define the problem. It also provides a baseline of customer satisfaction (if desired), allowing for a way to assess if the proposed solution is viewed as an improvement.

 Brainstorming generates a lot of ideas quickly to identify potential causes. Brainstorming encourages creativity, involves everyone, and generates excitement and energy.

 The “Five Whys” push for root causes; start with the focused problem statement and then ask “why” five times.

 Cause and effect diagrams, typically shown as fishbone diagrams, graphically display potential causes of a problem.

WCM 610 IMPROVE Supplementary Document

When seeking to improve your organization’s conflict and entire situation, remember that whatever you recommend must be genuinely doable. Remember also that conflict is complex and that conflict in an organization is a systems-level conflict, which has numerous moving parts and individuals whose personalities, behaviors, and actions can all have impact.

What you seek to do when you recommend Improve steps is mitigate, manage, or, ideally, resolve the conflict.

To take a real example, in Organization B, individuals on teams who are supposed to be working on joint projects are in conflict. A consultant is called in and, after using the D, M, and A phases of the DMAIC process, learns that the individuals on the teams do not speak to one another except in team meetings, in which everyone argues. No one spends any time socializing, and the individuals on the teams do not know one another. The individuals do not work near one another and, because of how the organization is structured, there is no opportunity for team members to spend time together.

The consultant notices that the coffee offered by the organization is poor in quality, and is a long walk away from where the employees work. The Improve recommendations the consultant begins with for Organization B are quite simple: Bring in catered coffee and snacks, and put these in a central location within easy reach of workstations. Further, encourage employees to take some lengthy coffee and snack breaks. The theoretical foundation to the consultant’s Improve recommendations was contact theory. G. W. Allport found that when individuals get to know one another, intolerance and conflict tend to be reduced.

Before long, employees on the different teams were running into one another in the coffee and snack area. Because they were able to take longer breaks than before, they hung out, enjoying high-quality coffee that was free, along with free snacks. The employees began to talk with one another, getting to know one another outside of the contentious team meetings. The conflicts between and among team members largely disappeared as they began to get to know and like one another as human beings. The cost to Organization B to supply the coffee and snacks was about $15 per week.

Because each individual has primary and secondary conflict-management style preferences that are innate, an individual’s perception of the conflict will be subjectively perceived through his or her conflict style preference lens. This is true for those involved in the conflict as primary parties, those peripheral to the conflict as interested secondary parties, or those who analyze or mediate the conflict as third parties. Being alert to your own conflict-management style preference and understanding the elements of each style is critical to understanding the individuals involved. When building a team comprised of individuals, knowing how those individuals address conflict is a must. Only when understanding clearly how the individuals who are involved as parties to the conflict address their conflict, can the analyst move forward to a durable resolution.

Complete this questionnaire to learn your conflict management style: Conflict Styles Assessment.

WCM 610 Final Project Case Study Two You are a human resources manager for a global organization that produces and distributes soft drinks throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The site has three existing manufacturing sites located in Jersey City, New Jersey; Los Angeles, California; and Toronto, Canada. Throughout the organization’s existence, there has been a history of “homegrown” hiring. Many of those now in leadership positions have been with the company from very early on. Corporate leadership feels strongly that employee morale has a significant impact on productivity and maintaining a culture of positivity is imperative to the organization’s success. Sales have significantly increased and the company plans to open a fourth bottling site in Dallas, Texas. Doing so will enable the firm to better serve its client base in the southwest region of the United States and Mexico. Sales are expected to grow as a result of this expansion, with positive impact on the existing three sites. The corporate leadership team has communicated that it will seek internal candidates for leadership positions in the new site, specifically for the plant manager, plant controller, and plant human resources director. A number of internal candidates have expressed interest in being considered for these positions. The following negative behaviors have begun to emerge:

 Some of the high-potential candidates who have been told they are likely to be future leaders in the organization have communicated that they will apply for these positions when they are posted, but if they are not selected, they will seek employment outside of the organization.

 Some site leaders may be changing the day-to-day operations of their site to positively impact their site’s performance metrics on a very short-term basis. This involves short-term changes to reduce cost, reduce work- in-process levels, and reduce head count to positively impact monthly metric performance. However, these short-term changes could have long-term negative consequences.

 Employees in the Canadian facility have also expressed interest in being considered for the leadership positions in Dallas, Texas. The Canadian site has the highest level of efficiency and an excellent customer service record, and it is best in overall financial performance. A challenge in considering candidates from the Canadian facility is ensuring compliance with United States immigration laws, which have greatly tightened under the Obama Administration.

You have been tasked with developing the selection process by which the best candidate will be identified for each of the three leadership positions. You will manage the selection process you create, guiding the process to success by filling the three new leadership positions. The selection process needs to consider the following variables:

 The candidates’ career paths

 The candidates’ leadership and management styles

 The candidates’ performances at their respective sites

 Employee morale at the respective sites, based on annual employee satisfaction surveys administered at each site

 Recommendations outlining how Canadian nationals can be considered for the openings

 Recommendations on managing potential voluntary attrition if high-potential incumbents are not selected for the position

The following are process-excellence tools or procedures that could be used in process design:

 Voice of the customer (VOC) is used to gather data to better define and understand customer needs. It helps provide critical features, parameters, and requirements for the desired outcome, helping better define the problem. It also provides a baseline of customer satisfaction (if desired), allowing for a way to assess if the proposed solution is viewed as an improvement.

 Brainstorming generates a lot of ideas quickly to identify potential causes. Brainstorming encourages creativity, involves everyone, and generates excitement and energy.

 The “Five Whys” push for root causes; start with the focused problem statement and then ask “why” five times.

 Cause and effect diagrams, typically shown as fishbone diagrams, graphically display potential causes of a problem.